sustainability
With the emphasis currently on dealing with the aftermath of flooding, it’s easy to forget that we should be looking at the causes and solutions. Flooding is nothing new, it’s happened throughout history, but things have been made worse because of the way we’ve interfered with natural landscapes. We’ve constructed vast areas of impermeable surfaces…
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The quality of light has fascinated me since my days at drama school. I trained in technical theatre and saw how changes to the colour and intensity of light can be used to dramatic effect on stage. Lighting has come a long way since then and, in the home, we’ve moved on from the basic…
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Not so long ago home automation was just a fancy way of saying a home had a cabled music system with loudspeakers hidden in the ceilings. Not any more. Today the feel-good factor of buying a home equipped with the latest technology is as much about saving energy as relaxing to a melody. Yes, there’s…
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The other night I pledged to continue promoting sustainability through my writing. Let me explain, I’d been invited along to Centre Point, in London, by the National Trust for the launch of the Fit for the Future Network. This network, created by the Trust together with Ashden, the sustainable energy charity, aims to allow leading…
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The Good Homes Alliance (GHA) aims to be Britain’s leading authority on good homes. With this in mind it launched a primer for a ‘good homes debate’ at its conference last week. The document Get Britain Building Good Homes sets out what it believes is wrong with Britain’s new homes sector and presents ideas for…
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My last visit to the once revolutionary Pompidou Centre in Paris was a long time ago; other buildings associated with Richard Rogers have featured more recently in my life: Lloyds of London, Heathrow Terminal 5, the Millennium Dome, The Leadenhall Building or ‘Cheese Grater’ now rising above the City of London as its tallest building.…
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A lot has been written about overheating in homes recently, especially in relation to energy efficiency measures introduced under the Green Deal. The BBC quotes Prof Chris Goodier, of Loughborough University’s department of civil and building engineering, who “said the risk of overheating had been overlooked in the ‘big rush to insulate and make homes…
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Ensuring that what has been designed is the same as what is being delivered is ever more crucial as we strive to improve the energy efficiency and overall performance of buildings. It’s a subject I explored in the May issue of Show House magazine here while Sofie Pelsmakers offers some useful links on the subject here. Image…
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Incandescent light bulbs (lamps) have illuminated the world for more than a century. They’ve done it in a way that has felt natural in historic interiors and has been flattering to the complexion because traditional tungsten filaments provide a spectrum of light not dissimilar to fire or candlelight. Now they’ve been banned in favour of…
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Capable of cutting costs and energy use, new boilers or appliances can prove a shrewd investment as the Goring Heath Almshouses charity recently discovered. According to a news report, the charity installed a new biomass boiler with the intention of saving as much as £10,000 a year on their heating costs. Currently, the charity supports…
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The use of straw bales for building apparently originated in Nebraska, USA, following the introduction of horse and steam powered bailing machines a century or so ago. Farmers soon saw the value of using bales to built temporary shelters but, having realized their potential to stand up to the weather, they began using them to…
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