AJ Climate Champions

Why architectural education needs radical reform

Episode 34. AJ Climate Champions with Hattie Hartman. Glasgow climate activist Scott McAulay and ACAN’s Rosie Murphy advocate for a curriculum which empowers students as changemakers.

McAulay, founder of the virtual Anthropocene Architecture School, argues that the answer to every brief should not be a new building. Architects must rethink their role as stewards of the built environment rather than designers, and students should be taught to scrutinise a brief in its larger context. Perhaps a vacant or underutilised building nearby can be transformed to meet a client’s needs.

For show notes to this episode, go to www.architectsjournal.co.uk/podcasts

In association with Velux

Danish architect Lone Feifer on ‘absolute’ sustainability

Episode 33. AJ Climate Champions with Hattie Hartman. Velux director of sustainable buildings Lone Feifer explains why ‘relative’ sustainability, improvement on previous standards, is no longer good enough. ‘One planet means one carbon budget with a fixed amount available for buildings,’ she says. It’s not about improving relative to previously accepted standards.

Lone also describes how Denmark’s new building regulations, effective in January 2023, will regulate whole life carbon by requiring life cycle assessment for projects and setting benchmarks for different building types. For homes, Feifer advocates the Active House Alliance’s adaptive comfort approach rather than the absolute comfort ranges prescribed by Passivhaus.

For show notes to this episode, go to www.architectsjournal.co.uk/podcasts

In association with Velux

Hawkins\Brown’s Louisa Bowles on what net zero actually means

Episode 32. AJ Climate Champions with Hattie Hartman. In this episode, we speak to Louisa Bowles - winner of this year’s AJ100 Sustainability Champion award - about Hawkins\Brown’s two-pronged approach to sustainability: reducing carbon emissions and enhancing society. Louisa explains that in order to avoid the ‘smoke and mirrors’ of carbon offsets, calling a project 'net zero' should increasingly rely on annual operational energy reporting, public data disclosure and third-party verification.

For show notes to this episode, go to www.architectsjournal.co.uk/podcasts

Editional Studio on persuading domestic clients to build less and retrofit more

Episide 31. The Manchester-based Jo Sharples and Jack Richards of Editional Studio share top tips from Decarbonise Your House Now!, a timely domestic retrofit guide they have put together for clients and architects.

Each recommended retrofit measure is assessed in terms of ‘trigger points’ (if you’re doing X, consider Y) and ‘related opportunities’ (if you’re doing x, consider the optimal low carbon approach). Launched in late 2021, Decarbonise Your House Now! forms the basis of an ongoing exhibition in Editional Studio’s studio shopfront in Manchester’s Chorlton neighbourhood.

Bob Prewett explains why Passivhaus is often too much for heritage buildings

Episide 30. Retrofit expert Bob Prewett describes how a client’s brief for an ‘extreme retrofit’ in 2008 gave him ‘something bigger than architecture to think about’. Divided between London and Wells, the ten-strong Prewett Bizley Architects has a portfolio of completed retrofit projects that achieve upwards of 70% energy savings and regularly monitors its buildings to understand how they operate over time.

Although a founder member of the Passivhaus Trust, Bob observes that ‘we rarely push all the way to Passivhaus which is a bit strong for many heritage buildings’. Self-taught when retrofit resources, training and exemplar projects were scant, Bob explains the many ways architects can upskill today.

ACAN founding member Sara Edmonds on ramping up domestic retrofit

Episode 29. We speak to architect and ACAN (Architects Climate Action Network) steering group coordinator Sara Edmonds who is jumpstarting widespread conversations around domestic retrofit.

Reaching beyond the bounds of architecture, Studio seARCH co-founder and Passivhaus designer Sara Edmonds is engaged in inclusive conversations across the domestic retrofit space from the political to the practical, establishing ties with the New Economics Foundation and Insulate Britain.  

In this wide-ranging discussion, Sara describes what it will take to kickstart greater uptake of domestic retrofit in London and beyond: from DIY upskilling to empower householders to ensure that existing heating systems operate at maximum efficiency to lessons from Ireland’s national retrofitting scheme launched in February.

John Christophers on his zero carbon home, which generates a 40% energy surplus

Episode 28. Architect John Christophers shares lessons from a decade of monitoring his own home which generates 40 per cent more energy than it uses. We continue our focus on building performance and explore what one can glean from monitoring a small project.

In 2013, John retrofitted and extended a two-up two-down Victorian terraced house in Birmingham’s Balsall Heath neighbourhood, adding Passivhaus levels of insulation and triple-glazing to the existing house. The extension features unfired load-bearing clay bricks and compacted earth floors, as well a monopitch roof that incorporates both PV and solar thermal.

Lessons from AHMM’s Stirling Prize-winning Burntwood School building performance study

Episode 27. We continue our focus on building performance; AHMM sustainability lead Craig Robertson shares important lessons from a building performance study of 2015 Stirling Prize-winning Burntwood School in southwest London. It is still much too rare for architects – and clients – to transparently share post-occupancy data, especially when it flags up a significant performance gap, so kudos to AHMM for sharing this study with us.

In the case of Burntwood School, heating loads were nine times the design prediction, while electricity loads were four times as much. Shocking as this may sound, it is not unusual. Craig explains why and what we need to do about it. A key premise of the study was to investigate the relationship between energy performance and indoor environmental quality. These must be looked at in tandem. Our conversation with Craig reveals, in practice, the many building performance issues we discussed in our last episode with Judit Kimpian.

Judit Kimpian on why building performance studies are crucial for net zero

Episode 26. A year after publication, Judit Kimpian and Hattie Hartman revisit key messages from the book they co-authored with Sofie Pelsmakers. Judit explains why building performance studies de-risk the construction process and help ensure that what was designed actually gets built and operates as intended. She explains why it is so important to stay with a project during a one-to-three-year ‘landing’ period after completion, to ensure proper commissioning, monitor both energy and indoor environmental quality, and talk to occupants.

Plus, you can WIN a copy of Energy|People|Buildings by J. Kimpian, H. Hartman and S. Pelsmakers (RIBA Publishing 2021). We have three copies to give away – details here.

AKT II’s Hanif Kara on CLT virtue signalling, concrete innovations and Bloomberg’s embodied carbon

Episode 25. AJ Climate Champions with Hattie Hartman. In this episode, we hear from structural engineer Hanif Kara who is working with leading architects on projects across the globe for ambitious clients with resources to deliver sustainable outcomes, including Google, Apple and British Land. Recent projects include Grafton’s Stirling-Prize winning Town House in Kingston, Grafton’s Marshall Building at the LSE, Foster + Partners' Bloomberg building and the new Google headquarters currently on site at King’s Cross with Bjarke Ingels and Thomas Heatherwick.

In contrast with most of our guests so far, Hanif is not a Climate Champion from way back, but we’re delighted to have him on the pod because he is at the forefront of what is being delivered on the ground now and his design-led approach is pushing best practice. In this episode, he advocates reverse-engineering as a forensic method that utilises complex computational methods to retrofit and extending existing buildings.