Category Archives: News

LABC BUILDING EXCELLENCE AWARDS 2020

/

/
Abbots Barn is a finalist for the 2020 LABC awards

BBM are excited to announce that Abbots Barn, completed summer 2019, has be nominated as a finalist for this years LABC Building Excellence Awards.

Category: Best Extension or Alteration to an Existing Dwelling
Winner to be announced: September 2020

Operating at below zero net carbon per annum, the gabled form was designed to sit respectively alongside the existing dwelling with black timber shingles providing a new interpretation of the dwelling’s existing material palette. The aspect of large glazed openings takes advantage of views over the South Downs National Park beyond and the annexe as a whole addresses the clients’ future multi-generational living aspirations.

Thank you to main contractor M B Cable Ltd for their attention to detail in every instance and to energy consultancy Mesh Energy for helping achieve below zero net carbon operation per annum. Excellent results all round!

THE ICARUS COMPLEX MAGAZINE ARTICLE

/

/

“Get the built environment working properly and sort out the Climate & Ecological Emergency” 

The Icarus Complex Magazine

Full article link

Article release date: 19th June 2020 / Issue number 1

Icarus Complex

Duncan’s article “Get the built environment working properly and sort out the Climate & Ecological Emergency” was published in the June edition of The Icarus Complex Magazine. The article discusses Duncan’s stance on the Climate & Ecological Emergency and today’s current situation within the Covid-19 pandemic.

“2019 feels like a very long time ago, and definitely a different world away. The Covid-19 pandemic has forced us humans across Planet Earth to completely change the way we operate in the short, medium, and perhaps the longer terms. Despite the dreadful numbers of people dying, the complete collapse of many corporations and multinational industries, lockdown has allowed many people the opportunity to breathe clean air, see whole mountain ranges for the first time, and hear bird song. The rest of the natural world is appreciating this pause from the normal ravenous appetites we have for consuming raw materials to make stuff which tends to get thrown away – all in the name of the twin corporate gods of growth and progress.”

The full article can be found here.

DUNCAN IS RUNNING FOR A SEAT ON THE RIBA COUNCIL

/

/
Vote for Duncan next week!

We are delighted to announce that Duncan is standing as a candidate for a seat on the RIBA Council later this month. He will be competing against several others for a seat in the South East Region.

“I am standing for as seat on the RIBA Council as a RIBA South East Regional Member to make sure that our positive response to the Climate & Ecological Emergency stays centre stage on the agenda for Practice and Education – and to make sure this knowledge is shared and accessible to all”


Further details on Duncan’s candidate entry can be found here along with more details of the voting process.

THE ARCHITECTURE FOUNDATION – 100 DAY STUDIO

/

/
The Architecture Foundation’s 100 Day Studio

The Architecture Foundation is currently offering daily live online lectures, interviews, building tours and panel discussions. Duncan will be speaking this Thursday between 5:30 pm and 6:30 pm on day 60/100.

Duncan Baker-Brown“As we emerge from months of Covid-19 induced lockdown, architects are now open for business again, with the recent increase in job enquiries and construction sites being open again perhaps giving us all a reason to feel a bit more positive?

However, before we get back to some new form of ‘business as usual’ i.e., before we just buy into the Conservative Government’s ‘Project Speed’, can I ask you to pause and think back to 2019 because it was the year that 90% of UK local authorities pledged to be Net-Zero Carbon by 2030 and around the world over 814,000,000 people now live in regions that have declared a Climate & Ecological Emergency. So how do you square this philosophical and ethical position with the practice of architecture when the built environment is responsible for about 50% of all global CO2e emissions, consumes 50% of all raw materials harvested annually around the world, and is responsible for 60% (120 million tonnes) of the UK’s annual waste?”

Duncan will discuss some solutions to these existential problems this Thursday between 5:30pm and 6:30pm. Join him live via Zoom.

Further information on the 100 Day Studio can be found here.

AA LECTURE TOMORROW – FROM NOW ON: ON THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY

/

/
Duncan will deliver a lecture at The AA tomorrow

Series: AAction lunchtime lectures
When: Wednesday 6th May 2020 at 13:00
Where: The lecture will be show via the AA Zoom channel, click here to join
Audience: Open to the public

Duncan will be giving a lecture at the AA tomorrow entitled From now on: On the circular economy. For full details please visit the AA website here.


“Architects have long shared an intrinsic relationship with carbon. Long in the history, the industry had been following a linear consumption module, which is based on a ‘take, make, and dispose’’ to operate. As our cities are growing, buildings are up in a flashy speed, our remaining resources are facing depletion. In recent years, material economies have risen to the forefront of discussions surrounding architecture’s environmental footprint. However, in order to embrace both the ethos and practice of circular economies, architectural education needs to endeavor and confront the realities of its interface with the consumer market.

Can we redesign the way we make, designing buildings for a circular economy? The resource on our planet is finite. As practicing and future architects, we are facing a transition that should and will happen. A collaborative effort needs to make to acquire a circular economy in which waste and pollution are eliminated while ecosystems are nurtured rather than exploited.

A key lecture accompanied by a panel discussion will explore how the circular economy applies to the built environment and how architectural education can implement its principles, pushing for new and alternative means of production.

The AAction Lunchtime Lectures convene critical thoughts from within the Architectural Association and beyond, spurring discussion around issues central to a climatologically relevant pedagogy”.

EARTH DAY – BHESCo FILM AND DEBATE

/

/
Brighton & Hove Earth Day 2020 – 50th Anniversary Film and Panel Debate

Yesterday was Earth Day and in celebration Duncan was invited by Brighton & Hove Energy Services Co-Op (BHESCo) to join a panel to discuss the climate emergency and how the city can become carbon neutral by 2030.


To watch the full panel debate and BHESCo’s 50th Anniversary Film please click below.

DUNCAN BAKER-BROWN GUEST EDITOR

/

/
Duncan features as Guest Editor of the Week for Futurebuild’s Industry Insider Newsletter

In the midst of unprecedented response to Coronavirus from governments and authorities the world over, Duncan questions how amazing it would be to think this ability to pass legislation, mobilise people and use of resources for good, could lead to a similar effort in tackling the climate emergency and fully addressing the construction industry’s part to play?

His in depth read “Pandemic cities: how will Coronavirus shape urban life?” discusses the lasting impact this global situation may have whilst he also presents his Top 4 News Stories, Opinion Piece of the Week, Quarantine Survival List and reflects upon his Futurebuild 2020 Highlights.

The full Industry Insider Newsletter can be read here for free.