RIBA JOURNAL SEPTEMBER 2017

13/09/2017

BBM featured in this months RIBAJ

Journal Issue: September 2017 Vol124 Issue 09

How can we make energy efficiency sexy?

This months RIBA Journal features an article on the recent Birtley round table discussion.

The lunchtime conversation focused on energy efficiency; with particular attention to what has driven advances in the construction industry, the improvement of energy efficiency in homes/commercial buildings over the past ten years and what is to be expected in the next ten years!

The full article and list of attendees can be found below.

THE RE-USE ATLAS LEWES BOOK LAUNCH

12/09/2017

/ BBM Architects

Join Duncan at the launch of his new book The Re-Use Atlas

Date: 13th October at 19:30

Location: Fitzroy House, Lewes, East Sussex, BN7 2AD

Free entry and licensed bar

Organised in partnership with Lewes District Green Party, Making Lewes and Transition Town Lewes

The Re-Use Atlas: A designer’s guide towards a circular economy

Duncan will speak about some of the inspiring case studies featured in his book. This will be followed by an open debate with several expert panellists, further details on the event can be found below.

The Re-Use Atlas is a highly illustrated ‘atlas’, taking the reader on a journey, via four distinct ‘steps’ (recycling, reuse, reduce, closed loop), from our current ‘linear economy’ towards a system emulating the natural world, i.e, a ‘circular economy’. Featuring over 25 detailed case studies describing design exemplars from the worlds of textile & fashion design, product design, interior architecture, architecture and urban design, its purpose is to show designers how they can successfully navigate and exploit the emerging field of resource management and the circular economy. Each step is supplemented with an in depth interview with an expert who is successfully tackling one or more of these challenges that present all designers today. For more information on the Re-Use Atlas visit our blog which provides an insight into several of the case studies featured in the book.

Rotor’s “Deconstruction” Programme in action

Hi-fi organic compostable tower, by The Living

Recent RIBA Bookshop reviews:

Jonathon Porritt, Founder Director, Forum for the Future

The genius of the human species is pretty much all that stands between us and a steady descent into hell on Earth. Through its uplifting narrative and inspiring case studies, the Re-Use Atlas showcases that genius at work in the material world, grafting elegant, super-efficient and circular solutions onto today’s insanely wasteful, linear economy.

Dr. Caroline Lucas MP

This book is full of positive stories, with tangible examples of projects that will inspire designers young and old to “mine the Anthropocene”. Politicians respond to ideas that have real, demonstrable examples backing them up. The Re-Use Atlas is full of those. I hope people get inspired, take note and take action.

Mark Miodownik Professor of Materials & Society, Director, Institute of Making, UCL

This is an inspirational book on an important topic – I hope it triggers a revolution in design.

BRITISH SCIENCE FESTIVAL 2017

08/09/2017

/ BBM Architects

Tours of the Brighton Waste House

When: Saturday 9th September 2017

Location: 58-67 Grand Parade, Brighton, East Sussex, BN2 0JY

Entry cost: Free

The Brighton Waste House

This years British Science Festival is located in Brighton and co-hosted by both Brighton and Sussex Universities. The festival is running between the 5th and 9th of September. As part of the festival The Brighton Waste House will be open for tours on Saturday 9th. Why not come along and see what all the fuss is about!

“The event was last hosted here in 1983 and is Europe’s longest-standing national event which connects people with scientists, engineers, technologists and social scientists. Tens of thousands of people come together to celebrate the latest developments in science and to engage in open discussion about issues that affect our culture and society. For further details on all events and booking visit the festivals website here.

More about The Waste House:

The brief for this project was to design and construct a permanent academic building that was also an open studio for use by local community groups, businesses, schools & colleges. The ambition was also to construct the building using material discarded by others and crucially to do this including students and other young people in the design and build process; to use these processes as a ‘live’ pedagogic tool.

The Brighton Waste House as it became known was opened in June 2014 and continues to be a ‘live’ on-going research project and permanent new design workshop (it is not a dwelling) focused on enabling open discussion and understanding of sustainable development. It is situated on campus at The University of Brighton’s College for Arts & Humanities at Grand Parade. Designed by Senior Lecturer & Architect Duncan Baker-Brown, together with undergraduate architecture & interior architecture students, this project was built by apprentices from The Mears Group, students from City College Brighton & Hove and The Faculty of Arts as well as volunteers. In all over 350 students helped with the project.

The Brighton Waste House is the first permanent ‘carbon negative’ public building in Europe to be constructed from approximately 90% waste, surplus material & discarded plastic gathered from the construction and other industries, as well as our homes. It has Full Planning & Building Regulations Approvals. It tries to prove “that there is no such thing as waste, just stuff in the wrong place!” The project continues a line of research by BBM considering truly sustainable sources of materials and construction systems, or to be more precise truly ‘circular metabolisms’ that will one day help create a ‘Circular Economy’. Baker-Brown’s experience on this project has enabled him to write a book ‘The Re-Use Atlas: A designers guide towards a Circular Economy’.

One of the main aims of the project was to prove “that there is no such thing and waste, just stuff in the wrong place”. It is also an exercise in truly open accessible collaborative design and construction. This innovative low energy building was constructed completely by students & volunteers as young as 15 years old. Most were around 17 years old.

In addition during the 12 month construction period the Waste House site was visited by more than 750 primary and secondary school pupils, many of which brought their old tooth brushes to help fill the wall cavities. Every pupil attended a presentation about the themes and issues relating to the project (discussed above).

Now an open design research studio, run in partnership with our colleagues delivering the Sustainable Design MA on campus who us it as their teaching studio for two days a week, the Brighton Waste House is be available to schools, colleges and community groups for ‘green’ themed events and any interested parties can join in with sustainable design workshops and events curated by designers, artists, makers, builders, scientists writers-in-residence, whoever is interested.

NATIONAL TRUST CONFERENCE SEPTEMBER 2017

04/09/2017

/ BBM Architects

National Trust South East Conference

This year’s theme “A Spotlight on Forever”

Location: H.G. Wells Conference and Events Centre, Woking

Date: Wednesday 6th September 2017

We are delighted to announce that Duncan will be speaking at this years National Trust South East conference. The theme for this year is “A Spotlight on Forever” and will explore how the National Trust will deliver their strategy in a sustainable way.

Duncan’s talk entitled Designers can save the world will explore several of the case studies featured in his critically acclaimed book “The Re-Use Atlas: A designers guide to the circular economy” and discuss the award winning Brighton Waste House.

TWO PLANNING PERMISSIONS IN ONE WEEK

31/08/2017

/ BBM Architects

Planning permission granted for two challenging sites

Project: Extension and refurbishment works to existing dwelling

Council: Brighton and Hove City Council

We were appointed earlier on this year to explore proposals for refurbishing and extending a detached chalet bungalow in Hove. The clients two previous planning applications for this type of development had been unsuccessful so they were keen for us to work on a scheme that produced a new approach to their original brief.

As a result of major internal alterations and the scale of poor quality roof extensions the current house has retained little of its original character. The gable facing the main road is the only element that has survived these modifications and therefore a distinctive feature of the property.

In light of the two unsuccessful applications we identified the scale, massing and sympathy towards the surrounding context to be principle reasons for refusal. Whilst still achieving the clients requirements, we therefore developed a proposal that sits comfortably within the current street scene and retains the existing gable.

The overall floor area will be increased through an extension to the rear, utilisation of wasted footprint at first floor level and occupation of newly formed loft space at second floor level.

Project: Detached three bedroom detached townhouse with single garage, off street parking and roof terrace

Council: Lewes District Council

We were appointed last year to design a three bedroom townhouse to be situated at the south end of Timberyard Lane in Lewes. The site was challenging, bounded by Morris Road to the north, the Riverdale Development to the west, the river walk to the south and the end of Timberyard Lane to the east. In addition the site lies within the Lewes conservation area as well as the South Downs National Park. With a strong set of site constraints to adhere to we worked closely with both the client and planners to create a successful proposal.

A great deal of design effort went into the massing of the proposition. It was felt the site has a unique and important role as the ‘bookend’ of the Chandlers Wharf development as seen from across the river Ouse and as a culmination of the vista looking down Timber Yard Lane.

The new house would present a three-storey elevation with protruding and setback elements that all help to reduce the mass of the building yet add visual interest. The new dwelling picks up on the bay widths and rhythms generated along by the river elevation of the adjacent Chandlers Wharf development; a symmetrical 35º pitched roof. Meanwhile, the garage will have a flat roof serving the house as an external terrace. The walls will extrude to form the balustrade, but this will be lowered in parts and replaced with a railing, again to break up the mass.

Paying homage to the dark grey bricks of Lewes, mottled grey brick will be used to the plinth zone also extending upwards to provide variation in texture and tone. Panels of flint will be inset within this. Elsewhere the cladding would be western red cedar cladding to tie-in with the new Chandler’s Wharf development. The cladding will be both vertical and horizontal boarded to provide an agreeable visual rhythm. A slate roof finish with matt black integrated PV panels will reduces sun glare and provides a more muted colour tone for inclusion in a conservation area than conventional panels.

Under the Lewes District Council Strategic Flood Risk Assessment the site is located within the area defined as ‘Functional Floodplain’. The result of this is the internal floor finish of the ground floor will be set to 5.45m above ordnance datum and the plinth level/garage designed to flood and be ostensibly flood resilient in construction.

BBM INVITED BACK TO THE ROMNEY MARSH VISITORS CENTRE

23/08/2017

/ BBM Architects

New Romney, Kent

BBM have been invited to look at adding an extension onto their seminal straw bale visitor centre on Romney Marsh in Kent. Finished in 2003, the project is thought to be the first public building in the UK built with straw bale walls. It was also BBM’s first project consciously designed for demolition.

The Marsh landscape is bounded by chalk cliffs to the east and west, Wealden forests to the north, bountiful fields of grain and fantastic volumes of small stones within the 100 square miles of the Marsh itself. The architectural aim of the Romney Marsh Visitors Centre was to fuse these materials into a discernable tectonic language – a new vernacular.

Our original project brief was for a straw bale constructed visitors centre for the recently created SSSi at Romney Marsh. The structure houses an exhibition about the landscapes ecology with a pre-fabricated cabin providing toilet facilities. A stand-alone sewage treatment system with overland flow reed beds forms part of a sustainable drainage system.

Built on a commercially let contract, students with learning disabilities and local residents interested in straw bale construction participated in the build.The specifications focused on reducing manufacturing pollution, minimising resource extraction and reducing delivery distances. The heavy aggregates used on the site came from within a 5 km radius. Copiced chestnut comes from the Kent Weald and straw bales from local farms.

We coined the phrase heterogenous construction to define a design ethos which keeps materials minimally processed and simply assembled to aid future salvage. Almost every constituent part of the project can be reused and in a sense the building has been designed for demolition. The prefabricated toilet block can be relocated to a new site, the English larch frame unbolted and utilised elsewhere, the locally sourced aggregates used in the gabions and the sand/gravel floor slab can be reclaimed like a raw resource and the pre-cast paving slabs lifted and used anew.

The roof is planted with a sedum roof, a thin blanket of drought resistant plants which replicates the land footprint occupied by the building. This keeps the carbon sink and oxygen producing capacity of the site largely unchanged.

Further details on the centre can be found on our project profile page here

NEW BUILD PASSIVHAUS HOUSE IN WADHURST

16/08/2017

/ BBM Architects

Site progress in Wadhurst

Project: New build timber frame house with timber cladding, pitched zinc roofs and single storey green roof to the rear; new external hard standing, drive and garden terrace. The house has been designed to achieve Certified Passivhaus standard of performance and construction.

Location: Wadhurst, East Sussex

Due to existing ground conditions the new dwelling will sit on a one metre deep layer of hardcore which will provide a stable foundation.

The first construction element we have incorporated to specifically target Passivhaus certification was laying the Isoquick ground floor insulation. A new product to BBM, Isoquick is an insulated permanent formwork, providing both the below slab insulation and formwork for the reinforced concrete slab. This has proved to be a precise way of setting out the building, is easy to set up and provides a continuous wrap of insulation.

Over the coming weeks the concrete slab will be poured and the timber frame construction will commence. The timber frame will be sealed with an airtight membrane and complementary products, to achieve an air permeability of 0.5 m3/(h.m2) as opposed to the 10 m3/(h.m2) Building Regulation baseline. This will be a challenge for the team on site and air permeability tests will be undertaken during the construction, whilst the membranes are still accessible, to ensure that any remedial works can practicably be undertaken.