Sustainability

Green Sky Thinking

Open House is developing a new campaign to support and promote sustainability as an integral part of design excellence. It will run as a theme throughout our programmes and will focus on the question ‘Is good design, green design?'

As sustainability and green living become mainstream, what does sustainable design actually mean in practice? Consideration of these issues will be integrated into Open House’s programmes for young people, decision-makers and the wider London community.

Exciting new initiatives will include a poll of Londoners exploring what they think will make London sustainable; talks, tours and debates, including the Green Sky Thinking debate (below); and partnerships with key organisations and programmes such as London Sustainability Weeks.

For more information about our sustainability campaign contact syates@openhouse.org.uk.

Upcoming event - Green Sky Thinking

Date: Wednesday 16 July, 18.30 – 21.00
Location: Allen & Overy, One Bishops Square, London E1
Part of the Clerkenwell and City of London hub in the London Festival of Architecture 2008

Sponsored by Atkins

Tickets for this event are available but places are limited and MUST be booked in advance.

To obtain a ticket, please contact Zoë Wilkinson at Open House on 020 3006 7008, or at zwilkinson@openhouse.org.uk

Current discussion about the need to build green has given rise to a kind of ‘greenwash’ and architects and developers are sometimes criticised for not taking the threat of climate change seriously enough. As plans for Dongtan, the world’s first eco-city proceed in China, it raises questions about the future of London. A city with an estimated population increase from 7.5 million to over 8 million by 2016, we need to address how we can build in a more sustainable way whilst integrating good quality design.

In response to this, Open House and sponsors Atkins have invited young architectural practices to submit proposals to take part in the ‘Green Sky Thinking’ Pecha Kucha Night, which will take place at international law firm Allen & Overy’s headquarters on 16 July 2008. Part of the London Festival of Architecture,this fast-paced event will provide an exciting opportunity for a selected group of young architects to showcase their work and demonstrate their commitment to environmental issues to an audience of key decision-makers in sustainability, regeneration, development, planning and urban design. Participants will present positive solutions and challenge preconceived ideas about what sustainability means in practice.

A panel of six judges selected participants:

- Chris Brown, Chief Executive, Igloo Regeneration
- Janet Kidner, Head of Sustainability, Lend Lease
- Kieran Long, Editor, Architects Journal
- Paul Reynolds, Principal Urban Designer, Atkins
- Victoria Thornton, Director, Open House
- Suzie Zuber, former Associate Director, ECD Architects

The eight short listed architects have responded with eight very different solutions:

  • Duggan Morris Architects’ vision for the sustainable city balances nature with the urban environment. Their competition-winning scheme for the Mersey Observatory harnesses tidal power, whilst another re-appropriates a natural habitat in a post-industrial landscape
  • Amenity Space has devised an ingenious composite building block made out of old ordnance survey maps – rubbish architecture!
  • Baca Architects will discuss a high-density flood-proof pilot project in The Netherlands following LIfE, a Defra funded research project (Long-term Inititatives for Flood-risk Environments)
  • 5th Studio will talk us through a Code 5 housing project on an urban infill site, questioning whether is it possible to reconcile environmentally sustainable ambition with current affordable housing and density policies?
  • Ash Sakula Architects will showcase their (joint) scheme with Jason Bruges Studio to pedestrianise Red Lion Square in Holborn, shaping a new environmentally conscious community
  • Jerry Tate Architects work with technology and patterns in nature to develop a new form of sustainable language, generating ‘growing’ buildings that integrate recycling and climate strategies. Their Dubai Waterfront Hotel has a sci-fi web-like façade, generated by Fibonacci series geometry
  • Moxon Architects will explain a solution to reduce energy wastage where old buildings are retrofitted with bolt-on passive heating and cooling systems using the latest phase-changing materials
  • Riches Hawley Mikhail Architects will present their scheme for the Orwell Housing Association in Suffolk. Currently on site, sustainable features include Local biomass fuelled heating and ‘hempcrete’ made with lime and one of the region’s oldest crops!

Green Sky Studios

Our next initiative ‘Green Sky Studios’ will take place from 24–26 September 2008. We are inviting young architects to open their studios to an informed audience, showcasing their green ideas, even if still on the drawing board.

For further information about Green Sky Studios or to get involved please contact project coordinator Zoë Wilkinson.
Email: zwilkinson@openhouse.org.uk Tel: 020 3006 7008.

The Green Building Guide

Recently, it has become hard not to open a newspaper or turn on the TV without coming across phrases like ‘carbon footprint’ and ‘sustainability’.  Environmental issues, in particular climate change, have risen up the political, business and media agendas. Of course this is a positive step forward, but there are challenges that come with this.  There is a plethora of advice on how to ‘go green’, some of which is confusing.

Buildings account for about 50% of the UK’s total greenhouse gas emissions, and the production of materials used in buildings accounts for a further 10%.  Buildings are also major consumers of water, timber and other materials – so they have a massive impact not just on our contribution to climate change, but other environmental problems, both in the UK and around the world. 

In 2007 Open House teamed up with the UK Green Building Council to produce an introductory guide to the latest technology, materials and designs that are making our buildings sustainable. It only scratches the surface of what is possible, but hopefully will inspire you to think about what could be achievable in your own home, or place of work or learning.

The challenge is to spread best practice, so all homes, offices, schools and other types of building – both new and existing – are developed or retro-fitted to the greenest possible standards.  As so many of the examples in Open House London show, green buildings are not just good for the planet, but are also designed to be great places to live and work.

Copies of the Green Building Guide are available by emailing Open House.

Text on the Green Building Guide courtesy of Paul King, Chief Executive of UK Green Building Council