Sustainable design – ‘more than insulation and energy saving gadgets’

In the first of a series of articles by guest writers on aspects of sustainability, Mike Mackenize argues that sustainability extends into supporting holistic lifestyles, designing functional and enjoyable communities and building for the long term.

These articles – which will be interspersed with features on and by the architects who designed the public buildings shortlisted for the New-build non-residential category in the  Argyll Sustainable Design Awards 2009 – are designed to inform and provoke. So here you go – let Mike Mackenzie start the informing and the provoking.

‘Sustainability is a word which is on everyone’s lips these days but it is used so often and so loosely that I wonder if it has not become degraded – easily and often said but somehow meaningless.

‘Applied to the design of buildings, at first thought it seems to be a simple concept that implies packing in some extra insulation and bolting on some kind of energy generating or energy saving gadget.

‘Insulation of course makes a great deal of sense. Insulation is for life, or at least for the lifespan of the building. Some of the gadgets though, will break down long before they have paid for themselves. The principle of caveat emptor, (let the buyer beware) holds just as true now as when the Romans first coined the phrase.

‘Sustainable design though, is and ought to be, a much wider concept than this.

‘Part of this is design that supports a prudent way of living which seeks to minimise waste. In many ways this is just reinventing the wheel for our forefathers did this instinctively.

‘This way of thinking needs to extend beyond the design of individual buildings into the design of villages, towns and cities and into the domain of the town and country planners.

‘We have to stop thinking about building houses and start thinking again about building communities.

‘These have to be communities where people, for example, can make choices to walk or cycle to work. Good design can facilitate this and make it safe and pleasurable to do so.

‘Our weather and climate pose a challenge in this. The Norwegians say, ‘there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing’. We should view this as a design challenge both for clothing manufacturers and for those who design the places we live in. Our prevailing rain bearing winds are South-westerly. It cannot be beyond the wit of our designers to design our paths, pavements and walkways in such a way as they are sheltered.

‘There is more to life though, than work and walking to and from the place where it is done. Sustainable design has to consider those other aspects of life that are just as important.

‘The design of communities has to include provision for recreation, for social life and for fun. The design of communities needs to embrace every aspect of life and to facilitate high quality and healthy lifestyles. Too often bad design is an impediment to this rather than something which supports and makes it easy for us to live easily and well.

‘Enlightened planners the world over already know this. Their challenge is to get from where we are now to where we need to be in terms of reshaping our built environment and infrastructure.

‘In some places this challenge is formidable. In Argyll and Bute it is relatively easy because we have retained the form and structure of our Victorian and pre Victorian towns and settlements. Those forebears of ours knew a thing or two about sustainability for they built a sophisticated society that was largely powered by wind and water and horses and they built places that were centred around people.

‘In terms of our dwelling houses and places of work, sustainable design is about efficiently supporting us in what we do inside and outside these buildings.

‘Home working is an important development which suits some kinds of employment. All the evidence suggests that those who work from home are more productive. All the evidence suggests that those who work from home enjoy a better work life balance. Dickensian employers resist this. They like to have workers under their noses. Children of the future will laugh at them as they read their history books. There should be no place in the twenty first century for latter day Luddites.

‘This implies continually improving broadband access and speed. This is expensive but not as expensive as continually building and repairing roads and cars, buying fuel for them, heating offices and the whole cost equation of those who commute to and from work, doing jobs that can easily be done from home.

‘The real cost equation in terms of sustainability is the energy equation.

‘Our homes and workplaces need to be more energy efficient. ‘Smart buildings’, where energy usage is computer controlled, waste is minimised and temperature adjusted to suit our needs, are just around the corner.

‘Another growing idea is that our homes should encompass our whole life needs. The design of a starter home might easily allow an extension as children are born. The extension might later become a granny flat or be let out to a lodger.Houses are bought and sold on the market but perhaps homes ought to be for life. This may not suit everyone but it may suit some.

‘There is a persistent myth that good design and a high quality built environment costs more and are unaffordable.

‘Once again our forefathers knew better. Consider the Glasgow tenements, the Edinburgh New Town, all those public and civic buildings built initially at great cost but whose longevity has been such that they have provided superb value for money. It is not the upfront cost that we should consider but the cost of ownership per annum. It is cheaper by far to build one good quality building that lasts a hundred years or more than to build and demolish three cheaper buildings over this same timescale.

‘Sustainable design means recognising that we cannot support high quality lifestyles with poor quality design and buildings. This takes a certain amount of confidence. Sustainability is not so much about ‘smart buildings’ as about smart people having the confidence to make smart and prudent decisions.

‘Sustainability as a concept is really about common sense. We just need the wisdom to apply it’.

Mike Mackenzie – Easdale Island Community Green Streets Project team.

Mike Mackenzie is a builder and the SNP candidate for the Argyll & Bute Westminster seat at the next General Election. His profession, his philosophy and his politics meet in his concern for real progress in improving Scotland’s  energy efficiency. It’s an issue of which he has long experience and on which he knows what he’s talking about.

The photograph illustrating this article is by copyright holder Shadokat and reproduced here under the GNU Free Documentation licence. It shows a piece of sheeps’ wool insulation – installing the best insulation is the energy efficient action Mike Mackenzie argues is future proofed.

Sheeps’ wool insulation provides both thermal and acoustic insulation. It’s a natural, sustainable, renewable, recyclable material. It does not harm health or environment. It’s crimped nature traps air in millions of little pockets. It has an R-value (resistance to heat flow) of around 3.5 to 3.8 per inch of its thickness. This  is 0.3 to 0.6 points higher than fibreglass, cellulose, or mineral wool. Moreover, the natural crimpedness of the material allows it to retain its structure and overall thickness instead of collapsing ad flattening like many other insulating materials do.

Is anyone in Argyll making sheeps’ wool insulation? It looks like a good business fit for this place. Please let us know.

VOTE in the Argyll Sustainable Design Forum’s online voting in hte Sustainable Design Awards. Closing date is 27th November.

You don’t have to live in Argyll to vote so, whether or not you do, if you haven’t voted yet, refresh your memory on the finalists in each of the 3 voting categories by clicking on our coverage of each – linked below. Here you can find out more about them and see the four photographs published on each entry.

Sustainable Design Awards categories and finalists are:

• Small scale residential category (single houses to schemes up to 5 units)
• Large scale residential category
• New build non-residential category (public buildings)

You will also be interested in the initial article on Argyll’s new Sustainable Design Awards, on the Sustainable Design Forum whose initiative has launched them and in other articles on sustainable design projects – all in our archive of articles on sustainable design projects.