![]() When emergency really bites, the design process will adapt. The tax regime must be changed to incentivize and reward high quality low-carbon upgrade of the existing housing stock. Currently VAT being charged on refurbishment is a massive disincentive when new houses are zero-rated. Look at the way supermarkets are starting to roll out unpackaged products. There are many research projects exploring the complex issues involved, such as FCRBE, BAMB – there are many barriers but the tide will have to turn. Markets for second hand materials and components (as opposed to buildings) will grow and they will use the power of digital to connect supply and demand, to record stock and to make it available. But I take on more risk than I would currently expect a client to take, and that is an issue that needs addressing. ![]() This stands in the tradition of timber-framed cottages made of old ships’ timbers, church towers peppered with roman bricks from a ruined villa. I delight in finding new uses for things – making a bike mudguard out of a milk flagon, using an old microwave plate to glaze a bathroom door, turning an old fridge door into a built-in table. Like most serious DIYers, I never throw stuff out on the basis that I can never predict when oddments of material might come in handy. In the circular, a more flexible attitude to risk is required, with different ways of working to standards. ‘Virgin’ is virtuous, second hand is of questionable quality. The whole structure of regulation and compliance is geared to using certified new products. Waste is just a resource in the wrong locationĪs architects we are trained to focus on designing new buildings. Demolishing and rebuilding to a good standard makes little difference to the carbon account doing so to current regulations costs more in overall carbon emissions than doing nothing.Īs the grid decarbonizes, and operational carbon reduces, the relative significance of embodied carbon (emissions caused by creating new building fabric) increases, putting more pressure on us to work with what we already have. At the Architects Declare workshop on 4/3/20, Christian Dimbleby of Architype showed studies which demonstrate that, when operational and embodied carbon are considered together, far and away the most effective solution is to carry out top quality refurbishment of existing buildings. At the top of the decision tree is ‘do we actually need a building?’, followed quickly by ‘do we need a new building?’. The familiar linear model of extract, use and throw away will have to change. To be effective we have to work collectively with all the other actors in the industry. Working alone we may have responsibility but little power. This puts architects in a key position of responsibility to drive change, calling on our skills of advocacy as much as design. Hence the new thinking being given to ‘products as a service’.Ĭonstruction accounts for a large proportion of global carbon emissions – 39% in 2017 (28% operational, 11% embodied carbon according to WorldGBC 23/9/19). Hence the drive to design for disassembly and reuse. The embodied carbon costs of extraction and manufacture are incurred for first use but these emissions are avoided if stuff, whether buildings, their frames or their components and materials, can be reused. That’s uncomfortable for business as usual, but a great opportunity to do things differently, ultimately an opportunity too, I believe, to rediscover happiness from living in better balance with nature.Ĭircular economic principles go hand in hand with reducing embodied carbon. It means de-coupling economic activity from consumption of finite resources to reuse, renewal and regeneration. The shift to the circular economy is a central part of that adaptation. Life on earth will surely continue to evolve regardless. No, what should concern us is the closing window of time available to adapt if we want to our species - our children and grandchildren - to survive. That’s misleading: it underestimates the capacity of our extraordinary planet to recover from the onslaught of human activity. We have twelve years to save the Earth!’ the Extinction Rebellion banners say. When will we – and our leaders - wake up and see that, on our finite planet, the basis of economics must change from consumption to regeneration? Does it really matter?
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