Towards Sustainable Architecture - environmental research and development at RRP

“Sustainable design aims to meet present needs without compromising the stock of natural resources remaining for future generations. In terms of buildings It implies resource efficiency –– minimum energy, flexibility and long life.” Richard Rogers

Buildings are responsible for 50% of the world’s generation of CO2. How can design mitigate this alarming statistic and address the fact that climate change in general is threatening the future existence of mankind? Research and delivery of ways to avoid this catastrophe must be our primary aim.

There will be increasing challenges to designing a sustainable built environment over the next 100 years. The likely increase in global warming over the coming century means that designers will require greater creative skills and better understanding of building performance in order to ensure that low energy and passive buildings can continue to meet end-user needs and expectations.

The last quarter of a century has been a period of increasingly radical rethinking and questioning of old orthodoxies, not least the definition of sustainability and the effects of continuing development on the environment. The 1992 ‘Earth Summit’ in Rio de Janeiro defined the term as ‘development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of those in the future to meet their own needs.’ Consuming non-renewable fossil fuels, without thought for the future, and irreparably polluting the atmosphere with the residue is generally accepted as a recipe for global disaster.

The priority is to find alternative, preferably ‘natural’ means of achieving benign environmental conditions. Working with the climate, rather than trying to defeat it, means accepting, for example, that architecture should respond to its location – a building in Morocco should not be a duplicate of one in Montreal. This is not a campaign against the modern world – cars, aircraft, supermarkets, financial dealing floors cannot be abolished (without a complete social and economic revolution) but they can be rethought and redesigned. Nor can architecture return to a primitive condition in which modern materials and technologies are eschewed in favour of hand-hewn vernacular quaintness. The urgent task is to forge an environmentally responsible modern architecture, to use technology to achieve beneficial ends - the ultimate aim being to achieve carbon dioxide neutral environments

Environmental issues have always been uppermost in my thoughts as a practising architect. I remember reading Rachel Carson’s The Silent Spring in the USA, shortly after its publication in 1962. This book, together with Jane Jacob’s The Death and Life of Great American Cities, were formative influences. I believe sustainable development implies an approach to the use and management of natural resources – doing more with less - in which conventional ‘energy saving’ measures are important but only part of a much broader perspective. In terms of construction, sustainability also implies flexible and adaptable buildings, constructed for a long life and able to respond to society’s changing requirements. My view of sustainable architecture is essentially the humanising of the built environment. Whilst the intelligent development of technology is critical to our quality of life (clean power, nano-technology), immediate improvements can be achieved by opening windows, more imaginative use of landscape, more fluid spaces, use of natural light – resulting in spaces that are both technically more efficient and also more agreeable spaces for people to live and work in, promoting a greater degree of connectivity between people and nature. By fusing social concerns, technological and structural innovation and environmentally responsible design, I’m convinced that a truly modern architecture for the 21st century can be created.

The energy crisis of the 1970s seemed to offer an opportunity for Modernists, echoing the desperate shortages of the 2nd World War which paved the way for Functionalism and the International Style. The way lay open for a new lightweight, efficient mass-production approach to architecture, addressing the fact that the process of construction is a colossal consumer of finite resources – the work of Buckminster Fuller offered one vision of the future.

The 1970s saw a growing recognition of the enormous opportunity for a dramatic, design-liberating discipline for buildings. Today, the issue is not about ‘saving energy’ (or money) but about saving the planet. Finally, after decades of indifference, all those involved in the process of construction are beginning to respond to that cause. In a typical city, 47% of all energy is consumed by buildings (which generate half the total emissions of carbon dioxide), 27% by industry and 26% by transport (with the private car taking the lion’s share). Since the Second World War, the crisis of the 1970s notwithstanding, commercial and public buildings in the developed world have generally become sealed, artificially-lit containers, heated in winter, air-conditioned in summer, which whilst meeting the requirements of low capital cost (and thus making a quick buck) are disastrous when measured against long-term sustainability. The increasingly evident threat to the global environment posed by buildings of this sort cannot be ignored.

When invited in 1995 to give the BBC Reith Lectures, I highlighted the scale of this ecological disaster: ‘…half the world’s population lives in cities...in thirty years it may be as much as three-quarters. The urban population of the world is increasing at a rate of a quarter of a million people per day… a new London every month’. My theme was the exploration of ‘technologies that sustain rather than pollute…our cities should celebrate society and respect nature’. My subsequent book, Cities for a small planet, developed these ideas in greater depth. Condemning ‘energy-guzzling structures that are consuming half of the world’s energy’, the book also warns of the perils of continued urban sprawl.

The optimism offered by new construction and services technologies may yet give us the potential for a new order where ‘the entire building can respond to nature – the very structure and skin becoming the servicing system’. While my office has participated wholeheartedly in the development of low-energy passive design using water, wind, sun and the exigencies of massing, siting and ground conditions to create habitable living and working conditions, we have never abandoned our belief that it is the imaginative leap associated with new technology which may be the solution to the problems of our planet. We envisage buildings which possess ‘an electronic nervous system’, controlling services, tailoring heat and ventilation, switching lighting on and off and feeding off solar wind and wind power. That said, a key issue is persuading commercial clients to buy into low energy solutions.

We must endeavour to employ technologies that sustain rather than pollute, that are durable rather than replaceable, and that add value over time rather than falling prey to short term economies. Many projects have been developed that explore to a high degree the use of alternative sustainable energy solutions. Central to all discussions on sustainability issues must be the conviction that the structural and conceptual framework of modern architecture has the potential for environmental benefit and that architectural progress is not about re-styling.

The main issue is how technology is used, who controls it, and to what end.

RICHARD ROGERS
March 05

Two recent case studies

Lloyd’s Register, City of London - Energy Efficiency and Environmental Conscience

• Included among the energy-saving systems are external solar protection, reinforced concrete soffits, and a system of chilled beams. By reducing solar heat gain inside the building and using thermal surfacing made of reinforced concrete, it was possible to reduce cooling needs, and a cooling joist system was installed instead of a more conventional air conditioning system. The installation of solar protection was a big investment, but without it, the building would not have been able to benefit from the reduced cooling requirements, and the low-level energy usage of the cooling joists. The water refrigerant system design, including the refrigeration towers and the heat exchange unit, offers free cooling during long periods

• Reduced energy consumption was one of the prime objectives of the project, defining the type of structure, its surfacing, and cooling system. The building was designed to use 30% less energy than a conventional office building. The estimated energy usage for the building is 300kWh/m2 (a conventional building uses 570kWh/m2).

• The spacious floors were designed to be flexible, accommodating an open work environment, or one with cubicles. The building can also be divided so that it houses three different tenants, each one with its own entry and service connections.

• Materials like asbestos, lead, rubber urea formaldehyde, any pneumatogenic material with CFC, HCFC, or HFA, calcium chloride for the reinforced concrete, chlorofluorocarbon, polychlorinated biphenyl, bricks or tiles made of calcium silicate, polyurethane, isocyanide, and polyisocyanate rubber have not been used in this environmentally non-toxic construction. Glass and toxic materials were either separated out from the other materials or received special treatment.

• The building was designed using recyclable or long-lasting materials (steel, concrete, glass, aluminum) with a planned lifespan of 120 years. During the construction of the project, only wood from regulated sustainable resources was utilized.

• The project was built using energy-saving procedures. The pre-fabricated pieces of light concrete for the main elements of the structure were manufactured off-site and transported to site in order to be set up using concrete in situ. The surfacing and steel platforms, etc., were set up off-site. Even the building facilities were pre-fabricated off-site (conducts, combined facilities joists).

• Special attention was given to the “deconstruction” of the building as part of the risk evaluation for Health and Safety. Non post-tensioned concrete was used, and a large proportion of the cladding consists of single-piece pre-fabricated elements, facilitating future dismantling.

• The building is located on a brown-field inner city site; density is increased by providing a higher number of storeys than in the previous building, achieving a plot ratio of c. 8:6.

National Assembly for Wales, Cardiff

• Natural ventilation and mixed-mode ventilation throughout the building (incorporating bespoke wind cowl)

• Ground source heat exchangers coupled to heat pumps for both cooling and low-grade heating

• Use of night time ventilation/free-cooling

• Rainwater harvesting for use as grey water source (toilets, landscaping, maintenance)

• Bio-fuel (wood chip) boiler as a source for supplementary high-grade heating

• Maximisation of daylight availability to all occupied spaces (roof-lights introduced in most occupied areas, in addition to glazed facades/elevations)

• Flagship Project – an exemplary role model that demonstrates a political commitment to addressing sustainability issues

• Materials and labour all sourced locally resulting in significant energy savings

• Extensive timber finishes within the building are FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified, i.e. from sustainable sources. The intention is that all timber used in construction (including formwork, studwork, etc) also meets these standards