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Print articleThe Government is telling us that we need to be building sustainable and environmentally friendly homes and commercial premises, but CABE has found that though the public sector is making great strides with their own developments they are asking ?how far is the UK really moving in the right direction, and what needs to happen to speed up the process? for the private sector?
There are certainly seeds of hope. The shortlist for the 2007 Prime Minister's Better Public Building Award, announced in Architecture Week by culture secretary Tessa Jowell, reveals how the public sector is leading on environmental innovation. Many of the shortlisted projects include features like rainwater irrigation, recyclable building materials, and green heating and cooling systems.
Other public projects with sustainability at their core include the Cardboard Building, Westcliff on Sea and the Ecology and Arts Pavilions, Mile End Park.
Some private sector housebuilders are showing the way, too. CABE's Building for Life initiative recognises excellence in housebuilding design, and in recent years pioneering schemes have included Bed Zed in Sutton, Selwyn Street, Oldham, Greenwich Millennium Village and Angell Town, Lambeth.
CABE says:
?Hundreds of proposals for new developments across England pass through our design review service for comment each year, and CABE is finally seeing schemes that are striving to be zero carbon through use of renewable energy.?
In the past 12 months, the service, led by a panel of experts, has seen some ambitious schemes including Woodberry Down, Hackney, featuring renewable-fuelled heat and power; Bath Western Riverside, incorporating 'embedded sustainability'; and the masterplan for Middlehaven, Middlesbrough.
These schemes will go way beyond anything achieved so far in the UK. However, ?they feel the exception rather than the norm.?
Deborah Denner, design review advisor at CABE, said:
?It is fair to say that we are still seeing too few private sector developments with sustainability at their core.?
This is despite the fact that many large-scale masterplans will have to achieve 'level 6' of the Code for Sustainable Homes by 2016, according to the government's consultation document Building a greener future: towards zero carbon development.
Deborah Denner added:
?Local authorities and design teams do have to consider the carbon impact of proposals they see. But the problem is that most local authorities, and many developers, would struggle to know what is needed to put zero-carbon development into place now. And the commercial reality of a competitive market means that few developers will go any further than they have to.
?As long as the planning system requires only a minimal level of commitment to sustainability, it is to be expected that only a minority will go beyond this. So part of the answer lies with strengthening planning guidance.?
But there is another common thread to the most sustainable schemes, such as Middlehaven and Woodberry Down. That is close involvement by the local authority, and strong leadership from it. This is especially important at the pre-application stage.
For the time being, though, CABE acknowledge that many of the best examples of sustainable design, particularly at the masterplanning scale, are to be found abroad. These include Malmo Bo01 'City of Tomorrow', Sweden; Hammarby, a truly green development that responds to its waterside context and Vauban, Germany, which draws heavily on community involvement.
