Mon 10 Mar 2008
Leading the way
While it is called an Innovation Park, BRE's demonstration homes actually exist in order to promote sustainability. Roger Hunt reports.Visit the BRE Innovation Park at Watford and it becomes clear just how effectively some parts of the housebuilding industry and its supply chain are reacting to the need to provide more sustainable homes. Here are exemplars proving what collaboration, lateral thinking, research and imaginative design can achieve when people are challenged, encouraged and given the opportunity to create affordable, quality homes that address the zero carbon challenge.
The Innovation Park grew out of the BRE's Offsite 2003 event when it became clear that the industry needed full-scale demonstration buildings to showcase innovative and sustainable solutions to the built environment. What has been demonstrated since is the speed with which change has occurred both in innovation and perception. The first buildings on the Park were fairly conventional in appearance and, although incorporating innovative systems, fell short of addressing the sustainability issues that are now so important. In June 2005 the then Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, relaunched the Innovation Park and today it features seven demonstration buildings - including a school - showcasing modern methods of construction (MMC), off-site manufacture and low carbon and renewable technology. There are over 200 different innovative and emerging technologies suppliers showcased and, since its opening, some 20,000 people, including architects and housebuilders, have visited.
Jaya Skandamoorthy, the BRE's director of enterprise and innovation, believes that one of the values of the Park is that it helps change perceptions. A key reason that the first three houses to be built on the park looked conventional was that, at the time, anything that appeared unconventional was seen as a high risk for lenders and insurers.
"Mortgage lenders were very nervous about all these new innovations coming on stream that were potentially going to compromise or have an effect on how they value property. What we wanted to show was that actually you can have a conventional looking building but very innovative technology," explains Skandamoorthy.
To get this message across the BRE has undertaken numerous tours of the Park with mortgage lenders, insurers and warranty providers to give them confidence that these are not "wacky" new technologies but, in many cases, traditional technologies using innovative processes or new techniques.
"It's helping the industry to another level of understanding so that they can make a more informed decision," says Skandamoorthy. "I would say the majority of lenders are now much more comfortable with more contemporary buildings because they don't now see that as an issue of security on their loan."
Today a new generation of buildings has replaced the early houses at Watford. The first of these is the Osborne Demonstration House which was built before the Code for Sustainable Homes was launched but, none the less, pushes the boundaries of sustainable affordable housing and supply chain integration.
Constructed in just one and a half days using the Jabhouse structural insulated panel system (SIPs), it exceeds current Part L requirements for carbon emissions by 40 per cent and is ten times more airtight than the regulations require. As a consequence, it needs two thirds less energy for heating and cooling than a house constructed to 2006 building regulations. It is worth remembering that at the time the house was built this was hugely significant. In 2005 and early 2006 the revision to Part L was highly topical and represented a steep change for the industry.
The gains were achieved through the use of super insulated walls to achieve a U-value of 0.15 W/m2K or better, triple glazed windows, a whole house ventilation unit with heat recovery and solar panels for hot water heating.
The brief given to Osborne was that the house should look contemporary and very different from the earlier buildings within the Park and also that it should achieve EcoHomes 'very good' rating - it actually achieved 'excellent'. All the subsequent houses were required to achieve at least level 3 within the Code for Sustainable Homes.
Skandamoorthy makes it clear that the wider brief for the buildings that have followed is that they should have a high level of sustainability. "The goal shouldn't be innovation, the goal should be delivering greater sustainability but innovation is a tool for delivering that. People get too excited by all this new technology and they think that is the goal. You can do a huge amount even before you start to look at low carbon and renewable technologies. Good design, good building, good detailing and orientation, can have a huge impact."
The Kingspan Lighthouse net-zero carbon home has embraced all this and more. Impressive levels of efficiency, in terms of the construction method, energy use, CO2 emissions and carbon footprint, all play their part while renewable energy technologies include a biomass boiler, solar thermal panels and photovoltaics.
Eye-catching in its external design, the 93.3m2, two and a half storey, two-bedroom house is designed in line with Lifetime Homes and Scheme Development Standards. The highly insulating, airtight building fabric has been designed to provide generous daylight levels and includes solar control, together with integrated building services which include water efficiency techniques, passive cooling and ventilation as well as mechanical ventilation with heat recovery.
Designed to achieve Code level 5 the Sigma Home, by the timber frame manufacture Stewart Milne Group, also employs high levels of insulation and demonstrates a range of renewable and low carbon technologies including phase change materials which are solid at room temperature but, when the temperature becomes warmer, soften and absorb and store heat, thus cooling the house.
Within the Innovation Park the Sigma Home is presented as two semi-detached homes. One is fully furnished, the other is a 'blank canvas' to highlight the technology and flexibility of the design with cutaways to illustrate such things as floor and wall construction. Roof mounted wind turbines are one of the sources of renewable energy.
Unsurprisingly, the Hanson House brings together many of the latest developments in sustainable
construction using masonry materials. Off-site fabrication, together with thermal mass and natural ventilation, assists in the objective of achieving Code level 4. The design includes a ventilating roof lantern to enhance natural air currents by means of the 'stack effect'. 'Smart' building solutions technology enables the remote operation of heating, lighting, energy monitoring and security provision.Across the Park's landscaped central area, which incorporates examples of sustainable drainage solutions, is Eco-Tech's 'Organics' Swedish modular home which was also designed to achieve Code level 4. It is constructed using the 'eco-Pod' concept, a range of off-site manufactured pods that can be organised to deliver a range of housing mixes and which mean the house can be built and finished in as little as 11 days.
Still under construction at the time of writing, the latest building to join those within the Innovation Park is the Barratt zero carbon 'Green House', designed by architects Gaunt Francis. Voted for by some 22,000 people, the design won the Home for the Future competition which challenged architects and developers to produce a mainstream house type with reduced carbon emissions as part of the British Homes Awards sponsored by NHBC and the National Centre for Excellence in Housing.
Aircrete wall panels and pre-cast concrete floor slabs have been employed in the construction of the house and an air source heat pump will supply its heating needs. Automatic window shutters, controlled by an 'occupier system', will help prevent over-heating during the summer. Clothes drying will be achieved at the head of the stairs using warm air rising through the house. Thanks to these features, there will be no need for standard household appliances such as a tumble drier or radiators.
Hot water is to be supplied by a solar hot water system on the roof while photovoltaic panels on the south-facing roof and the adjacent building will simulate a district power supply. A rainwater harvesting system is to be used to provide water to flush the lavatories.
The Green House is designed to meet Code level 6 and Barratt promise that it will be the subject of rigorous scientific testing over a two-year period to assess every aspect of the design, construction and materials. Ultimately the company plans to take the most successful aspects of the design and apply them to homes that it builds in future.
This, of course, is very much the key to the BRE Innovation Park. As Skandamoorthy emphasises, it is all about taking and learning from the best elements of each of the buildings and technologies. "It is not to say you have to build it like this, it is really to come here and learn about the design, about the innovations, about the issues, about what one needs to grapple with so you can go away and make more informed decisions on your own projects."
First published in Show House Magazine March 2008.
The greatest care has been taken to ensure accuracy but some information contained within this article may have changed since it was first published.
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