Sustainable Building Support centre

Since Sustainable Building has been widely introduced in the Netherlands, early nineties last century, a lot has happened. We learned that Sustainable Building should not be based on a "adding measures" approach, but part of a conceptual development. This has resulted in performance based legislation, and integrated approaches in preparation of the design of buildings and neighbourhoods. With many colleges this is practised nowadays in the Netherlands, and the requests for information on this has led to publishing a new book, which describes the ins an outs of this concept thinking, based on ambitions an targets set before, so that progress is assured and measurable. ( see the bookshop for more details). And during the tour, announced beside, we will see similar project developments in Italy, Switzerland, Germany and Austria.

Nevertheless, the total improvement of environmental performance of our society is marginal. And the past year has been equalling the hottest year ever in the Netherlands: …which was the year before. And we had the longest dry period ever, despite the fact that it was much wetter overall then normal. Besides we had longer and more traffic jams, etc,etc.

But we had also Stern and Gore and ICPP, and many more , that have created a platform for our messages, and kicked off new attention and initiatives. And what we see now, and we could also experience that already in many of the Regional SB07 conferences last year, is that the focus is moving from buildings to urban level very fast. And from two sides: its moving bottom up, from buildings to urban level, by researchers, experts, project developing and other stakeholders, and top down, in a way that governments fail to act fast and municipalities, with more space to operate, taking over. In the Netherlands there is a pilot with a few cities to explore and implement a "Carbon neutral city" approach. One of the main issues is how to define a carbon neutral city, or a energy neutral city. And as I heard from some colleagues in the iiSBE network, this is a issue in more countries. In the Urban Harvest approach at Wageningen University, (see this website CCA -UH section) we have chosen the strategy of "Nothing goes out of the city anymore" , closing the output side. And from there analyse in how far this is possible. However, its only part of the story. The definitions therefore should be explored further, and since this not bound to geography, international exchange of visions should apply. Would you have any suggestion, let me know. I will explore if within iiSBE a core group can handle this, so that during SB08 in Melbourne we could produce a proposal.

Ronald Rovers

Some years ago we had a tree in our garden, trimmed and cut back. The company in charge came with all equipment, motorised ladders and a chainsaw, and in about four hours the job was done, including the removal of the waste wood. And a few hundred euro as well.

At the same time we had delivered a m3 of fuel wood each year, to feed the open fire, at cost of around 70 euro. And In the garden shop we bought wood chips for out flower borders.

The grass was cut electrically each two weeks ( if I managed) and the next electrified support tools were about to enter the household, as for instance the tree leave blowers.

Parallel to this I changed jobs forcing me to use the car in stead of the bicycle , and got regularly comments fro friends about the size of my middle… Ok, a fitness club could help, at 12,50 a week.

Of course, to pay for all this I have to work more or harder.

Last year the tree was due to be trimmed again, but I wondered , sitting in my garden with a beer, wasn't there a much smarter solution?

What if I would trim the tree myself, clean the leaves fro the grass, and cut the grass by an old fashioned manpowered grass cutter? In that case I probably could save the weekly trip to the fitness centre, and have free wood for the open fire and chips for gardening. I would save a lot of money, and loose hardly time, besides I could work less since I needed less money.

I broke the spiral . However, some friends argue that the fitness centre and the tree cutting firm will earn less money . But : also these people can make such moves, with as consequence that they need less money as well.

We are running forward, finding technological solutions for any problem that occurs, . While the solutions might be in the beginning, evaluating what in fact we want to have established.

This is also essential in a closing cycle approach. Not only with high tech solutions to have consumer products re-enter , but to reduce the volume of goods and the speed of cycling by evaluating the essential needs and functions. Anyway, that's what interest me most, and is basic for a new section of this website, which I will try to expand regularly,

Happy New Year,

Ronald Rovers

Good and bad in NL

This is what's happening with real sustainable building in the Netherlands: Today (March 13) the demolishing of a recent finished eco-house has started.

The house is built in what was supposed to be a eco-neighbourhood, at the time of achieving the Building license. In the mean time many of the ambitions of the area have been dropped, and it has become a more average housing area. The forces against the eco-house in the neighbourhood have been growing, and recently the municipality found a way out: formally the building license includes a condition that realisation should be within two years after licence. Husslage's housing construction took him 4 years, partly due to illness. It has been recently completed, but last Monday the judge in court justified the municipality's decision for demolishing the house.

Many people spoke against demolishing, even the Governmental Building agencies director, and architect Mels Crouwel, but without result.

Tuesday 6 environmental activists chained themselves to the house, to avoid demolishing. They are removed by the police, as can be seen on this small video.

http://www.destentor.nl/stentortv/regionieuws/article2801704.ece

Today demolishing has started, that is, it will be dismantled , so that materials can be re-re-used…

After a first two level straw bale house in a nearby location, interest was/is growing and now more houses this way are under development, according to builder-architect Rene Dalmeijer. The 5 level house is prefabricated wood frames with strawbale filling, and the main structure was erected in 5 days, 1 level a day. The roof acts as rainwater storage. The construction includes a steel portal, for stiffness and coping with wind forces. In a follow-up project this will be eliminated due to a changed wooden construction.

See the websites:

http://homepage.mac.com/rdalmeij/PhotoAlbum13.html

and http://www.strobouw.nl/index.html (follow english-Sbhouses-IjburgII )

Ronald Rovers, march 2008

0-energy Tall Buildings?

Recently I was involved in a few European projects regarding Carbon neutral targeted cities or areas, or Co2 neutral, ore even energy neutral. There is a few delicate issues here: There is the definition problem, as well as how to deal with cross boundary effects of such approaches. And there is the approach regarding new building areas. These at least should not contribute to more CO2 , not to frustrate the ultimate target.

Now that we can construct new buildings with 0-energy performance is nothing new. There are also already the first projects that produce energy, in offices but also as so called "plus houses". But what's Interesting is that I recently discovered that plus houses are already for sale : Not as a special project with extra cost

Now the discussion is growing about the use of Tall buildings in a increasing urbanised world, as sustainable solutions. Sustainability is more then energy, but an important aspect these days, and how do these tall buildings fit into our attempt to create carbon neutral cities, or plus energy housing?

Of course the main problem is the overall existing stock of buildings, that will have serious problems to meet those targets, so you might expect that any new building should not increase the challenge for reduction in the existing stock, whether its low rise or high-rise, .

In other words, new buildings may not add to fossil fuel consumption, and on top that should add to the amount of renewables produced within the system boundaries they are erected…

So where is the first "plus tall building"? After some searching in the web I found a tall building that attempts to address this a little bit:

It's a start but it seems a long way for these buildings to become energy producing ones. With 4 Tall buildings of over 1 km in preparation, these are now presented as vertical cities. So we can apply the carbon neutral approach already for these buildings them selves….

By the way: this is not to assume that when they would be energy producing, they would be sustainable…. There is still more issues at stake, like the increased materials consumption, social and cultural factors and more. If you are interested, come to the iiSBE seminar organised in The worlds architects congress, where this is discussed: How tall is a sustainable building? (See this page for info)

throw money in the water...

Parts of Holland are below sea level. The ironic thing is that the Dutch have dig up these holes themselves: in order to have fuel in the middle ages, Peat land was harvested, until below groundwater level and beyond. Later the holes ( Polders) were dried by windmill driven pumps, and people started living in the holes, up to 7 meters below sea level.

Now the seawater pushes the groundwater up, and were there is no clay layer stopping this, the water is pushed up to the land. At the same time the land is sinking: the drying causes settling the land at even lower levels, and to keep it dry and compensate, the groundwater level has to be lowered again. And the water is pushed up even harder. With sea level rising this adds to the pressure. This is the general process that's threatening Holland's below sea level areas. The first 'polder" has to be cleared, and given back to the water, since the soil is getting instable more and more, and the land salinates as well. This is causing huge debates with the people living here. Of course. They claim it has been grass land and a job for ages and should remain as such...

At the same time the Dutch are getting slowly aware that living below sea level is not a smart thing, especially in this era. Many solutions are explored and some municipalities are developing floating housing areas, which give some possibilities to adapt to different water levels. Of course , its still not wise to built below sea level, but nevertheless. Floating cities are studied now as well, partially on the sea. However, awareness is growing, and there will be a point that fear will hit, and reach a critical mass among people. And people will want to move out then of the below sea level area. Which will cause a collapse of housing prices as one of the least problems. Now this may sound futuristic or dramatic, it is not: The first ads for houses claiming to be safe , since above sea level, have already been signalised .

The picture (click for larger view) shows one of these house selling ads on a real estate agencies website, , claiming: "Now who still wants a house below sea level? The ice is melting!! Do you want to throw your money in the water??? House in Austerlitz, 8 meters above sea level!!! ("NAP" is sea level)

The first one is over the 'dam ', how many will follow, and how soon?

22 October 2047, at 19.56

Its very fashionable at the moment: to be climate neutral, or carbon neutral or even 0-CO2. There are a lot of claims, but seldom clearly explained and showing when and where what will be done. It has led to a paper on definitions and systems of these claims, which is launched on this page for further discussion elswhere. After discussion it will most likely be published in a special issue on Low Carbon Communities in Energy Policy next year.

One conclusion I want to stress here is that if you decide for a CO2 target in a city, be it 0- CO2 or 30 % reduction in 2020, it implies that all new construction immediately at least should be 0- energy. If not the reductions to be established in the existing built environment will be much higher, and we all know that's more difficult and costly. So if not all new construction is 0-energy, the claim is bound to fail instantly.

However, these climate and carbon claims are mostly aimed at the end of pipe impacts: The emissions that come with fossil fuel use. However even more threatening is the depletion of resources. Peakoil is predicted somewhere between 2012 and 2017, Peakoil, is when oil production will reach maximum, and will only be less and less afterwards.

Though more and more experts expect is rather sooner then later, and some see signs that it has already happened. Nevertheless without oil, or with sky-rocketing prices, we are in serious trouble, with more wars to expect, and for instance food transport around the world to stop….

And when will the last drop of oil be spilled? That's on October 22, the year 2047, at 19.56 hours. ( See the online live clock on the website www.energy.eu )

So the CO2 problem is rather soon solved by itself, but the transition for renewables, since all fossils will be depleted, is another thing. And that's what targets should aim at : 100 % renewable energy .

Koyaanisqatsi

Koyaanisqatsi: the world is in turmoil, life is out of balance… It is a famous movie based on the view of Hopi Indians on the world. This turmoil of life in society, has now entered our financial system, that can't keep up with our speed of consumption, and related hunt for making money from money. If you look form a distance its in fact very weird:

What happens now is that institutions that make money from money, among others my money, now need to be saved by governmental money, my money again. Its like funding your own fall of society…

No wonder we are having difficulties for years getting sustainable development and sustainable building implemented. That this anyhow is difficult, I already learned years ago, when realising that things change only for three reasons:

Either its profitable, or its mandatory, or its "Fun" ( Fun including healthy, comfortable, enjoyable, technical gadgets, etc).

Well, "Fun" in nearly all cases increases in stead of reduces resource consumption or emissions, changes are not mandatory, (our governments have proven not to be able to guide this transition), and its not profitable, and will never be. A simple example is that of designing and constructing a bad house: the more maintenance the higher GDP of a country…: The economical system itself has led us to that stress situation And as Einstein already posed: You can not change things thinking the same way as caused the problem.

It is also the non-sense behind the P-P-P thinking: If the interests of people, planet , and profit are mixed, you get sustainability. Of course not. It's the amount of resources a society can be build upon, with people creating some comfort in their settlements. The profit part is only there to facilitate things. (better: should be there for that reason)

Bit it is not used like that, as we can see . However we tend to forget that the economical system is a human invented, artificial old fashioned system, developed in the medieval ages.

And since people always will strive for more comfort ( behaviour change programs always fail to address majorities) , and politicians fail to make unpopular changes mandatory, (by definition), its clear that economy needs a clean sweep.

As learned before, probably this only will happen if disasters take place, and minds open for new approaches. I hope the financial turmoil of today is big enough, but I am afraid its not, and we will have to go through another period of even larger losses and system failures before change will happen. In other words, if we keep saving banks and financial institutions, we will more or less fund maintaining 'turmoil'. So lets speed up things , in order to create change and solve our problems, lets us not save the financial system, but let it collapse, and invent a new one. That's progress.

'renovating cars'

Just recently I bought, with some colleagues professors, an electric car. And its great! It's the Norwegian Th!nk, the first commercially available electric car with a European type certificate. (http://www.think.no/ )

The main reason was in fact that we do not allow fossil fuel to enter 'the District of Tomorrow", the construction site for winning graduation-designs. We start constructing there just after summer, and need to drive up and down there from the university. And that leaves us with just the electric car. Well you need an excuse anyway…

Students now do a thesis on designing loading stations based on PV panels for instance. And we try to make it drive as much as possible. One of our staff found recently a very effective way of using it. Just after the Tour de France there is a lot of small cycle courses where all the Tour de France hero's race, with huge amounts of public turning up for a good night of fun. He joined as a sponsor, and is now driving as a support car right behind the cyclists . 50 local laps of 1,5 km, 50 times passing a crowd of 70.000 spectators (!) showing logos on electric driving and the university. And the public speaker getting very enthusiastic about this. And of course: it's a perfect match: the cyclists don't compete in exhaust air of fossil fuelled cars anymore! its fun this way as well

Anyway, a new phenomenon turns up: its stealing electricity: to increase the range of the car, normally 180 km with one load, we connect it to the grid everywhere we can. Last time we had to wait for an hour to join a local event, and rolled out the wire and connected illegally to a hotel switchbox. They wont miss a few kWh…

But: we now think its not the future, buying new electric cars. Since this will cause millions of good cars to be banned to the waste dump, and replaced by new material an steel consuming cars .

Its much better to renovate cars, or do a "engine make over". Most of the cars nowadays are pretty good constructed and chassis and plate work last much longer as the engine. So replace the engine and install a electric motor and a battery pack. Its possible, though still expensive. But spent some research and this could be very cost and environment effective . And: we discussed it earlier: its similar to housing renovation or "architecture make over's" with insulation : its huge employment created for garages , which now are in crises. Who needs project developers and car manufacturers?

You cant blame the building…

I like a good discussion, and evaluating or assessing buildings, for its level of sustainability always guarantees a strong debate. Trying to score a building in one figure, for instance, and the use of weighing factors, takes at least two beers to exchange pros and cons. Next beer is needed to exchange views whether yes or no to include the inhibitors behavior, and another one to yes or no evaluate the process of building, instead of only the performance.

By then the warming up is completed and the real issues can get to table. And I had a few of these discussions lately. Another beer please…

Since what are the real issues. The question is raised for instance if health issues or the acoustic performance be included in a sustainable building assessment? Some places in the world are more lively then others and people feel happy in either setting: If you make rooms deaf, in some cultures people get crazy. You could say that's a local adaptable indicator, but why isn't that regarded as part of a basic set of requirements of a building, documented in a countries building regulations? Whether these are good or bad, or not arranged at all, is another issue, but should not be part of a sustainable building assessment: The fact that the construction should be strong enough to withstand wind forces and other loads, is obvious, but part of building regulation, and not addressed in Sustainable building assessments!

Yes but what then if a building is in a remote location, requiring a car to go up and down to work? That should be assessed! , continues the arguing, and good for an extra round. Look at it this way: You cant blame the building to be in that spot… Also the choice to live there and to go by Petrol driven car to work, is by the owner, not by the building: the owner could take a bicycle for instance. Or, what we don't know when we assess the building: will there be 1 or 3 people living an commuting? Or maybe they all live and work from home, like an artist painter, or any other work that does not relate to distance: again its not the building that is responsible for that.

But when its new land, in stead of Brownfield: The building has not chosen the land, it's the municipality that has given the permission to appoint it as a construction site: You should blame the local policy for that, not the building… But they are corrupt, the project developer has bought the permission...: Well, It still can be a good building. We should not put all the worlds problems on that building. …

As you already guessed, I would like to make a strong plea to assess only what is really the building to blame, which is, being there, requiring a certain amount of materials, to provide m2's of a given quality ( the building regulations) and requiring a certain amount of energy to make it inhabitable . And yes, occupying land , but not the location is decisive but in how far that is compensated by making a productive roof ( in terms of energy or agriculture area: This way only causing lifting the land, not exclude it.)

In other words, to what extent the building is responsible for depletion of resources, and maybe emissions. That's what the building, and its composers can be blamed for.

I await discussions…., cheers!

PS I found an interesting book on the web, free downloadable as pdf: Sustainable energy, without the hot air. It aims to eliminate all the crap from discussions, and to look only to hard data making discussions (on energy) clear…

See http://www.withouthotair.com/

Floating City

In the Andes, on the border between Bolivia and Peru, lies lake Titicaca. And in the lake live the Uros. Yes, in the lake. They make their own artificial islands from reed, and create a floating city. What they do is cut pieces of Khili, dense roots that the reed plants develop and interweave naturally form a natural layer (about one to two meters thick) . These floating pieces are positioned in the lake and anchored via poles. The surface is covered by fresh reed, on which the people live. Every three months this has to be replaced, due to rotting , by new reed, , that has freshly grown around in the mean time. Houses are also of reed, so they can lift these and put them on the new surface. Part of the reason of living like this is that they are (were) safer in the lake, and even could replace the islands to somewhere else in case of danger. The reeds play also a major role in their diet and medicine. They seem reasonably happy, and use modern technology where needed, like solar PV panels.

And they live like this already for a thousand years or so….

Now why am I writing this: I was thinking about the Alaskan villages that have to be replaced, since the permafrost is de-frosting, and sea level is rising. A first showcase of what might happen on a larger scale in future.

The Uros will have no such problem, and have created a very robust lifestyle, which can deal with changing water levels...

In a way this is copied by the Dutch, In stead of abandoning the areas below sea level ( upto 7 meters below) which would be a smart move regardless climate change, as a reaction are developing plans for large scale floating cities. Try to stay ahead of nature and climate and beat them once again with technology.

Of course its not the floating islands of the Uros they will copy, the ones that need maintenance every three months, but the ones that consume large amounts of concrete and steel to construct, produced with fossil fuels . In fact proceeding in the same way of progress that created the problem in the first place, that will enlarge the problem they are meant to cope with. And of course the Dutch see this as e great opportunity for export and trade, as usual. So you will hear about it, undoubtedly. However, the questions remaining are: what will be there in a 100 years? Will the Uros still live on their islands in a 100 years or so? And will the Dutch still be constructing high tech islands, and trade and export these? Will for instance people in Bangla Desh have moved into these floating Ducth cities, or have copied a Uros model?

That's the question. Our children will know by then.

Happy New Year 2009 !!

(un-) employment

Everywhere its announced that we are in a crises, but for the moment it seems that only the bankers and economists are in a real crises. Of course economy slows down a bit, but in most countries not very dramatically. Some companies, that have no reserves built up for bad times, are in trouble, of course, and at the moment there is no growth. But crises? A real crises, looks a lot worth to me.

Anyway, the so called crises is used by many to shout and cry, and take the opportunity to put government under pressure to speed up with projects investments. They even want to put on hold the environmental legislation, like fine-dust, to be able to built in areas where fine-dust levels are too high, under the argument that in a few years cars will be electrical…!.

The government, which main concern is (un-)employment, is willing to co-operate in this…

So they bring investments forward, to construct roads that where planned for a few years later for instance ( in a time that traffic jams are less, and car sales plummeted…)

They do this also for large new building projects. And that's where I start missing the point. I understand the employment argument, but if you want real employment, you should focus at existing buildings, and start renovating, insulating and upgrading these, which will require a lot of local labour. Not follow the construction sector blindly in more new buildings…

Another similar approach is with cars. Everybody shouts for electric cars, and the first are imported now to the Netherlands. And government and cities all announce initiatives for thousands in a few years, and more. However these are all new, with the old ones thrown away. Creating a lot of waste and new steel and fossil energy use. Even if all would be 100 pct recycled, its still a lot of energy involved to melt the steel again and so on. And in the Dutch case the employment is mainly somewhere far abroad. Why does nobody advocate that we should not built new electric cars, but convert existing ones with an electric engine? Its done, here and there, though costly, but on a large scale could be cost effective. It saves huge amount of resources, and provides enormous employment. It's similar as previously mentioned for buildings: its the existing stock that should be used and improved. Otherwise we only consume more, and increase the CO2 emissions, and other environmental burdens.

There are many more examples where sustainability creates jobs and economic activity, like the German PV industry, now already involving 170.000 people. A change to services in stead of products can do the same. ( like local laundries in stead of millions of washing machines. Its even more comfortable.) But nothing of this. Why? It must be as Groucho Marx already years ago concluded : Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.