'killing machines'

Architects are creating toxic 'killing machines'

Sustainability expert William McDonough warns of over-focusing on carbon neutrality

Architects are creating “killing machines” by not considering the toxicity of the materials used in buildings, America’s leading sustainability expert William McDonough said this week.

Speaking to BD on Tuesday at the ParkCity conference in London, organised by Cabe and Natural England, architect and author McDonough said the emphasis on reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions was skewing the sustainable agenda.

“I’m amazed there’s so much focus on carbon, yet [architects are still] using toxic materials,” he said. “It’s a nightmare — you’re effectively delivering a killing machine. We have to put as much focus on materials as on energy.”

His practice, William McDonough & Partners, has worked on UK projects including the unbuilt National Science Museum in Swindon, and a conceptual design for a new town in Rugby.

And he featured in Vanity Fair’s 2008 power-ranking top 100, alongside figures such as Vladimir Putin and Rupert Murdoch.

His comments were hailed by some British experts but greeted with caution by the UK Green Building Council.

Michael Pawlyn, who worked on the Eden Project while at Grimshaw and is now principal at Exploration Architecture, said: “There is a danger we could get too carbon-focused. We need to move to a closed-loop model, and that’s not necessarily the lowest carbon model. It’s a daunting challenge, it sounds major alarm bells with the coatings industry — paint and PVC are almost inevitably going to end up as pollution.”

Technical director of BRE Global Alan Yates agreed. “Carbon neutrality has come to the fore because of government initiatives and protocols from the EU,” he said. “You need to take account of the other issues, and toxicity should be an integral part of that.”

David Strong, chief executive of sustainability consultancy Inbuilt and the former managing director of BRE Environment, said the comments echoed what he had been saying for a decade.

“It’s great someone as high profile as Bill McDonough has raised this issue, but this is about more than about just carbon and materials,” he said. “Buildings can be zero-carbon but fraught with other problems. It’s the law of unintended consequences — if the air quality in a school is so bad, because it’s so airtight, that all the kids are falling asleep, that’s not a sustainable outcome.”

But the UK Green Building Council warned the importance of cutting carbon could not be underestimated.

A spokesman said: “Climate change is the priority. We should be very wary of taking our eye off the zero-carbon ball — it’s a global climate emergency.”

The UKGBC has also dismissed calls by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors last week for the government to revise its target to make all new homes zero-carbon by 2016.

http://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=426&storycode=3137110&c=2

Greening towns and cities needs to be part of the Green New Deal, as much as technology

A major shift of public money towards the greening of towns and cities is needed, to tackle both climate change and the recession and create places we all want to live in.

With the next budget fast approaching, CABE and Natural England are calling on the government to prioritise funding for green assets such as parks, trees and open spaces.

The two government advisors on urban design and the natural environment are organising a conference this week which will start a debate about how we can create more liveable places.

They argue that since we are faced with two urgent and fundamental challenges – climate change and the recession – investment in grey and green infrastructure needs to be rebalanced.

The spend on grey schemes, like building and expanding roads, is out of kilter with spend on assets like street trees and parks and green spaces, and the public funding pot cannot be realistically expected to fully accommodate both.

Richard Simmons, CABE chief executive, points out that we have to redesign our towns and cities in response to the imperative of climate change. Design is the signal of intent - and the intention of urban design should be to reduce, absorb and capture more carbon dioxide.

“Greening towns and cities needs to be part of the Green New Deal, as much as technology” he says.

http://www.cabe.org.uk/news/green-cities-and-tackle-recession

SuiteNY

SUITE NY is carring these awesomely sleek Zeitraum beds, made from eco-friendly materials. The fact that they look like they are floating is pretty awesome, too.

http://suiteny.com/

http://design-milk.com/zeitraum-beds/

GWIIN

Global Women Inventors & Innovators Network (GWIIN)

a subsidiary of the Professional Family Woman's Network Ltd based in the United Kingdom, is a global network which aims to increase the number of innovative women embracing enterprise. We work with Government departments, leading industry experts, voluntary organisations, enterprises and educational institutions.

The goal is simply to find effective ways of bringing support, assistance, tools, advice and information to assist women in achieving significant growth in their businesses. 

http://www.gwiin.com/

2009 Open Architecture Challenge: Classroom

Teachers and students know what makes a classroom work. We're inviting you to design the classroom of the future together.

According to the World Bank, educating all children worldwide will require the construction of 10 million new classrooms in more than 100 countries by 2015. At the same time, millions of existing classrooms are in serious need of repair and refurbishment.

Let's get started.

We are inviting you, teachers, students, architects and designers, to work together to design the classroom of the future for a school of your choosing. Your design should address the unique challenges your school faces in trying to provide smart, safe and sustainable learning spaces. Students and teachers, here's your chance to tell the world what you need to make your classroom more effective. Architects and designers, you'll work one-on-one with students to translate those needs into better classroom design.

• Share your design expertise and inspire school students to re-imagine their classroom
• Help students learn about the built environment using a companion design curriculum
• Become an advocate for better classroom design in your community

Jurors currently includes Dave Eggers, Michelle Kaufmann, Hilary Cottam, Kigge Hvid and others. More will be added over the course of the registration period.

If your design wins, your school will receive up to $50,000 in funding for classroom construction and upgrading. You will receive a grant of $5,000 to help them do it.

http://www.openarchitecturenetwork.org/competitions/challenge/2009

Re:Vision DALLAS

Re:Vision is a revolutionary initiative to create the prototype for an innovative, sustainable urban community. At the heart of the process is a series of contests generating visionary ideas for what can and should be in the design about urban space.

The City of Dallas and Urban Re:Vision present Re:Vision DALLAS in partnership with Central Dallas CDC and BC Workshop.

What if everything we knew and believed about design needed to change? What if we need to change along with it?

It’s a provocative idea, but one Re:Vision has been delving into for the past two years. Our series of competitions have searched for ideas and plans that can redefine urban space in a restorative way. We have focused on the city block because it is a microcosm of systems and relationships, and requires an integration and imagination that transcends beyond a single building.

The challenges—and opportunities—on this scale are incredible. And we’re looking for visionary thinking to take them on.

Re:Vision Dallas is a chance to propel design beyond the typical, beyond the norm and to lay the foundation for a future of sustainable development we all hope is inevitable. It’s a chance to create a block that does no harm, to people or place. A chance to encourage and value relationships, while fostering respect for nature and our neighbors, privacy and resources, economy and consumption. It’s a chance to change how we live and connect, how we interact and collaborate—how we live in a space throughout our life and the lifecycle of the space.

http://www.urbanrevision.com/competitions/revision-dallas

Prove A Point

The Omrania l CSBE Student Award for Excellence in Architectural Design . Prove A Point

After having had a successful launch in 2008, Omrania and Associates (O&A) and the Center for the Study of the Built Environment (CSBE) have expanded the Student Award for Excellence in Architectural Design beyond the boundaries of Jordan by widening eligibility to include students from all Arab countries. The award, which is given to the most outstanding submitted architectural graduation projects, aims at recognizing quality in the teaching of architecture in the Arab world, and at encouraging students in Arab architectural schools to excel in their design performance.

The monetary value of the award’s prizes also have been increased and will consist of the following:

First Prize of 3500 USD

Second Prize of 2500 USD

Third Prize of 1500 USD

Eligibility

Eligibility for the award will be restricted to final-year students for a Bachelor’s Degree in Architecture or Architectural Engineering at universities located in countries belonging to the Arab League. Applicants should have successfully completed and defended their final-year architectural design graduation project before the award’s submission deadline.

Additional Information

Details regarding submission format, submission dates, jury members, etc. will be published on this website in March 2009.

http://www.csbe.org/awards/omrania_csbe_2009award.html