Tag Archives: Material banks

DUNCAN BAKER-BROWN DELIVERS AJ100 KEYNOTE DEMANDING ACTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE FROM ARCHITECTS

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Earlier this week, architect and circular economy expert Duncan Baker-Brown gave the keynote speech “Can Architects Save Planet Earth?” at the AJ100 Awards night.

Baker-Brown emphasised that we are at a historic cross-roads; we can either change our attitude towards the environment now or suffer severe consequences in just a few decades. Governments are at last declaring a climate emergency; we may have woken up to our impending doom, but it will take more than stirring declarations to save the day. Decisive, immediate action is required.

Despite such a serious wake-up call, the speech set a positive tone, inspiring the attendees to reconsider how they practice architecture. Baker-Brown covered topics ranging from our unsustainable love for concrete to the idea of designing buildings to be material stores for the future. Although progress has been slow, there is still hope both for the architectural profession and humanity in general. We have the knowledge and power to dramatically reduce the damage we do to the natural world, and to reduce our contributions to global warming.

The keynote speech adds to the ongoing discussion within the profession about architecture’s approach towards tackling climate change. Earlier this year, several RIBA registered architects were arrested during Extinction Rebellion protests, and only a few weeks ago seventeen RIBA Stirling Prize winning architects called on the profession to declare a climate emergency.

Opinion is changing more rapidly than practice, however, which is why Duncan Baker-Brown thought it was essential to set a positive tone and discuss practical ways architects can design with the environment in mind during his keynote address to the AJ100 attendees.

 

WHAT PRACTICAL STEPS CAN ARCHITECTS TAKE TODAY TO REDUCE WHOLE-LIFE CARBON?

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Duncan Baker-Brown lends his expertise to the third in a series of videos by the Architects’ Journal on whole-life carbon.

Speakers include:

Mina Hasman, associate at SOM and member of RIBA Commission on Ethics and Sustainable Development

Hero Bennet, principal sustainability consultant at Max Fordham

Duncan Baker-Brown, director of BBM Sustainable Design

Anthony Thistleton, founder and director of Waugh Thistleton Architects

Simon Sturgis, managing partner at Targeting Zero and chair of RIBA Sustainable Futures Group

Architects can take a number of steps to reduce whole-life carbon in the projects they’re working on, including following the principles of passive design, specifying materials that are long-lasting and renewable, and designing buildings to not only last a long time but to be easily deconstructed in the future and act as ‘material banks’. The way we think about architecture’s impact on carbon should be holistic; we need to move on from seeing the design and construction process as linear and start conceiving it as a circular, closed loop process.

Get in touch with BBM’s new circular economy consultancy, BBM Closing the Loop, to find out how your project could reduce it’s whole-life carbon! Find out more information here.

WHAT POWER DO ARCHITECTS HAVE TO REDUCE WHOLE LIFE CARBON?

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Duncan Baker-Brown speaks on the second in a series of videos by the Architects’ Journal about whole-life carbon in architectural design.

Speakers include:

Michael Pawlyn, director of Exploration Architecture

Duncan Baker-Brown, director of BBM Sustainable Design

Mina Hasman, associate at SOM and member of RIBA Commission on Ethics and Sustainable Development

Simon Sturgis, managing partner at Targeting Zero and chair of RIBA Sustainable Futures Group

Hero Bennet, principal sustainability consultant at Max Fordham

Architects have great agency to address climate change. We specify the materials we use to build with, and have long-standing relationships with the construction supply chain. We also work with a wide range of services and industries, bringing together clients, suppliers of raw materials, and structural and services engineers. We are uniquely placed to champion an environmental agenda to both clients and other building specialists, widening the group of people working together to reduce whole-life carbon.

BBM CELEBRATE GRAND OPENING OF JAMIE’S FARM IN LEWES WITH HRH THE DUCHESS OF CORNWALL

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Following the conversion and extension of an existing farmhouse into accommodation for residential workshops, BBM celebrated the grand opening of Jamie’s Lewes Farm in style alongside special guest HRH the Duchess of Cornwall, charity founder Jamie Feilden, charity trustee Peter Clegg, and other members of the project team.BB

Jamie’s Farm is a charity that combines therapy and farming for disadvantaged young people. Children from all over the country participate in a 5 day residential experience geared towards improving self-esteem and behaviour, and preventing school exclusions. The Lewes residence is their fourth farm, and features stunning views of the South Downs.

BBM took a complex site and carefully rationalised it to serve the needs of Jamie’s Farm. A grade II listed farmhouse was converted into a communal living space, old offices within an agricultural square were converted into flats for staff, and other agricultural areas were repaired until they were able to support a working farm again!

Some of the Jamie’s Farm Ambassadors, who had stayed at the farm during its soft opening period earlier in the year, also attended the event to show the guests what they had learned at their stay there.

For more information on Jamie’s Farm, please click here.

ARCHITECTS’ JOURNAL FEATURES DUNCAN BAKER-BROWN IN WHOLE-LIFE CARBON VIDEOS

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In a series of short videos, the AJ asked experts in sustainable design why whole-life carbon is important for architects to think about in their day-to-day work.

Our director and the author of The Re-Use Atlas: A Designer’s Guide To The Circular Economy, Duncan Baker-Brown, gives his thoughts on designing sustainably in these clips. The first video in the series asks why whole life carbon matters for architects.

Speakers include:

Duncan Baker-Brown, director of BBM Sustainable Design

Hero Bennet, principal sustainability consultant at Max Fordham

Michael Pawlyn, director of Exploration Architecture

Mina Hasman, associate at SOM and member of RIBA Commission on Ethics and Sustainable Development

Anthony Thistleton, founder and director of Waugh Thistleton Architects

We have less than twelve years to radically change our approach towards the environment, and avert an increase in global warming above 1.5C, which will cause huge consequences for millions of lives. Individuals making sure to recycle and use canvas shopping bags is not making a big enough impact; we need entire industries to completely overhaul how they operate. The UK construction industry contributes at least 40% of the UK’s entire carbon footprint. Architects are therefore in a unique position to contribute towards reducing our carbon footprint, because we decide exactly what materials our built environment is made of and where they come from. As Duncan Baker-Brown, director of BBM Sustainable Design says, “That’s why it matters, we’re right in the middle of the problem.”

UNMAKING WASTE 2018 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

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Buildings as material banks: Designing for perceptual re-use

When: 20th-23rd September 2018

Registration link

Location: University of South Australia (UniSA)

Buildings as material banks: Designing for perceptual re-use When: September 20-23 2018 Registration link Location: University of South Australia (UniSA) 
In September Duncan will be a keynote speaker at “The Unmaking Waste 2018” international conference. The conference will be hosted by the China-Australia Centre for Sustainable Urban Development and the University of South Australia.

“Building upon the achievements of our first conference, Unmaking Waste: Transforming Production and Consumption in Time and Place (May 2015), Unmaking Waste 2018 will be focused on the problem of consumption itself, and its role in increasing emissions, resource depletion and environmental degradation. The following themes will be addressed from a multidisciplinary perspective:

  1. Eco-Design and Development:
    Designing, defining and managing objects, buildings, precincts and systems to reduce resource and energy use, and thus increase environmental and human well-being.
  2. Sustainable Consumption:
    Transforming behaviour, social practices, everyday consumption and service provision, including marketing, to better suit a resource-constrained, environmentally challenged world.
  3. Waste Minimization:
    Reducing waste and pollution at all scales, in all domains and activities, and in all places, and transforming this waste and pollution into states of greater value for reuse.
  4. Circular Economy:
    Optimizing social, material and economic relations and the value of goods and services to further the goals of the Circular Economy, including product and environment life-extension, reuse and repair.”

Further details on the event can be found here.