Do we really care for the Environment?

miles

sorry mr season has bored me to tears on this one
i'll check in again when he's on holiday....

simon seasons

<p>Sorry to bore you, I was trying to barrack for the planet in my boring way, like Mark Melb was doing at the start of this thread and sorry for you even more, I haven't had a holiday for fifteen years.</p>
<p>On the topic, casually or not depending on your point of view, can I ask why a lot of you are so venemous when it comes to Murcutt? I ask because he is pretty much at the forefront of ESDesign and has been for years, but my mentioning him always recieves the most spluttering responses.</p>
<p>Does it bother people that he is too green or something.</p>
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miles

<p>oh cmon mr seasons surely youve had the odd weekend fishing with the mutt? as for our pritzker winning glenn. i ask you to do a couple of things in your research, as i think it would make a marvelous exercise for someone with the time and delight of still being in architectural education to really do a comparative study of the houses you claim to be at the forefront of esd. they are questionable on many levels. even in simple basics like passive solar orientation, cross ventilation, embodied energy of materials, double glazing, correctly located thermal mass, decent insulation, recycled materials, use of concrete etc etc</p>
<p>could make a really good set of anotated drawings and SHORT well written report, that would be worth posting here to give you some ammunition against your doubters...you might even convince a well meaning academic to give you some credit for it.</p>

simon seasons

<p>Well I am into my 40's now and having started as a carpenter at eight (I kid you not. 5 hours after school every day of the week) with an interlude as a chef in my twenties and now retraining to be an architect I feel the need to 'get on with it' more acutely perhaps than others do. My wife would like me to take a break sometimes and we do but with three kids it's hardly a holiday.</p>
<p>Your proposal's a good one but it'll have to wait until someone wants to quantify the myriad takes on the subject. I am going through a few books at the moment but as I have said before I am chiefly an artist. From my point of view the practise of art is about the reading of situations and in that sense I have found architecture to be my perfect expression. I have begun late but never too late and I have begun green but never too green.</p>
<p>I have a prejudice for Murcutt because as an artist, I can see the level of art that has gone into his designs.  It interests me that you are aware of his failings and it would be good if you could actually point to specific houses you refer to and I'll look them up. So far I have noticed only a kitchen bench with a window behind it that seemed impractically wide but I am imagining from his other work that there was probably a solution that was hidden from the camera angle or that indeed the camera angle was at fault. My arts training was in photography and sculpture so I am fully aware of the propensity for a lense to falsify and slander.</p>
<p>Do we really care for the enviroment? was the original impetus for this post. By and large I think we all do. I think that my way of course is more authentic or valid but I wouldn't hold to that as I don't have the training that others do, but in many years of carpentry I have yet to work on a single house that wasn't green and I don't intend to. That colours my opinion. But then all opinion is coloured by experiance.</p>
<p>I am currently surveying green work out of America and I find it a bit provincial oddly. It strikes me as nostalgic and affected by some sort of hippie political earnestness. When compared to Murcutt it is no wonder he won a Pritzker. All the technical aspects of green design being well understood, quantified statisticaly and relatively available with a simple google search (Incidently, I'll put up a great resource I found when I find it again), the only thing left is the teaching of how it should be applied. This is the part that interests me. As an artist, I understand that post modern sensibility says that just about anything goes paradoxically (hypocritically?) with stringent safeguards and inbuilt references to all sorts of important and not so important crap. This might appear to be a freedom of design of sorts but in reality we all know that design parameters have always existed and that it is only the adherance to them that has swayed and prevaricated to personal choice and client preferences.</p>
<p>I suggest that climate change will bring back into focus the natural aspect of design which is that there is more than one way to skin a cat but in the end climate change demands that we abandon our personal frivolities and more particularly our aquiesence to the clients personal frivolities, in favour of a universal good.  To paraphrase Mr Ford, we can, from the point of view of our imperiled ansectors, design in any way we like as long as it is green.</p>
<p>I think we all care about that and that it is beyond pointless trying to establish to what degree any of us are at the coal face.</p>
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miles

yes mr seasons. this is a blog not this is your life! i certainly agree of course we care about the environment, the question is probably how much and how do we convince the client to invest in systems that allow our 'care' to be present. its pretty hard to convince the client to pay 'more' when they are already paying for the 'luxury' of an architect. in fact one would hope that they will be using an architect BECAUSE they care about the environment.

as for our glenn, find the north point on the house at kempsey and let me know if you think the glazing is in the right place.

simon seasons

<p>You should know me a little by now Miles. You asked if the mutt went fishing with me and I blabbered on a bit. Point taken though and i'll try to blah blah blah....</p>
<p>It has to be said that going to an architect is probably a good place to start if as a client you want a green design. It saddens me that that might still be considered a luxury choice. I hope in the future that this attitude will be somewhat curtailed by legislatively making green design no longer a choice.</p>
<p>Even so that still leaves plenty of room for design impetus which is where the fish get sorted. Which is a good thing! I had countered Marks original conjecture as to the failings of others by adding to Peters subsequents assertion of balanced objectives and outcomes.</p>
<p>In the same way, convincing a client to spend more to achieve more, I think, shouldn't be too difficult if they have already made a choice to aim higher with an architect. Personally I have never found it difficult to reconcile that the initial cost of a decision has an ongoing cost attached to it that has to be taken into account if we deal with a client honestly. I would for instance feel dishonest if I was to recommend a material based on initial cheapness when I knew that fairly soon down the track the maintainence or replacement costs were going to outweigh an initially expensive option.</p>
<p>Why should ESD be treated any differently? I suggest that it has been treated differently in the past (and likely will into the future until its compulsory) because it has been treated as an 'artistic' luxury and also that the very concept was treated with deep political suspicion during and after the Vietnam War in quite a few academic circles. Some green social and architectural academics in America are actually revisting papers dealing with green design and quantification that they dared not publish 30 years ago for fear of having their funding and tenures slashed for sounding too much like a hippie. Spouting on about sustainability in any arena at that time, social or architectural, meant getting your head bashed in for daring to suggest that the direction of society might have a fundamental flaw.</p>
<p>By Australian example I could suggest some housing that was afflicted with ugly hippie or bad modernist affectations that gave ESD a bad name in the 70's and 80's, particularly a few that were built by the UNSW and the CSIRO as experimental houses which got wide publicity at the time in a book called "Austarlian Solar Houses", which actually attempted to use the brick veneer as a starting point presumably because there was just no way that a post and beam or mud brick or steel frame was deemed acceptable conservative accomadation.</p>
<p>So to the present.  Climate change now has widespread acceptance and so the architectural solution should also recieve widespread acceptance, except it doesn't work that way when intial cost gets in the way. Well, the whole point of understanding the nessecity of doing something about climate change is the realisation that on a global scale we are witnessing the grand failure to take into account an ongoing cost when we accepted the intitial cost of a fossil fuel based economy.</p>
<p>So to answer your question, how to convince a client? tell them that not only in the long term, but also as soon as they have the certificate of occupancy, that the cost of maintaining an ESDesigned house or building is going to pay back easily any initial outlay. That of course has a rate of return dependant on the quality of the ESDesign and that depends on the "art" that is brought to the drawing board, as you well know.</p>
<p>I actually dispute that ESDesign really costs more at the initial stage in any case. Consider that one big way to reduce a clients carbon footprint is to convince them to reduce the actual footprint of the building and there is one huge cost saving to start with. Then we could convince them to accept a sensible amount of glazing and there is another cost saving. And then we could convince them to ignore Murcutts "fear line" and orientate the house to the sun and not the letter box and there is the biggest future expenses in heating and cooling cost saving. Where does an ESDesign actually cost more when all things are considered?</p>
<p>As proffesionals and high calibre artists, we have to convince the client that there was a good reason for engaging our services and I believe that could best be achieved giving them a good reason for letting go of their preconcieved notions of what makes a good design. We have to educate them that the mysteries of architecture actually have some tangible substance worth buying and as we all know that's soonest done through their hip pocket and eventually done through how comfortable and cheap their commisioned building is to live in and use. If we tell them what we know will make a good design and why and how much money it'll save long into the future, it shouldn't be too hard to convince them. Why should we hide the 'good oil'  information.</p>
<p>Doesn't sound too hard really, does it? I think it'll be alot easier now that ESDesign has shed a lot of its hippie baggage and has taken on a near universal sense of urgency. I also think Good ESDesign has a lot less to hide than the crap designers out there who keep pumping out Mcmansions and the rest.</p>

simon seasons

<p>Here's those resouces I mentioned</p>
<p>"Passive Low Energy Cooling of Buildings" by Baruch Givoni.    Very detailed. Its worth is that it explains it well enough to be able to apply the theoreticals to differant situations, if you're so inclined to extrapolate.</p>
<p>For those in the tropics "An Urban Approach To Climate Sensitive Design. Strategies for the Tropics." By M. Rohinton Emmanuel.</p>
<p>And for those in meditearanean climates "Passive Cooling of Buildings" By M Santamouris and D Asimakopolous</p>
<p> Actually, while I am on the topic. Europe is an obvious candidate for cool climate passive solar design as is North America, but as yet I haven't tracked down a title that addresses directly and in depth cool climate design. Anybody know of a text that isn't written in Finnish?</p>

mark_melb

<p>I've not personally seen the book but <a href="http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=1136014155&searchurl=kn%3Dcool%2Bclimate%2Bsolar%2BSolar%2BArchitecture%2Bin%2BCool%2BClimates%26x%3D88%26y%3D8"><strong>Solar Architecture in Cool Climates</strong></a> (ISBN: <a class="isbn" href="http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=1136014155&searchurl=kn%3Dcool%2Bclimate%2Bsolar%2BSolar%2BArchitecture%2Bin%2BCool%2BClimates%26x%3D88%26y%3D8">1844072819</a>)

<b>Colin Porteous, Kerr MacGregor </b>Earthscan Publications, 2005. Paperback. 244mm x 201mm, 727g. * A must-read for practitioners, teachers and others interested in or working with energy use in the built environment, including a delightful set of examples Anne Grete Hestnes, former President of the International Solar Energy Society * Includes case studies from Europe and North America, dealing with new-build, retrofitting and conceptual projects that outline future potential * Written in a clear, accessible style, approaching the topic in a thematic manner, this will be an invaluable primer for both building professionals and students To implement new techniques in daily practice, architects require palatable information combined with convincing arguments. This book fulfils this requirement, providing inspiration, an understanding of key principles and technical data on the design of solar buildings in northern latitudes (or the southern equivalent). The authors examine how additional costs can be diluted through different strategies, the tensions between energy efficiency and environmental quality, and the proactive control of energy in building design. Promoting flexibility and opportunity to a diverse audience, including those who use, procure and finance buildings, the book aims to bring the design of 'green' buildings in cool climates from special interest status into the mainstream. The final chapter meshes technical aspects with the aspirations of users, to develop a more sustainable architectural programme in which lay players (mainly clients) effectively sponsor responsible environmental innovation. 244 pages.</p>

simon seasons

<p>Thanks very much Mark. I'll check it out.</p>

mark_melb

<p>No probs. Try here for your book. <a href="http://www.abebooks.com/">http://www.abebooks.com/</a> Watch the postage though. It will vary greatly from seller to seller, so a cheap book might have horrendous postage. A moderately priced book might have okay postage. A second book <u>may </u>have discounted postage........or may not.</p>
<p>I know it's not Energy Efficient but I have not bought a book in Australia for years. Too much tax. Travel books in particular. Choosing carefully and getting the books posted from the States or UK with moderate postage is cheaper.............unfortunately. Penguins (or the Penguin Group) I get from a friend who works there for nothing...........or a glass of wine.</p>
<p>............make sure you are sitting down if you look up Leaves of Iron by Drew.</p>
<p> </p>

simon seasons

<p>quoited from above</p>
<p>"as for our glenn, find the north point on the house at kempsey and let me know if you think the glazing is in the right place."</p>
<p>Well Miles, I checked out several sources of the Kempsey house (presuming you mean the former Marie Short house which our Glenn purchased and extended) and not only did I check the north point but also the climate info and the construction method of the glazing and I can't find anything much wrong with it. If the climate was colder in that area well yes then that could be a problem I can see, but as it isn't on the whole a cold climate and the window glass louvres are very effectively shuttered by external solid louvres and an insect screen between the two layers of louvre, I think it is actually very finely balanced.</p>
<p>The main problem for that area is getting the movement of air through the house which is why it has been moved up the hill from the original house site and has the rolled and elevated ridge cap coupled with ventilated gables allowing for positive and negative pressure to ventilate the roof space in slow humid conditions (north westerlies) as well as the less common severe westerly winds. As well, ventilation is obviously vastly improved by having roughly equal porosity on opposite sides of the building, namely North and South. which coupled with the offset of the pavilions are designed to catch the prevailing north easterly breezes.</p>
<p>The west walls are sheltered by a closed wall and an insect screen enclosed verandah. In the original sketches the ratio of glazing north and south is about 5 to 3.5 but as intended with louvred shutters, that could be altered at will to suit the particular climatic condition in any way from 5 to 0 or 0 to 3.5. Of course this means that equal 1 to 1 porosity can be achieved any time desired while maintaining a higher percentage of solar access from the North. It should be noted that the extension that our Glenn did has not altered the ratio significantly and so I am guessing that the situatiuon was deemed effective and so continued with. I noted that in the hot muggy humid conditions, close to a cooling river and a bank of trees to the south and south west that thermal mass was not required or used and so the position of glazing is not as critical in any case in that situation since retention of mean temperatures in a thermal mass and hence heat loss through glazing is not an issue. Heat gain is the issue and that can comfortably be dealt with and convieniantly in this case, with southern glazing</p>
<p> I read, though that there are some unspecified but minor problems.</p>
<p> I think overall, from what I can see structurally and design wise, that it's a brilliant work with which, again, I could find nothing majorly wrong and a lot to commend it sustainability wise. It not only address the bioclimatic problems of the site well but it is so flexible that it can probably address them for at least 95% of climatic situations, meaning that boosted heating might be desirable very occaisionally and that boosted cooling even less.</p>
<p>The glazing that is there doesn't compromise the protection of the building during inclement weather, provides extremely flexible and convieniant ventilation and it admits a high degree of glareless light into all trafficable areas of the building. I think that Glenn Murcutt justly deserves his reputation and status as a pioneer of Australian architectural form and that this building greatly and easily contributes, with carefull examination, to any students understanding of climate sensitive design. There is no element in that building that does not perfom at least two functions and many that contribute three, to the overall performance of the building. I cannot see any element that contributes negatively.</p>

simon seasons

<p>Cat curled up your keyboard Miles?</p>

miles

ive been bloody busy mr seasons. apologies for not responding and well done on your research, hope some mangy building scientist who might teach you eco tech subjects takes notice. still busy and going away for a bit so will be back but later

simon seasons

<p>No problem Miles. Anytime you need some help with ESD and passive solar advise, my fee is...... I am sure your clients would eventually be happy to pay for solid research.</p>

mark_melb

<p>A few home truths from The Sunday Age.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.theage.com.au/environment/water-worries-temporary-report-20081025-58o7.html">http://www.theage.com.au/environment/water-worries-temporary-report-20081025-58o7.html</a></p>
<p> </p>