Welcome to the Digital Edition of BSD.

If you click on or pull over the corners of the

magazine the page will turn.

You can Zoom into the page by clicking

your mouse, you will be able to zoom in further if
your mouse has a wheel in the centre. To zoom out
click the page again.

All Email and Web links are live, if you click on

them your browser will open a new window to that
link.

This Digital Edition will allow you to Search, Print,

Email articles to a friend, download a single page
or the whole issue as a pdf.

Below is the Menu Bar and a explanation of each

Icon.
Table of contents
Email
Search Turn page Print

Crop a area to email Down load PDF

Home page Type in page to a friend
number

Enjoy this months Digital Edition.

 BSD2 cover.qxp 13/02/2009 14:02 Page 1

BUILDING SUSTAINABLE DESIGN MARCH 2009 | VOL 1 N0 2

WROCLAW ROCKS
Sinuous new
development puts
Poland’s fourth
largest city on an
upward curve

PLUS
Giant greenhouses
in Singapore
Plants tackle
pollution in Delhi
Sir John Harman on
the Green Crunch

NEWS ROUND-UP
LEGAL/PROFESSIONAL
ARE YOU READY FOR THE CRC?
LIQUID DESICCANT COOLING
WORKING ABROAD

LOW ENERGY SOLUTIONS FOR ENGINEERS

MARCH 2009 | £8 | VOL 1 N0 2
WWW.BSDLIVE.CO.UK
 LEADER 03

ANDY PEARSON Is it time for designers to walk away from a project that
could be branded unsustainable? When newspapers
EDITOR such as the Daily Mail start criticising the “huge
WHEN TO WALK carbon footprint” of Dubai residents, it’s a reflection of
how much public awareness and attitudes towards the
environment have changed.
The Mail made the reference in a report on
plans to refrigerate a beach in the Emirate “so filthy
rich holidaymakers don’t burn their feet on scorching
sand”. Although the developer claims the beach will be
environmentally sustainable, such an energy-profligate
concept is an easy target for criticism.
How long before other schemes, such as ski
slopes in the desert, come in for similar derision,
perhaps jeopardising a consultant’s chances of
working for environmentally committed
organisations?
Editor Address
Of course sustainability is not just about the
Andy Pearson Ludgate House, 245 Blackfriars Road environment; social and economic issues are equally
Print and online reporter London SE1 9UY
Krystal Sim Switchboard important, as most design teams would be quick to
Art editor
Mark Bergin
020 7560 4000
Editorial fax point out. Take, for example, the cooled greenhouses
Subeditors
Gail Novelle
020 7560 4314
Advertising
that are the centrepiece of the Gardens by the Bay
Teresa Merrigan 020 7560 4424 scheme in Singapore (pages 24-28). An air-conditioned
Editorial secretary Advertising fax
020 7560 4117 020 7560 4008 greenhouse seems the antithesis of environmental
Editorial advisory panel
Patrick Bellew, Martin Clowes,
Email
bsdeditorial@ubm.com awareness. Yet it is hard to see how Atelier Ten could
Doug King, Matthew Kitson,
Roger Madelin, Barry Nugent,
Website
www.bsdlive.co.uk
have designed the services for this project to be any
Tanya Ross, Ken Shuttleworth, more sustainable. A convincing case is made that the
Rajesh Sinha, Lynne Sullivan, To apply for your free copy of
Peter Williams Building Sustainable Design, visit scheme will be a colourful amenity for high-rise-
Deputy commercial director
Gemma Butler
www.bsdlive.co.uk/register
For subscriptions, circulation and change dwelling local residents and that the gardens should
National sales director
Nicole Rinaldi
of address enquiries, contact CDS Global
on 01858 438770
help attract valuable tourist dollars to the area. And
Business development manager then there’s the all-important argument that the
Carlo Menezes The views expressed in this journal are
National area manager not necessarily those held by the scheme will generate fees for the UK-based design
Richard Tomlin
Area managers
publishers. The publishers shall not be
under any liability whatsoever in respect team. The same points could, no doubt, be trotted out
Ross Matthews
Mike Nelson
of the contents of contributed articles or
the content of any external websites
in defence of the refrigerated beach.
Catherine Wimhurst referred to in articles. The editor reserves The challenge for designers is to ensure that
Dawn Robinson the right to edit, abridge or alter articles
Cameron Marshall for publication. these less obvious but equally valid justifications are
National key account manager
Martin Hurn Building Sustainable Design is published heard alongside the environmental arguments in the
Key account managers
Nathan Easom
by UBM Built Environment. Repro by
ITM Publishing Services. Printed by public appraisal of a scheme. In the global downturn it
Oliver Hughes St Ives plc. is unlikely any firm can afford to turn down the
Daniel Woods
Advertisement secretary
©All editorial contents UBM Built
Environment 2009. ISSN 2040-0500
opportunity for work. But with growing public
020 7560 4117
Advertisement production awareness of sustainability issues, designers should
Chris Langford 020 7560 4133
Group recruitment manager
beware of allowing their names to become linked to
Katie Ogle 020 7560 4333 environmental white elephants.
Group marketing manager
Harriet Ohta 020 7921 8589
Publisher
Andrew Pert
Group director
Nina Wright
Chief executive officer
Adrian Barrick

BSD is a sister publication of

ISSUE 02 / BSD MARCH 2009

 04 CONTENTS

10
NEWS & OPINION

07 NEWS REVIEW
HOORAY FOR HOLYROOD
Ten-year-old Scots Parliament design gains
an energy performance certificate B rating

FULL AHEAD FOR MARY ROSE MUSEUM

Planning permission granted for gallery
displaying the Tudor warship’s history

INTERNATIONAL
Azerbaijan • UAE • China NEWS IN PICTURES
FIVE-STAR SERVICES
The curvaceous mixed-use development
sure to become a landmark in Poland’s
fourth largest city

24
FEATURES

BUILDING ANALYSIS
COOL RUNNINGS
Crazy but true: how two air-conditioned
greenhouses in Singapore are set to
become exemplars of sustainable design

48
TECHNICAL

TECHNICAL FOCUS
CUT AND DRIED
How desiccants will help keep Singapore’s
two giant greenhouses cool

BSD MARCH 2009 / ISSUE 02


13 NEWS ANALYSIS
THE GREAT BRITISH REFURB
The government’s strategy to make
existing housing more energy efficient
17 OPINION
LET’S MAKE IT QUITE CLEAR
Lend Lease’s Daniel Labbad on why a new
code for sustainable buildings will benefit
the industry and the environment
32
PEOPLE
SIR JOHN HARMAN
The former head of the Environment
Agency on where the government is going
wrong and Jeremy Clarkson right
54
51 LIGHTING
NICE BUT DIM
Why considering the effects of lamp
spectral power distribution could help
designers reduce lighting loads without
plunging occupants into gloom
SPECIAL FEATURE:
WORKING ABROADXXXX
Why now is a good time to pack your bags
WWW.BSD4JOBS.COMXX
Cundall, Honeywell, Isle of Anglesey,
Lancashire County Council and more…XX
CONTENTS 05
20 PRACTICE
PROFESSIONAL: ENHANCE YOUR
ONLINE PRESENCE
BSD’s resident web expert gives some
pointers on how to get your firm’s website
top of the search engines
LEGAL: INSOLVENCY IN THE
CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY
The measures your business needs to put in
place to protect it from firms in jeopardy
36 MARKET VALUES
How a new lighting scheme has
transformed the interior of London’s
historic Spitalfields market
39 IT’S IN THE POST
Who will be affected by the Carbon
Reduction Committment when it comes
into effect next year?
43 JEEPERS CREEPERS
The new office building planned for Delhi
that uses plants to absorb pollution, heat
and noise and to provide oxygen for the
occupants
62 WWW.BSDLIVE.CO.UK
Ben Smith’s digital world and what BSD’s
bloggers are saying
ISSUE 02 / BSD MARCH 2009

INDUSTRY UPDATE
Holyrood EPC belies its age
The Scottish Parliament building
in Edinburgh has received an
energy performance certificate
(EPC) rating of B, despite being
NEWS&OPINION
designed more than 10 years ago.
David McEwan, director of IES
Consulting and energy
assessor for the project, said:
“Given that the building was
designed to pre-2000 standards,
when awareness and
understanding of energy
efficiency was considerably lower,
this demonstrates exactly how
cutting edge it was.
“Energy efficiency standards
have been raised by about 30%
since then.”
The Edinburgh project was
designed by the Catalan architect
Enric Miralles, with RMJM acting
as UK architect and services
engineer and Arup as structural
engineer. Miralles died in 2000,
a few months after construction
began.
The building was controversial,
coming in 10 times over its
predicted budget and opening
Zero carbon focus shifts to existing housing stock
Focus has shifted to existing
building stock in the
government’s campaign for zero
carbon buildings.
The Department of Energy and
Climate Change (DECC) is now
consulting on its Heat and
Energy Saving Strategy
document, launched last month
by energy secretary Ed Miliband.
One of the proposals is for 7
million homes to receive a heat
and energy “refurbishment” in a
bid to cut household carbon
emissions by a third by 2020.
UK households would receive
help to reduce their fuel bills and
access low-carbon heat and power
Image from a flythrough of
the Scottish Parliament
three years late in 2004. It has had
structural problems: a wooden
beam came loose in the main
debating chamber in 2006.
Glasgow-based IES used 3D
modelling to determine the rating
for the building, which was the
most complex it had assessed. It
has a combination of natural and
displacement ventilation, and
uses some of the boreholes
from the Scottish & Newcastle
as part of the government’s target
of cutting total emissions by 80%
by 2050.
According to the proposals, all
homes will have access to whole
house improvements by 2030,
cavity wall and loft insulation will
be available for all suitable
properties by 2015 and steps will
be taken to encourage combined
heat and power and improved use
of surplus heat through carbon
pricing mechanisms.
Miliband said: “Wasted energy
is costing families on average
£300 a year, and more than a
quarter of all our emissions are
from our homes.
NEWS REVIEW 07
brewery formerly on the site.
David Fairhurst, the
Parliament’s environment
manager, said: “This rating clearly
demonstrates the conscious
efforts that were put into the
design and construction of
Holyrood to ensure it operated as
an energy efficient building.”
To view an exclusive flythrough of Holyrood,
log on to www.bsdlive.co.uk
“Energy efficiency and low-
carbon energy are the fairest
routes to curbing emissions,
saving money for families,
improving our energy security
and insulating us from volatile
fossil fuel prices.
“Every home must be able to
access the help and technology it
needs, whether it be the
installation of a ground or air
source heat pump, solar-heating,
solid wall insulation, or access to
a district heating scheme.”
The consultation process runs
until 8 May.
For more on the strategy, see page 13
ISSUE 02 / BSD MARCH 2009
08 NEWS REVIEW
THREE MORE JOIN BSD’S
EDITORIAL BOARD
BSD has welcomed three more
top industry figures to its editorial
advisory board, which is helping
to steer the direction of the new
magazine.
The original board of eight has
been joined by Martin Clowes,
managing director of Elementa
Consulting; Peter Williams,
director at Arup; and Rajesh
Sinha, technical director at Bailey
Teswaine.
Clowes (pictured) trained in
mechanical engineering in
Birmingham and later became
Middle East manager for
John Bradley Associates.
He returned to Britain and
set up his own business,
which grew into Elementa
Consulting. He cites
architectural integration
and pragmatic decision-
making as among his
chief interests.
Williams worked
through a
technician training
course before
taking a degree in
environmental
engineering and
has spent most of
his working life
in multi-
discipline design
teams.
He was
GLOBAL FOCUS
AZERBAIJAN
Danish engineer Ramboll and BIG
Architects have put forward a
masterplan for a proposed carbon
neutral resort on Zira Island, in
the Caspian Sea (pictured).
The 1,000,000m2 project is
intended as a sustainable model
for urban development, reflecting
the Azerbaijan landscape.
Each of its seven “peaks” of
residential development echoes
the geometry of one of the
country’s mountains. The project
aims to create a completely self
BSD MARCH 2009 / ISSUE 02
recently appointed leader of
Arup’s building engineering
group in London, which combines
core structural and building
engineering skills with specialist
services. He feels strongly about
being able to deliver what is
designed.
Sinha spearheads NG Bailey’s
ICT arm, working on the
company’s strategy as well as
the ICT product and service
portfolio. He oversaw the
technical design of the exemplar
school at the Building Research
Establishment and is now
involved in designing an office
in Strathclyde for a BREEAM
excellent rating.
Andy Pearson, editor of
BSD, said: “The addition of
these three industry experts to
our editorial advisory
panel will bring
new ideas to the
magazine and
help us to keep
in touch with
this fast-
moving sector.”
Martin Clowes:
pursuing
architectural
integration
contained community. Buildings
will be heated and cooled by heat
pumps connected to the sea. Solar
panels integrated into the
architecture will provide hot water,
while photovoltaics on facades and
rooftops will power functions such
as swimming pools and aqua parks.
Waste water will be treated,
processed and recycled for
irrigation, with solid waste reused
as fertiliser. An offshore wind farm
will harvest wind energy while
onshore the landscaping has been
designed to divert higher winds.
HISTORY IN
THE MAKING
Portsmouth council has approved
the planning application for the
£35m Mary Rose museum,
designed by Wilkinson Eyre
Architects with Gifford acting as
structural and M&E engineer.
The building will be clad in
timber planks with inscriptions
derived from carved symbols used
by the Mary Rose crew to identify
their belongings.
It will provide 1700m2 of gallery
space on three floors, displaying
the history of the warship which
was once the flagship of Henry
VIII’s fleet. It sank in the Solent in
1545 but was raised from the water
in 1982, and has been undergoing
conservation ever since.
John Lippiett, chief executive
of the Mary Rose Trust, said: “We
have reached a milestone in the
project and taken another step in
the fascinating journey of the
Mary Rose.”
The Heritage Lottery Fund has
agreed to provide £21m for the
project. The Mary Rose Trust has
raised more than half of the £14m
needed to match the grant.
UAE
The United Arab Emirates has
signed up as a member of the
International Renewable Energy
Agency (IRENA). Sheikh Abdullah
Bin Zayed al Nahyan, the UAE
foreign minister, speaking at the
agency’s founding conference in
Bonn recently, said: “Renewable
energy is crucial to the world’s
future prosperity. The UAE’s
contribution to IRENA will be to
leverage our deep energy expertise
and existing commitment to the
sector.”
IN BRIEF
£60M YEOVIL REVAMP
Capita Symonds and its
architectural division, Capita
Architecture, are to provide design
services on the £60m
redevelopment of Yeovil College,
Somerset. The team beat Aedas
and Dyer in a design competition
for the four-year project, which
will see most of the old college
demolished.
DODGY PLUMBING
SummitSkills has sounded a
warning about substandard
training courses in plumbing. The
sector skills council for building
services engineering said the rise
in unemployment had sparked an
increase in expensive courses
offering to retrain jobless workers
as plumbers, but many did not
offer proper skills and
qualifications.
AGENCY CAMPAIGN
The government has launched a
£1m poster and online campaign
to make agency staff more
informed about their employment
rights and to make sure employers
are complying with the law. Pat
McFadden, business minister, will
write to more than 13,000
employment agencies outlining
how they can ensure they are
meeting legal standards.
CHINA
The UK and China are to
collaborate on sustainability
research. Arup, Thames Gateway
Institute for Sustainability and
Tongji University signed an
agreement to share intelligence
and innovation at the UK-China
Business Summit last month.
Jeremy Watson, director of global
research at Arup, said: “This,
should result in policies and best
practice to lead development and
future design in China, the UK and
worldwide.”
Voyager LED Series
When fire safety and costs are both paramount...
...the new Voyager LED Series emergency luminaires perform

and
a greener installation

www.thornlighting.co.uk Lighting people and places

10 NEWS

IN PICTURES
FIVE-STAR 02
SERVICES

03

C
onstruction starts this month on
Ovo, a mixed-use development in
Wroclaw, Poland’s fourth largest
city. The scheme, for Wings
Properties, includes a Hilton hotel, serviced
apartments and retail and leisure facilities.
Designed by French practice
Gottesman-Szmelcman Architecture, with
Broadway Malyan’s Warsaw office acting as
project architect, the building will transform
an unkempt car park into a city landmark.
Buro Happold designed the structure
and services for the six-storey, 50,000m2,
¤80m scheme, which is funded by Star
Group Poland. The brief was for sustainable
measures such as natural ventilation where
possible and low energy lighting.

The complex is scheduled to open to the public in

2011. To see a video flythrough log on to
www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3VYx_wd0iU

01 The glazed, curving 03 High spec services in

facade will create a
translucent effect.
02 The six-storey building
is split into three levels of
apartments and three for
the hotel.
the development include
automatic climate and
shading control, A/V
systems, wireless internet
access and home
management systems, all
integrated through a single
device.

Visualisation: Studio Aiko

BSD MARCH 2009 / ISSUE 02

 NEWS 11

01

ISSUE 02 / BSD MARCH 2009

 A NEW MODEL THAT
WON’T STAND OUT
The new Krantz Opticlean ceiling diffuser
provides discrete air supply
The unique design incorporates a standard suspended ceiling tile as its faceplate
and is therefore almost invisible once installed. To make sure the diffuser
always looks its best, room air is not induced into the plenum ensuring
the Opticlean remains unobtrusive years after installation.

61/67 Rectory Road, Wivenhoe, Essex CO7 9ES

t: 01206 827171 f: 01206 826936 e: rs@krantz.uk.com www.krantz.uk.com

NEWS ANALYSIS
THE GREAT
BRITISH REFURB
That’s what the energy secretary has
dubbed the government’s strategy for
tackling the carbon emissions of
existing housing stock. Tracy
Edwards examines the key proposals.
ENERGY STRATEGY 13
This image from BSRIA’s
thermal imaging group
shows heat loss
distribution from a house –
yellow indicates areas of
highest heat loss and blue
the lowest.
D
istrict heating schemes and
finance for home owners who
switch to renewables are being
considered by the government to
help achieve its goal of an 80% cut in overall
UK carbon emissions by 2050.
The proposals are included in the Heat
and Energy Saving Strategy consultation,
launched by energy and climate change
secretary Ed Miliband last month. He
dubbed the comprehensive national plan
“the Great British Refurb”.
Its focus on existing housing stock
makes a lot of sense: more than 70% of the
houses now standing will still be in use in
2050, and domestic heating accounts for
about a quarter of the UK’s total CO2
emissions.
The government aims to supply cavity
wall and loft insulation for all suitable
properties by 2015. More ambitiously, by ¢
ISSUE 02 / BSD MARCH 2009
14 ENERGY STRATEGY
¢ 2020 it plans to provide energy make-
overs for 7 million homes, involving a range
of energy efficient solutions.
Miliband said many of the proposed
measures, such as the financial packages for
home owners, could also help businesses,
especially SMEs, and that the consultation
would explore this.
Cost incentives designed to encourage
households to install renewable
technologies such as solar panels, ground
source heat pumps and biomass boilers are
under consideration. A levy on fossil fuel
providers would help with up-front
installation costs, while the remainder
would be paid back through a percentage of
the savings on energy bills. This would be
linked to the property rather than residents.
Discussions will also focus on the
structure and banding of a new Renewable
Heat Incentive (RHI), which would provide
subsidies for any supplier of renewable heat
or renewable fuel used for heating. Unlike
the electricity feed-in tariff, the RHI would
be available at all scales, from households
to large industrial facilities.
Self-monitoring methods will also be
considered, including mandatory smart
meters and low cost energy audits.
DISTRICT HEATING SCHEMES
The Heat and Energy Strategy has a strong
community focus, and results of the
consultation will play a vital role in plans
for wide-scale district heating for both
homes and businesses.
The draft plan examines measures
aimed at tackling key barriers to district
heating, by enhancing the role of local
authorities and improving the supply chain.
It focuses strongly on combined heat and
power (CHP), which can improve energy
efficiency by more than 30% compared with
BSD MARCH 2009 / ISSUE 02
SUMMARY OF KEY
PROPOSALS
■ Facilitate the development and
expansion of district heating.
■ Ensure that current carbon
pricing mechanisms provide
sufficient support to CHP.
■ Work with the construction
industry to design a voluntary code
of practice on energy efficiency and
low carbon energy.
■ Establish an accreditation
scheme for installers.
■ Introduce new financial
packages to help homeowners with
the up-front costs of renewables.
■ Provide cavity wall and loft
installation for all suitable
properties by 2015.
■ Guarantee all homes have access
to “whole house” improvement by
2030.
■ Train domestic energy assessors
to provide a home energy advice
service.
■ Mandatory installation of smart
meters in every home.
■ Roll out low-cost energy audits.
Thermal image of
Westminister: yellow areas
indicate highest heat loss.
generating heat and electricity separately.
The technology, which uses waste heat
produced during the generation of
electricity, provided more than 7% of UK
electricity in 2008 and saved 10.2 MtCO2.
Representatives from the Department
for Energy and Climate Change (DECC)
were keen to point out that one advantage
of introducing this form of district heating
is that CHP can start out using fossil fuels
and then switch to renewables such as
biomass in the future.
The consultation is also examining
ways in which waste and surplus heat from
industrial processes can be used to a
greater extent in CHP schemes.
CHP is already supported by a number
of policies, such as exemption from the
Climate Change Levy, and the Renewables
Obligation, which requires electricity
suppliers to source an annually increasing
percentage of the electricity they supply
from renewable sources. The new strategy
will concentrate on ensuring that this range
of price mechanisms provides sufficient
support to CHP, and the consultation invites
further proposals to improve the framework.
Miliband described the process as “a
very open consultation, during which we
are keen to hear from households,
businesses and communities.”
Two years ago, the government’s
Business and Enterprise Committee claimed
that low carbon heat production had been
regarded as “the Cinderella of energy policy”.
With discussions on a host of new heat-
focused initiatives well under way, along with
plans to work with the construction industry
to design a voluntary code of practice on low
carbon heating and energies, it seems an
invitation to the ball has been issued.
For more information, visit www.decc.gov.uk
GAS
SAFE
REGISTER
NOW!
Gas Safe Register™ will replace
CORGI gas registration in
Great Britain on 1 April 2009.

It will be the official industry

watchdog for gas safety.
Your customers will be looking
for the Gas Safe Register™
yellow triangle when they call
out an engineer – so make sure
you’re part of it.

To register, visit our website

www.GasSafeRegister.co.uk
Or call us on
0800 408 5577

OPINION
LET’S MAKE IT
QUITE CLEAR
Some argue against a sustainable building
code, saying the ones we’ve got are bad
enough. Surely all the more reason to clarify
the green agenda, says Daniel Labbad
L
ast summer I joined the UK Green
Building Council’s task group set up
to address the question: does the
industry want or need a code for
sustainable buildings? There was an
overwhelming response from across the
property sector and I was surprised by the
level of interest and the strength of views.
Despite what has proved to be one of
the most challenging periods in the
construction industry’s memory, interest in
the sustainability agenda and particularly
its governance has remained amazingly
high. But why?
There is no shortage of government
policy or industry initiatives around the
notion of sustainable buildings, but there is
a lack of coherence which has led to
confusion. In 2004, when a government-
commissioned report (headed by Sir John
Harman and Victor Benjamin) first
recommended a national code for
sustainable buildings, it recognised that one
of the problems, even then, was the plethora
of sustainability initiatives.
Indeed, when we approached our peers
in the green building field last autumn, not
only were a number sceptical about the
need for a new code, they questioned the
value of existing tools.
Most, however, were firmly in favour of
a new way to define sustainable buildings.
There is a strong sense that we do need
something fresh and comprehensive, which
will make an important difference to reduce
the negative impacts of our buildings, old
and new, and to significantly improve our
built environment now and in the future.
These concerns are now high on the
mainstream agenda. But in our enthusiasm
to embark on our journey, we have
overlooked the fact that we lack some
fundamental information. Such as, where
exactly are we heading, how long will it take,
and how much will it cost to get there?
Worse, we don’t really know where
we’ve started from, in the sense that few of
us have any idea how our buildings perform
in practice. It is now widely accepted that a
building behaves very differently in
operation – when we’ve added the people –
compared with drawing board calculations.
Does any of this mean that we need a
code for sustainable buildings? The answer,
as the task group discovered, depends very
much on what you think the “code” might
be in its final form. Should it be a rating
tool, like BREEAM or LEED; a set of
government targets; or guidance? Should it
be a code at all, or a framework that defines
a baseline, sets outcomes, provides
guidance, links regulation to the industry
and has the ability to evolve over time so it
can change as we learn and innovate?
In the Code for Sustainable Homes, the
“
A new code could remove,
not add, confusion and
form the basis of a new
kind of relationship
between the government
and industry
”
COMMENT 17
government set out the trajectory of future
regulations for the first time, providing a
level of certainty the property industry had
never had before. It also began to define a
“destination”, by pointing the way to zero
carbon. This clarity has resulted in
unprecedented levels of innovation. Before
this, regulations, and even voluntary
assessment methods such as BREEAM and
Ecohomes, were based on incremental
improvements to what had gone before.
As the government sets new zero
carbon targets, we have seen a growing
demand from industry for a solution that
actually underpins the sustainable
performance of non-domestic buildings.
For instance, what do we mean by a
“sustainable building”, and how do we
quantify this across the whole of the
property value chain? How might the
features of a truly sustainable building be
expressed, and measured in a consistent
way? And how can we improve information
sharing with our peers to set benchmarks
and drive up standards?
The challenge for the code for
sustainable buildings, or whatever it’s called
in its final form, is to demonstrate a new
solution can remove, not add, confusion. It
could form the basis of a new kind of
relationship between the government and
industry – a negotiation of how far we need
to go, and how fast – which will provide a
level of confidence that can enable
innovation and investment. It could also be
the basis for the removal of unnecessary
clutter, policy or technological distractions,
which just get in the way of what we are all
striving to achieve.
Daniel Labbad is chief executive, retail and
communities UK, Lend Lease. The task group issues
its report on 4 March at EcoBuild ‘09
www.ukgbc.org
For more opinions, www.bsdlive.co.uk
ISSUE 02 / BSD MARCH 2009
“I HAVE ENOUGH
ON MY PLATE WITHOUT
HAVING TO CONSIDER
WHETHER WE’VE
CHOSEN THE RIGHT
SUBCONTRACTORS”
Duncan Pierce,
Director, Page Associates

ECA electrical contractors are

periodically assessed to ensure
their technical competence

ONE LESS THING TO WORRY ABOUT.

To find an ECA contractor
that’s right for you:
www.eca.co.uk
20 PRACTICE

2
TITLE AND META
BUSINESS
whoever runs your website, but are
DESCRIPTION TAGS preferably written by whoever best
These are two of the most knows your business and
important pieces of customers. They must be unique to

ENHANCE content on each web page. Title

tags appear at the top of the page
and as the blue underlined title in
the page they are on, descriptive of
the page content and not more
than 10-15 words for title tags and

YOUR ONLINE Google search results. Meta

description tags appear as the
description in the search result.
20-25 for description tags.
Have a look at the tags of a
site such as the BBC (by typing

PRESENCE They are found in your page

code and can be changed by
“site: www.bbc.co.uk” into Google)
for good examples.

Web guru Ed Sexton

offers tips to put your
website at the top of
the search engines.

I
ncreasing the traffic to your website
and reaching the right people doesn’t
require an agency of web experts.
These five areas offer simple ways for
any firm to ensure it gets more attention.
Google wants to provide the site most
relevant to the search term entered and
does this primarily by looking at your page
content and other sites linking to you. Thus
improving your position on Google – called
search engine optimisation (SEO) – boils
down to improving your site’s content and
increasing the links coming to it.
Content is the best place to start as the
better your content, the more links you are
likely to get. Content consists of all the text,
images and videos as well as a number of
invisible tags, hidden in your page’s code.

Ed Sexton is BSD’s resident web expert. If you have

any questions, email bsdeditorial@ubm.com

1 3
CONTENT FOCUS
Make sure the content of
your site is concentrated on
one theme. Consider the
search terms you would like
people to find your site with. For
example, it will be difficult to be
the first result on Google for the
word “architect” but
“sustainability architect in
Newcastle” could push you higher
up the search results, which
encourages more hits. Identify
your strengths and the words
associated with them and
incorporate these into your page
content where relevant. Don’t
overuse or spam your pages with
words, though. It’s important that
it all still makes sense to users.
BLOGS
Corporate sites often have
the same types of pages –
contact us, who are we,
case studies, office map, news
releases. Much of this information
is rarely updated and it doesn’t
provide much relevant or unique
content for Google to search.
A blog written by a senior
employee, such as the chief
executive, can provide useful and
interesting content as well as
giving the business an outlet to
engage directly with customers. It
may also set you apart from the
competition. Free tools such as
Blogger and Wordpress make this
easy to implement.

BSD MARCH 2009 / ISSUE 02


4
GOOGLE WEBMASTER
TOOLS
Google will help you to
improve your site for free.
Just register your site on Google
Webmaster Tools to receive
detailed information about your
site’s visibility in the search
results. This includes page errors
and reports, and allows you to
submit a site map which will
greatly improve your indexation in
Google’s results.
5
EXTERNAL LINKS
Good content will attract
links to your site, but you
can improve things further
by looking for links from other
relevant sites. It’s not just the
quantity of links that matters; the
quality and relevance of the sites
are important too.
Encourage your customers to
link to you by providing them with
useful unique content for their site,
such as a project case study, with a
link to your site at the end of it.
Find out who links to your
competitors by going to Yahoo Site
Explorer. If someone links to your
rival, you can give them a reason to
link to you too.
LEGAL
INSOLVENCY IN THE
CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY
Protect yourself first, offer assistance later, is the
advice from Jake Davies for any business that
suspects it is working with a firm in jeopardy
I
nsolvency is a big risk in the
construction trade because of the
industry’s cyclical nature and its
collect early, pay late culture. Firms
often operate on a low profit margin with
no fixed assets and low capital but high
cashflow and high return on capital.
To minimise risk when commencing
projects, it is always worth ascertaining
covenant strength. If unsatisfactory,
procuring some security for performance
is sensible. Contractual agreements must
be properly documented to avoid doubts
should a party later become insolvent.
Late payment and payment schedule
changes are obvious signs of insolvency
but a slowdown on site and/or of service
delivery should also sound alarm bells, as
should the withholding of payment on
the basis of unexpected claims.
If any of these indicators occurs,
there are various options prior to formal
insolvency proceedings. The position
that should be adopted, however, is that
insolvency will follow and the entity in
financial difficulty should be helped, but
not to the detriment or at the risk of the
party lending assistance.
Termination or suspension
Does the contract allow termination at
will? If not, has there been a breach that
would allow termination? Any process to
determine needs to be followed correctly.
Also, efforts should be made to secure all
information and/or items for which
advance payment have been made.
Assistance
A request for assistance to allow delivery
to be procured may be made. If the
payment procedure under a contract is
varied, this should be clearly documented.
If payment terms are varied then so
should be terms for security rights, step
in, outstanding information provision,
etc, to ensure that the risk apportionment
in the contract remains appropriate.
PRACTICE 21
Contract security
If performance bonds and parent
company guarantees have been procured
these should be examined closely to
ensure that any action taken with regards
to the overlying contract does not
discharge the obligations of the
bondsman or parent company guarantor.
Procedures set out in security
documentation should be followed
closely to prevent avoidance. Claims
should be made as early as possible.
Securing the site/possession of
information
In the event of main contractor
insolvency, taking possession of the site
needs to be considered closely, especially
if administrators remain in control of the
company and liquidation has not begun.
On outstanding design information,
care should be taken to ensure that
anything that should have been provided
has been, particularly health and safety
records. Consultants should tie delivery
of such items to payment.
Formal insolvency proceedings
The position alters significantly once
administrators or liquidators are
appointed because of their power to
avoid contractual liabilities. A claim in
the insolvency should, nonetheless, be
made. Insolvency practitioners and other
creditors should be contacted to assess
what, if any, agreements can be reached
to procure finalisation of the project.
In conclusion:
■ consider the potential for insolvency at
the start of any project and put in place
mechanisms to protect yourself; and
■ if any of the indicators of insolvency,
appear, act quickly to protect yourself.
Jake Davies is a partner at Forsters LLP
(jdavies@forsters.co.uk)
For more legal articles, log on to:
www.bsdlive.co.uk
ISSUE 02 / BSD MARCH 2009
 COOL
RUNNINGS
First design two giant
greenhouses for Singapore,
then try to cool them –
sustainably. Is this the
construction equivalent of a
Jamaican bobsleigh team?
Andy Pearson investigates.
FEATURES

I
f there were a prize for the least
sustainable building concept, an air-
conditioned greenhouse would surely
be a strong contender. Barmy as it
sounds, that is what is being built in hot and
humid Singapore – or rather two of them.
Crazier still, the scheme is intended to be
an exemplar of sustainable practice.
The huge biomes taking shape on the
waterfront are part of the Gardens by the
Bay project, a regeneration scheme on
reclaimed land near the business district.
One greenhouse will re-create the cool
moist environment of a mountain “cloud
forest” while the other will replicate the cool
dry conditions of a Mediterranean spring.
Atelier Ten, the scheme’s building
services and sustainability consultant,
claims the cooling system will be carbon
neutral over the course of a year. This will ¢

BSD MARCH 2009 / ISSUE 02

 BUILDING ANALYSIS 25

ISSUE 02 / BSD MARCH 2009

26 BUILDING ANALYSIS
¢ be achieved by a combination of 10,000
litres of liquid desiccant, 5000 tonnes of
forestry waste, and, dotted around the
grounds, 18 steel “supertrees” housing
exhaust air ducts, solar panels or, in one
case, a “treetop” cafe. It’s a solution as
unusual as the brief.
Atelier Ten was on the team led by
landscape architect Grant Associates,
working with architect Wilkinson Eyre, that
won the commission in an international
competition in 2006. The overall scheme
includes three public gardens. Grant
Associates is masterplanning the £400m
one at Marina South, which will have 54ha
of landscaping, a concert arena and shops
as well as the star attraction – the two
scallop-shaped greenhouses, which are
even bigger than the Eden Project’s. The
cool dry biome is 170m x 105m; the cool
moist 120m x 85m.
Gardens of the tropics are more noted
for their luscious foliage than for brightly
coloured flowers, says Meredith Davey,
associate director at Atelier Ten. Hence the
need to create alternative environments to
allow alien blooms to flourish.
It’s a complicated process, which must
also be capable of simulating seasonal
fluctuations. By lowering the overnight
temperature for a month, horticulturalists
hope to hoodwink the plants into believing
winter is drawing to a close, stimulating
them to flower. The cooling system will, in
fact, ensure spring comes four times a year,
to ensure the displays are constantly in
bloom. “The success of the M&E systems
will decide whether the plants live or die,”
says Davey.
Conditions inside the cool dry
greenhouse have to be maintained at 25C,
with a maximum relative humidity (RH) of
60% during day. This will drop to 17C at 65%
BSD MARCH 2009 / ISSUE 02
RH at night. Four times a year the night
temperature will be lowered by 4C for a
month to create the “end of winter”
condition. In the cool moist greenhouse, the
climate requirements are daytime 25C at
80% RH or higher, dropping to 17C at 80%
RH at night. Again, the services must have
the capacity to lower the night temperature
by 4C to simulate the end of winter. The
challenge for the engineers was to maintain
these conditions sustainably.
The amount of cooling needed for each
greenhouse will largely depend on how
much sunlight enters. The client, the
National Parks Board of Singapore, used
Cornwall’s Eden Project as the benchmark
for minimum light. The light levels in the
biomes must be in excess of 45,000 lux for
more hours than at Eden, explains Davey.
This proved more difficult than might
be expected for a largely glazed building
because of the shadows cast by its support
structure. “At the competition stage it was
assumed a combination of transparency
with fixed shading elements would provide
sufficient daylight while limiting solar
gains, but this proved not to be the case,”
Davey says.
After extensive daylight analysis, the
structure evolved from a fin-truss
arrangement to a grid-shell supported from
a series of giant steel arches. The studies
also highlighted times when sunlight levels
would be far higher than the plants would
experience at home. And with sunlight
comes heat, of course.
“A key factor in minimising the
cooling requirement was to control the
amount of daylight,” says Davey. “We
wanted light but not heat.” So a retractable
shading system of 7m x 10m triangular sails
has been incorporated into the primary
supporting structure for use on sunny days.
HOW AN ABSORPTION
CHILLER WORKS
An absorption chiller allows waste
heat to be used to generate
cooling. For the Gardens by the Bay
scheme the chiller will use a
lithium bromide solution as the
working fluid, where water is the
refrigerant and lithium bromide is
the absorbent.
As with a conventional chiller,
an absorption chiller has an
evaporator and condenser. It is in
the evaporator that the chiller
removes heat from the biomes’ air
supply. When the water evaporates
it absorbs heat. This evaporated
water is absorbed by the lithium
bromide.
The water/lithium bromide
fluid is circulated to a unit where it
is heated by the waste heat from
the CHP to drive the water back
out of the absorber. This water
vapour is then circulated to the
condenser to be cooled back down
to a liquid (where it gives up its
heat), while the absorbent is
pumped back to the evaporator.
The cooled water is released
through an expansion valve into the
evaporator, and the cycle repeats.
Heat rejection Biome cooling
CONDENSER EVAPORATOR
HEATER
Heat from CHP

Right: site plan showing
the cool moist (1) and
cool dry (2) biomes.
Below: steel supertrees.
Below left: entrance
canopy between the
biomes. The cool moist
biome will house the
world’s largest indoor
waterfall.
The sails can also be deployed individually
to provide shade for visitors and act as
useful backup should the cooling system
fail.
The choice of glazing was another
influential element in the facade
optimisation process. “We modelled every
transparent glazing system known to man,”
Davey recalls. The facades are assembled
from double-glazed units with a low-e
coating on the inner face of the outer pane,
which will allow about 65% of the incident
daylight through to the interior but only
35% of the solar heat.
COOL DRY
Having established the cooling loads, the
next task was to find a way of dealing with
them. The two greenhouses required
different solutions. The Mediterranean
biome uses a combination of displacement
2
ventilation and a chilled concrete screed.
The primary cooling source is the
displacement ventilation system, which
channels huge volumes of air through giant
ducts, some 5m x 5m, which have been
integrated into the landscape.
The chilled air is supplied close to
the floor of the greenhouse through grilles
in the edges of the flower beds and various
“diffuser bins”. As the air heats up it rises
to the top of the space where some
disperses through open windows, to be
replaced by fresh air, while the rest will be
extracted and recirculated.
According to Davey, the amount of
cooled air that must be supplied is “about
eight times as much per square metre of
floor than you’d put into a conventional
office”.
Heat is also removed from the
greenhouses through chilled water
BUILDING ANALYSIS 27
pipework cast into the concrete of the
hard landscaping and pathways. This
simple solution works by absorbing solar
radiation as soon as it strikes the ground,
before it has the chance to re-radiate as heat
into the air.
“This lowers the volume of
displacement air required to condition the
space, substantially reducing the fan power
needed,” Davey says. The chilled paths will
help keep the biomes’ expected 3000
visitors per hour comfortable.
COOL MOIST
The 55m high cool moist biome will house a
40m high man-made mountain with the
world’s highest indoor waterfall. It too uses
chilled landscaping. The displacement
ventilation system, however, has had to be
enhanced.
Computational fluid dynamic (CFD)
modelling showed that as the air inside
picked up heat, it would collect near the top
of the mountain, making it too warm for the
plants to survive. “We had to do an amazing
amount of air modelling to ensure the
correct air distribution within the space,”
Davey says.
This greenhouse is kept cool using a
hybrid ventilation system which consists of
displacement air outlets at the mountain’s
peak and base, combined with jet diffusers
concealed on the slopes to blasting out
cooled air to prevent the air stratifying.
What Davey calls “evaporative misters” will
add a fine spray of water to increase the
humidity as there will be insufficient
moisture in the supply air. The water
droplets will absorb heat as they evaporate.
A central energy centre provides
cooling and power to the biomes, whose
combined cooling load will be about
8000kW. What is surprising is that the
primary energy source for the entire
development is waste wood.
“The ground was too hot to derive
cooling, there is no wind, and there is no
tide in the adjacent freshwater reservoir,”
says Davey. The National Parks Board is
responsible for 3 million trees, which
generate about 5000 tonnes of cuttings or
“forestry residue” a month. Instead of being
dumped, this will be chipped and burnt wet
in a 30m long, 16m high, 7.2MW
superheated steam biomass boiler and used
to drive the CHP system. Ash from the
boiler will be mixed with the park’s
vegetation clippings for use as fertiliser.
The CHP system has a 1MW steam
turbine, which will generate electricity to
provide power to the site and to drive four
centrifugal chillers to cool the biomes’
supply air. The chillers will be able to draw
electricity from the grid when the CHP
system is out of operation.
To make doubly sure the scheme is ¢
ISSUE 02 / BSD MARCH 2009
28 BUILDING ANALYSIS

NIGHT AND DAY

CFD modelling of the cool dry
biome was used to ensure
environmental conditions were at
the optimum for the plants both
day and night.

Temperature (c) Temperature (c)

18 40 8 30

¢ never without cooling, the designers
have connected the greenhouses to the
district cooling network.
In addition to the electric chillers,
waste heat from the CHP unit will be used
to drive two absorption chillers (see page
26). “Because the biomass boiler and steam
turbine are not easy to modulate, the
absorption chillers are used as an
additional heat dump,” explains Davey. The
absorption chillers work alongside the
conventional chillers to meet the sensible
cooling requirements of the biomes
through a variable temperature chilled
water circuit.
Heat from the CHP unit will also be
used to regenerate a liquid desiccant
circuit. The desiccant will remove moisture
from the fresh air supply, which is high in
humidity (see page 27). This will help to cut
less energy to cool it. The air will then pass
through a cooling coil, connected to the
chillers, to lower its temperature before it is
supplied to the greenhouses (see technical
feature, page 48).
Waste water from the desiccant circuit
will be exhausted to the atmosphere
through a flue concealed in the trunk of one
of the giant supertrees, which have a steel
lattice trunk and steel branches. The trunks
will act as supports for vegetation to climb
up while the branches have a variety of
functions: in some they will support solar
hot water collectors (the hot water will be
used, along with waste heat from the CHP,
to help to regenerate the desiccant); others
will support PV panels, a couple will
contain lifts to carry people to an aerial
walkway; and the tallest will house a
treetop cafe.
rainwater for irrigation, reducing demand
for potable water. Runoff from surrounding
developments will be channelled to the site,
where it will be treated using aquatic plants
in a series of lakes. After purification, any
surplus water will be discharged into the
adjacent freshwater marina.
Rainwater collection will further
increase the project’s sustainability
credentials. It is hoping for platinum
accreditation – the highest possible – under
the Building and Construction Authority
green mark scheme, Singapore’s equivalent
to LEED or BREEAM. When the scheme
opens in 2011, it will be “more energy
efficient than a conventional good quality
air-conditioned office in Singapore”,
according to Davey.
How the desiccant cooling strategy works, page 48

power consumption as drier air requires Some of the supertrees will harvest For more building analyses, www.bsdlive.co.uk

HOW LIQUID
DESICCANT WORKS
Those little paper sachets of
crystals you find in the box when
you buy, say, a new camera,
contain a type of desiccant. The
crystals help remove water vapour
from inside the box to prevent the
contents being damaged by
condensation during storage and
transportation.
Desiccants in liquid form, and
vast quantities, will help
dehumidify the air in the giant
biomes at Marina South, for which
a special process has been
developed.
A highly concentrated
solution of lithium bromide
dissolved in water is sprayed into
the airstream. As the air passes
through this liquid curtain, the
desiccant removes moisture
without affecting its enthalpy
(internal energy).
This process increases the
temperature of the airstream (it is
the reverse of evaporation), so the
dry air is then cooled to supply
condition by passing it over a
conventional cooling coil.
Because the desiccants store
energy in the form of latent heat of
vaporisation of water, rather than
by using the specific heat of water,
the concentrated desiccant
solution stores about 10 times as
much energy as the equivalent
volume of chilled water.
According to Meredith Davey of
Atelier Ten, this is a much more
energy efficient solution than the
conventional one of removing
moisture from the air by passing it
over a cooling coil (cooling it more
than necessary in order to remove
moisture) then reheating the air to
supply temperature.
Davey explains: “Combined
with conventional cooling this
technology allows air to be
supplied to a controlled
psychometric point, ie cooled and
dehumidified, with less energy
consumption than the conventional
approach of overcooling and
wasteful reheat.”
Liquid desiccant, rather than the
more usual solid form in a desiccant
wheel, was used on this project
because it allowed the supply and
exhaust air ducts to be located in
different parts of the biome.
As it dries the air, the
concentrated desiccant solution
absorbs moisture, diluting while
increasing in quantity. This means
more of the solution leaves the
airstream than is sprayed into it.
This weaker solution is
regenerated by boiling off the
excess water before it is returned
to the system.
PROJECT TEAM
Client: National Parks Board
of Singapore
Architect: Wilkinson Eyre
Landscape architect:
Grant Associates
Sustainability and building
services: Atelier Ten
Structural engineer: Atelier One

BSD MARCH 2009 / ISSUE 02

Organised by

In partnership with

Wednesday 17 June 2009

London Hilton, Park Lane
Sponsored by

TABLES NOW ON SALE!

The Building Services Awards have firmly

established themselves as the biggest night
of the year in the industry’s calendar – the one
night you just can’t miss.

Join us and network with senior professionals

from across the Building Services industry.

VISIT: BSDLIVE.CO.UK/AWARDS
OR CALL: +44 (0)1252 781 178

For sponsorship opportunities, For general enquiries,

please contact Carlo Menezes: please contact Katie Chinnock:
T: +44 (0) 20 7560 4074 T: +44 (0) 20 7560 4272
E: carlo.menezes@ubm.com E: katie.chinnock@ubm.com
 Organised by

In partnership with

Wednesday 17 June 2009

London Hilton, Park Lane
Sponsored by

TABLES NOW ON SALE!

The Building Services Awards have firmly

established themselves as the biggest night
of the year in the industry’s calendar – the one
night you just can’t miss.

Join us and network with senior professionals

from across the Building Services industry.

VISIT: BSDLIVE.CO.UK/AWARDS
OR CALL: +44 (0)1252 781 178

For sponsorship opportunities, For general enquiries,

please contact Carlo Menezes: please contact Katie Chinnock:
T: +44 (0) 20 7560 4074 T: +44 (0) 20 7560 4272
E: carlo.menezes@ubm.com E: katie.chinnock@ubm.com
32 PEOPLE
BSD INTERVIEW
SIR JOHN HARMAN
The former Environment Agency
chief, now on the board of the National
House-Building Council, tells Krystal
Sim where the government is going
wrong, and Jeremy Clarkson right.
Portrait by Julian Anderson
S
ir John Harman, former chairman
of the Environment Agency and
author of a pamphlet entitled The
Green Crunch, has a sneaking
sympathy for arguments of that notorious
green-basher, Top Gear presenter Jeremy
Clarkson.
He worries that the hair shirt and
finger-wagging approach of some elements
of the green movement alienates the public.
He does, however, warn that we will never
see cheap fuel again. “That era’s over, and
we will have to change our country’s energy
policy to move forward, if only out of our
own economic interest.”
Harman describes his pamphlet,
published recently by the Fabian Society, as
a collection of arguments he has been
making for a while. As his tenure at the EA
drew to an end last year, he “finally had the
time to write them all down”.
BSD MARCH 2009 / ISSUE 02
“If we can make these important
changes now we will put ourselves in a far
more competitive position. The countries
who adapt first will be the real economic
winners in all of this,” he says.
An hour or so earlier, clad in a long
trenchcoat and crisp grey suit, the Labour
peer strode into the palatial waiting area at
One Queen Anne’s Gate conference centre
in Westminster with a member of the
Department of Energy and Climate
Change. “I read your pamphlet, and enjoyed
it immensely,” said the DECC
representative. “But did you agree with it?”
Harman swiftly retorted.
In The Green Crunch, he draws
comparisons with the politics of a century
ago, when the laissez-faire policies of
government fell short of society’s need for
change, leading to the emergence of the
Labour movement. Could the green ¢
 PEOPLE 33

ISSUE 02 / BSD MARCH 2009

34 PEOPLE
¢ movement be the modern equivalent?
“It seems obvious to me,” says
Harman, “that there is an awakening
awareness of the predicament the
developed world is in. We can’t progress
the way we have been. We don’t know the
answer but we know what the problem is.
The real question is, do we possess the
collective intelligence to meet the
collective challenge ahead?”
Harman served in local government
for almost 30 years. When the Local
Government Association was formed in
1997, he became deputy leader of the
Labour Group and chair of the LGA Urban
Commission. He was an adviser to the UK
delegation to the Earth Summit in 1992 and
was knighted in 1997 for services to local
government and the environment. He
became chairman of the Environment
Agency in 2000.
Harman recently accepted as position
as a board member for the National House-
Building Council. Although he concedes he
is not a expert in the built environment, as
such a big determinant of the UK’s
environmental performance it chimes with
his interests, he says.
“I’m there to see if we can advance the
practical proposition of a low carbon built
environment. Ten years ago the idea of a
UK Green Building Council would have
been ridiculous. Building carbon matters
greatly, and there are a whole range of
problems. The focus is standards for new
properties right now, that makes sense to
deal with first. It’s easier to design in low
carbon technology than retrofit.”
Harman is critical of the government’s
announcement of its aim to make all UK
homes zero carbon by 2016 without an
official definition of zero carbon.
“They didn’t have to say all homes
“
You can’t just lecture
people. There’s nothing
wrong with driving cars.
The real issue is fossil
fuels. If you could drive
cars Clarkson likes on
batteries, we might meet
people halfway
”
BSD MARCH 2009 / ISSUE 02
must be zero carbon,” he says. “They
could have just said low carbon. I think
it’s an example of the government over-
dramatising, wanting to say something
arresting.
“Even the issue of getting new homes
to be zero or low carbon is a hugely difficult
thing to do for all sorts of reasons.
“I think the time scale is very
ambitious. We need to be sure of our
technical response, that people will want to
live in these homes. It’s one thing to say it
but making it work will be quite another.
There are a whole host of practical issues to
be dealt with.”
Harman believes the public is ready
for tough choices and solid leadership from
politicians. He recalls an incident when he
was going door to door as a councillor in
the 1980s. “I was talking to this old dear
about insulating her house. She asked me
‘is it important?’ I said yes, and she gruffly
replied ‘Well, why don’t you do something
about it then?’
“Politicians are too anxious
sometimes, they need to just get on with it
and the electorate will respond to that
positively. We can’t be apologists here, but
at the same time it’s not about puritanism.
“I think that’s where the green
movement sometimes takes it too far and
gets up people’s noses.”
THE CLARKSON FACTOR
So we come to the Clarkson factor. In his
pamphlet, Harman points out that while the
government chief scientist may have the
ear of the decision-makers, Jeremy
Clarkson has the ear of the electorate.
“I believe a local paper in
Huddersfield ran an article about my work
under the headline ‘Ex-councillor to take on
Clarkson’,” he says. “It did make me laugh.”
In fact, he has some sympathy with
Clarkson’s side of the argument. He
believes the green lobby is on the wrong
tack with its hair shirt approach, issuing
edicts of denial and limitations to the
public in the short term so that future
generations will benefit.
TOO PURITANICAL
“Some of the green movement can be real
puritans. This finger wagging is just not
helping the argument. You can’t just lecture
people,” Harman says. “There’s nothing
wrong with driving cars. If you could drive
the cars that Clarkson likes on batteries,
then we might meet people halfway.
“The real issue is fossil fuels. It would
make much more sense to quit moaning
about the gas guzzlers and say we can do
this in a different way.”
Harman says one way to change
people’s perceptions would be to avoid
making a fetish out of denial and for
politicians to communicate this to the
electorate better.
“If you look at Obama’s approach,
there was a message of limits in that
inaugural speech, but there was also a fair
bit of optimism. He’s striking the right
chord with the people.”
At the time of our interview Harman
was poised for his first meeting with his
new colleagues at the NHBC.
“I joined the NHBC on the
understanding that I want the role of the
council to develop in how we deal with the
practicalities of squaring the larger policy
issues of carbon reduction with what it will
mean to contractors, housebuilders and,
most importantly, to residents,” he says.
“I’m looking forward to the challenge.
There are a lot of challenges to embrace in
the near future.”
184 GOOD REASONS
TO JOIN THE LONDON
PAVILION AT MIPIM.
1 3 Fox International 47 Dialogue 93 King Sturge 139 Randle Siddeley Associates
2 3DReid 48 Doughty Hanson 94 KPMG 140 Renaissance Southend
3 Aedas 49 DPP 95 KSR Architects 141 Resolution Property
4 AET Flexible Space 50 Dyer 96 KSS Group 142 RHWL
5 AMP Consultants 51 EDAW 97 Landmark Chambers 143 RMJM
6 Ardent Management 52 Edward Symmons 98 Latham Trust 144 ROM Capital
7 Argent (King’s Cross) Ltd 53 EMAP 99 LB Brent 145 Rosepride Properties
8 Ashurst 54 The Englander Group 100 LB Ealing 146 RWDI Anemos
9 ACE 55 EPR 101 LB Hammersmith & Fulham 147 SAFE Consulting
10 Austin:Smith Lord 56 Estate Insurance Group 102 LB Harrow 148 Savills
11 Avanta 57 Europa Capital 103 LB Hounslow 149 Sellar Property Group
12 Avenance 58 Exemplar Properties 104 Leslie Jones 150 Schroder Property
13 AYH 59 F&C REIT 105 Linklaters 151 Scott White Hookins
14 BAM Construct UK 60 Faber Maunsell 106 London Communications Agency 152 Scott Wilson
15 Barbon Insurance Group 61 Formation Architects 107 London Development Agency 153 Sense Cost Consultancy
16 Barratt Homes 62 Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer 108 Londonewcastle 154 Sidell Gibson Architects
17 Basildon Renaissance 63 Fuse 8 109 M3 Consulting 155 Simmons & Simmons
18 BBP Regeneration 64 Future Design 110 m3fx 156 SOM
19 BDP 65 Geraghty Taylor Architects 111 Maconomy 157 South London Business
20 Berkeley Group 66 Gifford 112 Manha 158 Spec Group
21 Bespoke Careers 67 Gleeds 113 Menta 159 St Martins Property Corporation
22 Bircham Dyson Bell 68 Grainger plc 114 Minerva 160 Stanhope
23 Bovis Lend Lease 69 Greater London Authority 115 Mitsubishi Electric 161 Stride Treglown
24 Brentford Football Club 70 Guildhouse-Rosepride 116 Modular Lighting 162 Strutt & Parker
25 Broadgate Estates 71 GVA Grimley 117 Mott MacDonald 163 Swanke Hayden Connell
26 Broadway Malyan 72 Hakes Associates 118 Moxon Architects 164 Thames Gateway Dev Corporation
27 BST Global 73 Hamiltons 119 Nabarro 165 Thurrock Thames Gateway Dev Corp
28 Capita Architecture 74 Hardhat Communications 120 Nestle 166 tp Bennett
29 Carter Jonas 75 Henderson Global Investors 121 Network Rail 167 Trehearne Architects
30 Chart Lane 76 Hill International 122 Nord LB 168 Trillium
31 The City of London Corporation 77 Hilson Moran 123 North London Business 169 Trowers & Hamlins
32 Conisbee 78 HLM Architects 124 Norton Rose 170 UBM
33 CoStar 79 HOK International 125 Panattoni Europe 171 UK Trade & Investment
34 Croydon Business 80 HOK Sport 126 Park Royal Partnership 172 URS Corporation
35 Croydon Council 81 Holder Mathias 127 Peter Brett Associates 173 Waterman Group
36 The Crown Estate 82 Holistic Group 128 Phoenix Logistics 174 Watts International
37 Cundall 83 Hopkins Architects 129 Plowman Craven 175 West London Business
38 CZWG 84 hurleypalmerflatt 130 Price & Myers 176 Westmead Business Group
39 Darling Associates 85 Hyland Edgar Driver 131 Pringle Brandon 177 Willis
40 Davies Arnold Cooper 86 IBB 132 PRP 178 Woods Bagot
41 Davis Langdon 87 IBEX Interiors 133 Purcell Miller Tritton 179 Wordsearch
42 Deltek 88 Indigo Planning 134 Purespace 180 WSM Partners
43 Denton Corker Marshall 89 Invest Essex 135 Quatro PR 181 WSP
44 Denton Wilde Sapte 90 Invest Thames Gateway 136 Quintain Estates & Development 182 WT Partnership
45 Development Securities 91 IVG Development 137 Rafael Vinoly 183 YRM
46 Dexter Moren 92 John Laing 138 Ramboll Whitbybird 184 Zumtobel Lighting

With a full programme of events covering London and Prices from only £3,000+VAT including
international issues, the London Pavilion will be the place 2 delegate passes. To join, call
to do business at MIPIM. With 184 participating companies
Niki Kernohan on 020 7636 4044.
and counting, limited opportunities still exist to exhibit, host
an event or get involved in the speaking programme. www.pipers.co.uk/mipim
10-13 MARCH
PALAIS DES FESTIVALS
MEDIA PARTNERS
CANNES, FRANCE
36 LIGHTING
T
he lighting for redevelopment of
MARKET Spitalfields Market in east
London was crucial to the
transformation of the steel and
VALUES glass utilitarianism of the Victorian hall
into a vibrant, multipurpose space.
Although the hall dates from 1893, the
site’s long history includes use as a Roman
A modern lighting cemetery, a priory hospital and a duelling
ground. In 1682 a royal charter was granted
strategy has lifted for a market on Thursdays and Saturdays
in or near Spital Square. Over the centuries
London’s historic the market became famed for its produce,
but in 1991 the action moved to a less
Spitalfields market congested site in Leyton.
Ballymore was determined to retain
out of its Victorian this spirit of the past when it acquired the
lease and began redevelopment in 2005. It
shadows without also wanted new retail and restaurant
units, and a flexible space for events from
obscuring the past. art exhibitions to corporate functions.
BSD MARCH 2009 / ISSUE 02
Lighting designer Fulcrum Light
worked on the project with sister firm
Fulcrum Consulting, architect Jestico +
Whiles and restoration specialist Julian
Harrap Architects. “The challenge was to
create an energy efficient lighting design
for both the historic parts of the market
and the new space,” says Fulcrum’s Bea
Etayo.
The past comes alive in the history
box, a translucent glass-clad structure
printed on each side. The glass is
illuminated by a colour changing LED
strip-light from behind to make the white
letters stand out.
Lights specially made for the main
hall have a retro industrial feel, while the
lift shaft is brought bang up to date with
cladding panels that form a low-resolution
video wall. When the panels are off they
look like mirrors.

Main picture: The main hall is lit by
specially developed pendant fittings, made
by Holophane from anodised aluminium
and stainless steel to be reminiscent of
industrial arc lights. The fittings use
dimmable metal halide lamps. Some
luminaries incorporate a tungsten halogen
lamp for use as an emergency; these are
backed up by a central battery. The roof’s
supporting columns are highlighted by
buried narrow beam uplighters. Uplighters
using narrow reflectors and cool metal
halide lamps are also used at high level to
reveal the roof structure.
Above left: The translucent “history box”
is illuminated by colour changing LED
strip-light.
LIGHTING 37
Above: Light boxes at the back of blank
panels conceal back-of-house facilities.
Existing glazing is coated with a
translucent film and a sealed white-
painted box is fixed behind the glass.
Different colour options are created with
an LED strip-light above the box. Every
lightbox is individually controllable.
Photos: Ståle Eriksen
ISSUE 02 / BSD MARCH 2009
Working towards Organised by:

a cleaner future De Vere West One, Portland Place, London

Designing & Constructing

Colleges and Universities
Overcoming design, construction and
Sirius procurement challenges to capitalise on
opportunities in further and higher education
A comprehensive range of tried
and tested wall hung and floor
standing condensing boilers the different procurement
with outputs from 50 –160kW, processes for both further and higher
PLUS a pre-fabricated,
education projects
modular heating system for
installation in existing and new the new opportunities
build plant rooms to satisfy
demands up to 660kW. the impact of new trends
in education
tailored design and construction
focused sessions

MAXXflo
Director Property & Facilities Divisional Director
This unique range of condensing
water heaters from Andrews offers
a revolutionary concept in self
contained, storage water heating.
Director Building Projects Partner

Director of Major Projects Global Education Leader

Plus: Post-conference Workshop:

Established values.
Leading edge technology.
Potterton Commercial
www.pottertoncommercial.co.uk
Breaking into the further and higher
education market
31st March 2009
The UK’s No1 To register:
Phone: +44 (0)20 7921 8039
Email: conferences@ubm.com
Andrews Water Heaters
www.andrewswaterheaters.co.uk

0845 070 1055


IT’S IN
THE POST
Letters are on their
way to those who will
be liable for the
Carbon Reduction
Commitment.
Krystal Sim finds
out what lies in store
T
he Carbon Reduction
Commitment is the government’s
attempt to cut UK emissions by
4 million tonnes a year by 2020 –
equivalent to taking a million cars off the
road. Participation is compulsory for
businesses and public sector organisations
above a certain size, and the upfront cost to
them of helping to save the planet will be a
minimum of about £35,000 a year.
The scheme, which begins next year,
will use a carrot and stick approach to
make property users aware of their
emissions and encourage them to cut their
carbon footprints. They will have to buy
emissions allowances – and if they
underestimate and have to buy more, the
price goes up – but those that perform well
will get some of their money back.
The CRC will apply to any business or
organisation with a total half-hourly
CARBON REDUCTION 39
metered electricity consumption greater
than 6000MWh a year, which equates to an
annual spend of about £500,000 – about
3000 tonnes of emissions. Participants will
have to forecast their consumption at the
start of each trading year and buy sufficient
carbon allowances to cover the predicted
emissions from their total property estate.
The scheme covers gas, oil and any other
fuels used as well as electricity, except for
on-site generated renewable energy, with
some conditions. Off-site generated green
energy is not exempt.
At the end of each year, CRC
participants will submit their annual energy
consumption figures, their equivalent
emissions figures and the carbon
allowances needed to cover this amount.
The price of the allowances will be
fixed at £12 per tonne of carbon emissions
for the first three years of the CRC. ¢
ISSUE 02 / BSD MARCH 2009
40 CARBON REDUCTION
FOREWARNED IS
FOREARMED
Prepare your organisation for the
introduction of the initiative
next year by:
■ Determining the total emissions
from the property estate
■ Understanding the quantity of
measured and estimated
information
■ Identifying any “quick wins” that
can be made in the short term,
such as changing to cleaner fuel
sources or switching to low-energy
lighting
■ Introducing a detailed carbon
management reporting and
targeting process
■ Reviewing energy budgets and
planning around the potential costs
of the CRC
BSD MARCH 2009 / ISSUE 02
¢ Companies that exceed their forecast
emissions will be able to buy the necessary
extra allowances – at a higher price – in
specific trading windows, called Safety
Valves. The price of allowances is expected
to rise after 2013 because there will be a cap
on the total number available; companies
that do better than their predictions will be
able to auction their surplus allowances.
David Bownass, a director at global
consultancy WSP, has been advising big
companies on the potential impact of the
CRC. “Any significant organisation, or one
with a large UK presence, will be captured
by this scheme,” he says. “Marks & Spencer,
Tesco, banks and universities, legal firms,
data centres, call centres – a lot of the brand
names people recognise will be affected.”
It is thought up to 5000 businesses will
be made to pay for their emissions when the
CRC gets under way with the trading year
from April 2010 to March 2011. In the debut
year, participants will be able to buy their
allowances after the end of the trading
period. All subsequent years’ allowances,
however, will have to be bought upfront or
through the Safety Valve mechanism.
Utilities companies and the
Environment Agency and its devolved
counterparts have begun contacting the
companies and organisations they believe
will go over the “trigger” amount of energy
consumption.
Bownass says: “Companies that may
fall within the CRC will get letters by the
end of March, and they will have to respond
to the Environment Agency by June. A
minority of them may avoid the trigger, of
course, but most will be captured and will
have to provide genuine data on their
energy consumption.”
Official participation in the scheme
will be confirmed in September. There is
concern that many businesses are unaware
of their potential accountability.
“There will be thousands of companies
in the CRC,” says Bownass, “and many of
them do not even know about it. I imagine
there will be a certain amount of panic.
Many larger organisations will have
appointed members of staff who will be
clued up, but a lot of universities, healthcare
trusts, local authorities, etc, probably don’t
know what they consume collectively.”
Companies and organisations are
being advised to review their electricity
bills and consult their energy providers to
determine if they meet the trigger figure of
6000MWh or could do so in future.
Marks & Spencer welcomed efforts to
reduce carbon emissions, which it said it
was tackling already as a matter of good
business practice. “There has to be more
regulation of this sort across the retail
sector in addition to voluntary measures,” a
spokeswoman said. “We have our own five-
year, 100-point eco plan called Plan A,
which includes improvements on energy
efficiency and which was developed with
carbon reduction firmly in mind.”
Top-performing organisations will
receive public acclaim thanks to a league
table, to be published annually, which will
rank each participant according to how its
total emissions have fallen compared with
its average over the previous five years.
The CRC will be a revenue neutral
scheme. Once operating costs have been
covered, all the remaining monies will be
reallocated to the participants six months
after the end of each trading year, according
to their positions in the league table. Those
in the middle of the table could get back all
they originally paid. Poor performers will
receive less, while those at the top of the
table could be rewarded with a surplus.
Westminster will be working with the
devolved administrations in Scotland,
Wales and Northern Ireland to ensure the
initiative is implemented across the UK.
What will it mean for engineers and
consultants? Bownass believes it could
produce a more pragmatic view of energy
engineering. “A lot of engineers are geared
up to newbuilds but the newbuild agenda is
well defined,” he says. “It will make
engineers rethink how they look at existing
buildings. They’ll become more energy
engineers, if you like.
“The idea behind the CRC is to get
people to focus their minds on energy and
carbon. It’s going to be an annual cost, so
any managing director seeing that rise will
want to understand it and control it better.
In the long term, it will raise awareness and
become more routine. However, there is still
a lot to be done in the short term.”
For more on the CRC, log on to:
www.defra.gov.uk/carbonreduction
 WATER H EATERS | BOI LERS
REN EWABLE PACKAGES

Cleaner.
Greener.
EcoKnight - the latest addition to
Lochinvar’s range of High Efficiency Boilers.
If you’d expect anyone to design an efficient
boiler that is both green and clean it would
be Lochinvar. Our EcoKnight has operating
efficiencies of up to 110% net and NOx
emissions lower than 53 mg/kWhr.
And of course, we also offer high
efficiency Water Heaters and
Renewable packages.

For details, call us on

01295 269981
email info@lochinvar.ltd.uk or visit
www.lochinvar.ltd.uk

Lochinvar Ltd 7 Lombard Way The MXL Centre Banbury Oxon OX16 4TJ

JEEPERS
CREEPERS
Can smothering buildings in plants reduce
air pollution, improve health and save the
planet? A developer in Delhi is giving
Battle McCarthy the chance to find out.
Will Jones reports
AIR QUALITY 43
P
oor air quality is one of the most
serious environmental problems
in urban areas worldwide. A
World Health Organisation
assessment of health damage from
exposure to high levels of particulates in
126 cities worldwide, where annual mean
levels exceed 50μg/m3, reveals that this
amounts to almost 130,000 premature
deaths; over 500,000 new cases of chronic
bronchitis; and many more lesser health
effects each year.
A UK Met Office report suggests that
by 2090, nearly a fifth of the world’s
population will be exposed to well above
the WHO’s recommended level of
airborne pollutants.
Could covering cities in foliage be
the answer? The ability of plants to
process pollutants and produce oxygen
has long been understood. By catching ¢
ISSUE 02 / BSD MARCH 2009
44 AIR QUALITY

The three stages of External air is 1 Creepers

Battle McCarthy’s
environmental
strategy for the
1 cleaned by climbing
plants that shroud
the facade.
2 Power stations
3 Office

Greenspaces office
development: 1

2 2

STAGE ONE
Set within a highly industrialised
zone of Delhi, the site of the
Greenspaces development is
subject to high levels of pollution
during the morning and evening
rush hours.
The buildings’ shroud of
vegetation plays a major role in
absorbing pollution, collecting up
to 40% of PM10s in the
immediate atmosphere.
Creepers grow up stainless
steel cables on steel tensors 1.2m
in front of the facades. They are
irrigated with grey water from the
buildings.
This vertical landscape
absorbs heat and sound and
provides shading to the buildings.
It supports biodiversity and, as it
is tended and trimmed, it is also a
source of biofuel.

¢ larger particulates in trees and shrubs,
leaf absorption of gases and pollutant
processing by root microbes and the roots
themselves, plants rid the air of a
multitude of nasties.
GREEN WALLS
Battle McCarthy is testing this theory to
the full with its environmental design for
an office project in India. The 163,000m2
Greenspaces development in Delhi
includes four 20-storey office blocks that
will be clad in creepers.
Atop each of the blocks will be a 15m
high “plant house” air purifying system
that will also clean the building’s grey
water. Inside, vertical walls of planting will
deal with pollutants created by the
“
Green roofs don’t do
much when it comes to
absorbing pollution.
We need to put the
vegetation where the
pollution is: in the streets,
around the facades of
buildings
we are starting to see more green roofs
being created,” says Chris McCarthy,
director at Battle McCarthy.
“The trouble is, they don’t do much
when it comes to absorbing pollution. We
need to put the vegetation where the
pollution is: in the streets, around the
facades of buildings. The trouble with that
is that people aren’t used to seeing
buildings shrouded in plants, and
architects aren’t always keen on seeing
their work covered in greenery.”
Another issue is that the rooftop
plant house effectively gives over three
storeys of potentially lettable space to the
bio-air purification system.
McCarthy understands the problem:
“If developers have to reduce their floor

”
occupants. areas to introduce our plant house
“People are coming to understand the design they won’t do it. But, if we could
need to have vegetation in our cities and get it written into legislation that the

BSD MARCH 2009 / ISSUE 02

 AIR QUALITY 45

Plant houses 1 External planting Plants within the 1 Plants in pockets

2 remove gases and

fine particles from
the fresh air supply.
2 Filters
3 Water spray
4 Plant house
5 Office
3 office
environment
remove pollutants
supported by mesh
2 Supply air

6 Biowall generated by occupants

and their equipment.

1 4

5 1
2 3

2
6

STAGE TWO STAGE THREE

Standing 15m high on the roof,
the plant house is the main air
purifier for each 20-storey block.
Within it, a series of 10m high by
7m wide meshes are hung 1.5m
apart. A forest of tropical plants
cling to them, fed by a constant
flow of water. An array of LEDs
causes the plants to
photosynthesize constantly.
The plant house is the third
and critical element in the air
purification strategy. Initially, air
is drawn in through EU7 and EU9
filters to remove larger pollutants.
It passes through a water spray to
rid it of smaller particles, down to
PM10s, and to cool it.
Finally, the air passes through
the plant house, where pollutants
as small as PM2.5s and gases
such as formaldehydes are
extracted by the plant leaves,
microbes and the roots.
The occupants of the office and
their equipment produce their
own pollutants. To neutralise
these, large areas of the walls are
shrouded in spider plants. Set in
vertical planters, the vegetation
extracts CO2 and other gases from
the air and refreshes it with extra
oxygen.
Air from the Plant House is
pumped into the office spaces at
a rate of about 12 air changes per
hour, via inlet grilles at floor level.
The grilles around the perimeter
of the building push the air
through the vertical planters,
further dispersing the oxygen
generated by the spider plants.
Finally, the air passes through
the plant house, where pollutants
as small as PM2.5s and gases
such as formaldehydes are
extracted by the plant leaves,
microbes and the roots.

maximum height of a building would be of newly developed land to trees. In Seattle

PROJECT TEAM
Architects: Perkins & Will,
Minnesota, USA
and Edifice, Mumbai, India
Building services: Battle McCarthy,
London; Spectral Services
Consultants, Noida, New Delhi
Landscape services: Battle
McCarthy, London
Contractor: Leighton, Melbourne,
Australia
the top floor of habitable space, with
these plant houses above, they would be
a real viable option for London and other
major cities.”
Delhi’s Greenspaces project is funded
by an Kamal Meattle, the CEO of Paharpur
Business Centre (PBC), who is willing to
test Battle McCarthy’s theories. The
scheme design is complete and a
guaranteed maximum price has been
established. Detailed design is now under
way and the project will start on site later
this year.
RADICAL ACTION NEEDED
“We need radical solutions to improve our
urban environment. We need more
planting in cities to help dissipate
pollution,” says McCarthy.
“In Toronto you have to allocate 30%
and Berlin they already count the vertical
landscape as part of the environment and
so covering a building in vegetation would
go a long way to ensuring better air
quality and meeting legislative
requirements.
“We need to instigate these and other
progressive obligations in the UK. Battle
McCarthy isn’t the first to say this, we just
want other people to get on board so we
can make some headway with an issue as
important as the air we breathe,”
McCarthy says.
Greater London stands high in the
world worst air quality stakes – in fact
the European Commission recently
announced it is taking action against
the UK for its failure to meet agreed
standards – so, Mayor Boris Johnson,
please take note.

ISSUE 02 / BSD MARCH 2009

Choose the team that puts everything in the right order.
Choosing the right team to arrange new gas and electricity connections is
essential in avoiding unnecessary delays to your projects. And in today’s
unsettled financial climate, can you really afford to get it wrong?

At British Gas Business you’ll always have a named contact within our
project management team to make sure the process is completed easily,
on budget and to schedule.

That’s why, for many decision makers, British Gas Business is the logical
choice. Professional and competitively priced on every project, our
unrivalled expertise can help you get everything in the right order.

To find out more about our services and how we can

help you, call 0845 073 3841.

connectionsandmetering.co.uk
 epcs are
you ready?

iesis...
IES <Virtual Environment> Energy Performance Certificate
software, training, accreditation and pre-assessment
Through our CLG accredited <VE Compliance> software, IES leads
the way in sophisticated performance analysis tools by which to assess
compliance with the conservation of energy Building Regulations across
the UK.
IES users can undertake training and accreditation with us, which
enables them to become Accredited Energy Assessors through
the following schemes:
• CIBSE Certification
We are the only software provider to offer both SBEM and Dynamic • BRE Global Accreditation
Simulation Model (DSM) based EPC software, training, certification • Stroma Accreditation
and consultancy services suitable for all non-dwellings in England • ECMK Accreditation
and Wales, N. Ireland and Scotland. This is regardless of size or
In addition, our expert building performance consultants are now
complexity as we offer both SBEM and DSM routes. We also now
offer a SBEM-based route to Building Energy Rating (BER) calculation among some of the first fully qualified Energy Assessors in the UK.
for the Republic of Ireland. Our software also covers the required As such, IES Consulting now offers EPC assessments to property
Part L, Section 6, Part F and Eire-Part L calculation of a building’s owners, landlords and design teams.
annual CO2 emission rate and production of the associated reports.

design, simulate + innovate

with IES <Virtual Environment>
E: enquiries@iesve.com W: www.iesve.com T: +44 (0)141 945 8500
48 TECHNICAL
WORKING
DETAIL
CUT AND DRIED
Desiccant is the key ingredient
in the sustainable cooling
strategy for Singapore’s giant
waterfront greenhouses (see
p24). Here, Atelier Ten explains
how the system will work.
TECHNICAL
LIQUID DESICCANT SYSTEM
1 The desiccant dehumidifier
removes moisture from the
fresh air supplied to the biome,
drying it and causing its
temperature to rise. Heat is
rejected to the cooling tower.
2 A conventional cooling coil
lowers the supply air
temperature.
3 After picking up moisture from
the supply air, the weak
desiccant solution is piped to
the desiccant regenerator.
4 The desiccant regenerator uses
heat to drive excess water from
the desiccant. The heat comes
from both hot water generated
by solar thermal panels
mounted in the “supertrees”
and as recovered heat from the
CHP engine.
5 The concentrated desiccant is
returned to the dehumidifier.
BSD MARCH 2009 / ISSUE 02
THE CHP SYSTEM
6 Woodchips are burnt in the
biomass boiler.
7 The biomass boiler generates
steam to power a turbine.
8 Electricity generated by the
turbine powers a conventional
electric chillers.
9 Recovered heat from the CHP
unit is used to drive the
absorption chillers and [10] to
regenerate the desiccant.
11 Both the electric and
absorption chillers are used to
cool the supply air.
12 Heat from the chillers is
rejected by the cooling towers. 06
07
THE AIR SUPPLY
13 Air is extracted from high level
within the biomes. The majority
of air is recirculated after
mixing with the cooled,
dehumidified fresh air supply.
14 The remainder of the hot, dry
exhaust is used to remove
moisture from the desiccant
regenerator before being
exhausted through the
supertrees.
 TECHNICAL 49

Mist
Generator

01 02

13 14
04

03
05

11
10
12

09

08

ISSUE 02 / BSD MARCH 2009

 TECHNICAL 51

LIGHTING Lamp spectral power

distribution could offer a
way of reducing lighting

NICE BUT DIM energy consumption

without occupants feeling
they’ve been plunged into
gloom.

Changing the lamp

type could help
reduce lighting load
without plunging
workers into gloom.
Steve Fotios reports
on recent research.

R
educing the energy consumed by
interior lighting improves the
sustainability of buildings. The
best way to do this is to make good
use of daylight and ensure artificial lighting
is not used when daylight is adequate.
Achieving this is a function of lighting
controls and occupant motivation. This
article discusses an approach to reducing
the energy consumed by artificial lighting.
Interior lighting in buildings such as
offices and education facilities is often
designed to meet a target mean horizontal
illuminance, this being 500 lux in many
spaces. The energy consumed by lighting
could be reduced by adopting a lower
average illuminance, but this may lead to
complaints of gloominess from occupants,
and adversely affect motivation and
productivity. There may also be more direct
effects on visual performance.
One way to combat gloominess
resulting from reduced illuminance is to
consider effects of lamp spectral power the reduction in illuminance was procedures and contexts are beneficial.
distribution (SPD). Lamps are available in a accompanied by the increase in CCT, there Most studies tend to use a unique set of
wide range of SPD and this can be seen in was a significant reduction in judgements variables and procedures and thus set limits
the variation of colour rendering and colour that the lighting was too dim. for the data; for example, the Akashi &
appearance characteristics. The Akashi & Boyce study suggests a Boyce study used only two lamps of
Akashi & Boyce [2006] surveyed the strategy for reducing energy consumption different CCT and it may be found that it is
occupants of an office building in which while maintaining the same visual a different attribute of lamp SPD that
they were able to modify the lighting. The conditions. Can this study be relied upon? guides the brightness effect.
existing lighting used three fluorescent Yes, for two reasons. First, two methods of There have been many studies of lamp
tubes in each luminaire, these lamps being data gathering were used, a category rating SPD and perception of the environment
of correlated colour temperature (CCT) task and a questionnaire seeking yes/no [Fotios, 2001]. Well known work carried out
3500K. In one office, the illuminance was responses. Second, there were control in the UK includes the visual clarity studies
reduced by one third from about 550 lux by conditions – a room in which only lamp of Bellchambers [Aston & Bellchambers,
the removal of one lamp from every type was changed and a room in which no 1969; Bellchambers & Godby, 1972] and
luminaire, and in a second office the changes were made. Boyce [Boyce, 1977]. A first step towards
reduction in illuminance was accompanied There is, however, need to validate the considering a study to be reliable is that the
by a change in lamp type, increasing the results by replication to ensure they are not results are published in a peer-reviewed
CCT to 6500K. In the office where only the just due to chance. Any experimental journal – a key source for lighting studies is
illuminance was reduced, there was a procedure contains bias which may Lighting Research & Technology.
significant increase in judgements that the exaggerate or understate the subjective I am carrying out a meta-analysis of
office appeared gloomy; in the office where response and so data from a range of these studies with Kevin Houser of ¢

ISSUE 02 / BSD MARCH 2009

52 TECHNICAL
¢Pennsylvania State University in which
we are closely inspecting experimental
methodologies. One method is side-by-side
matching, where two stimuli, such as
illuminated rooms, are lit simultaneously by
separate lamps and test participants adjust
the illuminance in one room until they
appear as-near-as-possible equally bright.
We have shown that three steps of
counterbalancing are needed to avoid
biasing the results [Fotios, Houser & Cheal,
2008]; results of studies which did not do so,
such as those of Bellchambers, give an
unreliable estimate of lamp SPD effects on
brightness and must therefore be omitted
from the analysis.
In the brightness discrimination
method the task is to say which of two
environments is brighter, in a room lit
sequentially by two different types of lamp.
This can be an easier task for test
participants but needs more care from the
experimenter when choosing which levels
of SPD and illuminance to compare.
An alternative experimental method is
category rating. Typically only one light
source is used at a time, and participants
rate the brightness (and other attributes) of
the scene using a scale of 1=dim to 8=bright.
Again, precautions are needed if the work is
to provide reliable evidence of lamp SPD
effect [Fotios & Houser, 2009]. While side-
by-side matching tasks tend to exaggerate
the differences of brightness between
lamps, category rating tends to understate
them; the appropriate interpolation lies
within this range and depends partly on the
end application of the research and the
physiology of human vision.
A current focus of research at the
University of Sheffield is how experimental
conditions affect the outcome. Laboratory
studies often ask test participants to judge
lighting from one or more different types of
lamp; what is the difference between
judgements made of two lamps seen
simultaneously, two lamps seen in rapid
succession or of judgements given to the
lamps when seen separately? What is the
difference between evaluations of a uniform
field (eg a grey wall) and a furnished space?
Do tests carried out using small visual
fields adequately represent the visual
response in full-field lighting?
An understanding of these effects and
their magnitude is needed in order to be
able to properly analyse and categorise the
findings from previous work. There is a
strong interest in this work in the US. The
Illuminating Engineering Society of North
America (IESNA) has established the
Effects of Lamp Spectral Distribution
committee to report on lamp SPD effects on
brightness and visual effort. I am chairman
of the brightness sub-committee. This
committee has two objectives. The first is to
BSD MARCH 2009 / ISSUE 02
illuminance reduction. Whether this saves
energy depends on the efficacies of the two
types of lamp; the research should also be
able to provide targets for manufacturers as
to tuning the spectral power distribution of
lamps or LED arrays to match human vision.
A similar situation exists with lighting
on residential roads, where one target of
lighting is to improve visual perceptions of
brightness and safety. There is evidence
from trial installations and laboratory
studies that lamp SPD affects perception of
the visual environment at night and that
consideration of lamp type enables design
illuminance to be reduced, which can
reduce energy consumption [ILE, 2008].
British Standard BS5489-1:2003 accounts for
the effect of lamp SPD by permitting the
average illuminance to be reduced by one
lighting class when using lamps of colour
rendering index equal to, or greater than,
review the body of evidence to identify 60. We know that colour rendering index is
reliable and appropriate evidence of lamp not an infallible tool for comparing the
SPD effects on brightness. The second is to colour rendering properties of lamps [Guo
identify a tool for predicting the effect, & Houser, 2004], let alone for comparing the
which may be a model of human vision or a effect on brightness or perceived safety in
colour characteristic of the lighting. night-time roads, but it does give a simple
Research is under way at the University of method of discriminating between those
Sheffield and Pennsylvania State University. lamps currently in common usage.
While the meta-analysis is yet to be I have received funding from the
completed, some previous studies do appear Engineering and Physical Sciences
to provide reliable and appropriate data Research Council to identify a better
[Fotios & Houser, 2008]. These tend to method of prescription. Three simplified
support the Akashi & Boyce field study in examples [ILE, 2008] demonstrated that
that lamp SPD does have a significant effect consideration of lamp SPD can reduce the
on judgements of brightness. Imagine that energy consumed by street lighting by 34%,
you had chosen to light a room to 500 lux but also that this saving is highly context
with lamp A. The data suggest it could be lit related and should not be assumed without
using lamp B to a lower illuminance while carrying out a cost-effectiveness analysis.
maintaining the same perceived visual
environment. What is missing is a tool for Dr Steve Fotios is a senior lecturer at the School of
predicting the relationship between lamp Architecture, University of Sheffield
characteristics and the permissible For more on lighting design, www.bsdlive.co.uk
REFERENCES
■ Akashi Y, Boyce PR. 2006. A London: BSI, 2003. the perception of interior
field study of illuminance ■ Boyce PR. 1977. spaces: frequently this is
reduction. Energy & Buildings Investigations of the subjective misleading. Balkan Light 2008,
38(6): 588-599. balance between illuminance Ljubljana, Slovenia, 7-9 October
■ Aston SM, Bellchambers HE. and lamp colour properties. 2008, pp69-78.
1969. Illumination, colour Lighting Research & ■ Fotios SA, Houser KW.
rendering and visual clarity. Technology 9: 11-24. Research methods to avoid bias
Lighting Research and ■ Fotios SA. 2001. Lamp colour in categorical ratings of
Technology 1(4): 259-261. properties and apparent brightness, Leukos, 2009 (in
■ Bellchambers HE, Godby AC. brightness: a review. Lighting press; expected in January
1972. Illumination, colour Research and Technology 33 2009 issue).
rendering and visual clarity. (3): 163-181. ■ Guo X, Houser K. A review of
Lighting Research and ■ Fotios SA, Houser KW, Cheal colour rendering indices and
Technology 4(2): 104-106. C. 2008. Counterbalancing their application to commercial
■ British Standards Institution needed to avoid bias in side-by- light sources. Light. Res.
(BSI) BS5489-1:2003, Code of side brightness matching tasks. Technol., 36(3): 183-197 (2004).
practice for the design of road Leukos 4 (4): 207-223 ■ Institution of Lighting
lighting – Part 1: Lighting of ■ Fotios S & Houser K. Engineers (ILE), Technical
roads and public amenity areas, Measuring lamp SPD effect on Report TR29: White Light, 2008.
54 WORKING ABROAD

I’M OUTTA HERE

The UK is a world leader in sustainability skills,

and its services engineers are a highly marketable
export, Katie Puckett finds. But those nice hot
countries will soon develop local expertise. So if
you’re going to go... Illustration by Patrick Lewis
BSD MARCH 2009 / ISSUE 02

W
ho hasn’t dreamt of leaving
the cold gloom of a British
February for a career
somewhere hot and sunny?
This year, with the UK market looking
bleak, there’s an added impetus to seek your
fortune elsewhere. Fortunately, there’s never
been a better time to be an engineer
specialising in sustainability. The recession
may be global but there are some markets
relatively unscathed by the financial fallout,
where governments and clients are
increasingly willing to spend money to
minimise the environmental impact of their
buildings.
If you’re considering a move overseas,
a good first step is to see where bodies
similar to the UK Green Building Council
have been set up or are planned. There are
established councils in Australia, New
Zealand, South Africa, the US, Canada,
Japan, Taiwan, the UAE, Germany, India,
Brazil and Mexico. Argentina, Columbia,
Poland, Vietnam, Romania, the Netherlands,
Italy and Spain are in the process of setting
them up.
The UK has been at the forefront of
research into green building techniques,
and our engineering expertise is respected
around the world – in fact, sustainability
engineers may find they enjoy a higher
status on projects overseas and have a
much greater opportunity to make a
difference than they do at home.
APPETITE FOR EXPERIMENTATION
Max Fordham senior partner Bill Watts
believes engineers are one of the UK’s
strongest exports. “We’ve done some very
innovative buildings in this country and
we’ve learnt a hell of a lot from them.
There’s a much bigger range of buildings in
the UK than other places, and a greater
appetite for experimentation,” he says.
WORKING ABROAD 55
“People are looking to Europe and the UK
in particular for engineering expertise in
sustainability.”
Andy McNab, head of sustainability at
Scott Wilson, who has worked all over the
world, agrees. “I think the opportunities are
only going to grow,” he says. “I know we get
depressed here and say people are going to
stop thinking about sustainability, but there
are drivers in other parts of the world that
make this a good area to be in still.”
In China, for example, a vast potential
market, McNab says the government has
suddenly got the bit between its teeth.
“They do talk about things for a long time,
but if they decide they’re going to do
something, they do it very rapidly. In China,
if they decide they like an idea, they’ll
implement it tomorrow. That’s
tremendously exciting.”
He adds wryly: “There is a real
opportunity in working in less democratic ¢
ISSUE 02 / BSD MARCH 2009

¢ countries to achieve things very quickly.”
Plans for “eco-cities” are afoot in
several of the Middle Eastern states,
notably Abu Dhabi. The government’s
Masdar Initiative includes plans for a 6km2
zero-carbon, zero-waste eco-city near
the international airport, designed by Foster
+ Partners.
“A number of the Arab states are
beginning to think seriously about a post-
oil-rich world,” McNab says. “Abu Dhabi is
experimenting with other technologies,
particularly energy but also building in
order to be prepared to have another string
to their bow. They have the money to invest
so can afford to do some experimenting.”
He also mentions Qatar as particularly
forward thinking – it has the largest per
capita carbon footprint in the world but,
with the highest GDP per capita, it also the
money to do something about it. “There’s a
certain amount of moral pressure on them
as well.”
McNab also tips the Indian market as
ripe for expansion, though he admits this is
a bit of a wildcard. Scott Wilson is working
on a vast regional planning project to
develop manufacturing exports in the area
between Delhi and Mumbai. “At the
moment, green issues do not feature highly
in India at all,” he says. “But I think India
will come through the world recession
better than anywhere else – it’s got a high
growth rate and an articulate and moneyed
population, the largest middle class in the
world. They may say, ‘if China and Abu
Dhabi are going to have an eco-city, we’ll
have one too’. They do like to see
themselves as a world power.”
McNab has already picked up signs of
a sea-change. “Two months ago, there was
very little reference to sustainability.
Talking now with clients, it’s coming much
higher up their agenda. We’re talking about
a sustainability appraisal rather than an
environmental assessment, and they’re
saying ‘that’s interesting’. There are 24
growth areas and we suggested maybe
some of those should be looking at a more
sustainable, ecological form of
development. They haven’t agreed yet but
the fact that they’re entertaining it…”
Another market ripe for an influx of
UK engineers is South Africa. Its foreign
exchange controls meant its banks weren’t
so entwined in the web of bad credit that
has brought down financial institutions
around the world, leaving it relatively
cushioned from the global downturn. South
Africa’s Green Building Council was formed
last year and in November, it launched
Green Star SA, based on the Australian
green building standard.
“Up until then, there was no
rating tool so sustainability had a
low degree of prominence,” says Andrew
Mather, managing director of WSP in South
Africa. Major power shortages in January
WORKING ABROAD 57
“
last year and a slew of government targets
on power reduction have made a dramatic
difference in a short space of time. “It’s at an
early stage but there’s a big drive to make it
We want people who know happen, the market is pushing hard to get
about energy modelling. green buildings.”
The opportunity for UK engineers lies
That’s a very scarce in the fact that only a handful of local firms
can provide the necessary skills. “South
resource in South Africa. Africa has very strong building service
If there are any modellers engineers, but not many have specific
experience in sustainable building design,”
out there, we would take says Mather. He is recruiting right now: “We
one or two tomorrow. want people who know about chilled beam
systems, variable volume air-conditioning
systems, energy efficient lighting design
and energy modelling. That’s a very scarce
”
resource in South Africa. If there are any
modellers out there, we would take one or
two tomorrow.”
One potential drawback for UK
engineers is the salary differential –
typically a 30% drop, although Mather
points out that living costs are
proportionally less too. “In the end you’re
not going to be worse off. The climate’s the
best in the world – and we’re beating the
Aussies at cricket.”
What could also soften the blow is the
drop in the value of the pound – Mather
says there used to be 20 rand to the pound,
but now it’s closer to 15. Sterling’s weakness
may be bad news if you’re planning a
holiday in the euro zone, but it’s an
excellent reason to seek your salary in a
different currency.
It’s not only UK manufacturers whose
exports may benefit from the exchange rate
– consultants too are finding their fees more
attractive to overseas clients. “It’s a lot
easier to sell our skills now,” says Max
Fordham’s Bill Watts. “As a UK consultant,
you always need to show there are very
clear advantages to having you there
because you’re bound to be more expensive
than indigenous engineers.”
Globetrotting engineers often have to
demonstrate a more rounded set of skills
than you would need in the UK, and be able
to take on duties that here might fall to
other members of the project
team. For example, in Australia
building services engineers put
together all the services cost estimates,
where in the UK they’d leave it to the QS.
“In many ways it’s good because it
forces you to think about what the design is
costing at each stage,” says Dave Clark,
partner at Cundall, who’s just returned from
a 14-year stint in Melbourne, during which
he helped to set up the green star
standard. He recommends that
sustainability engineers considering
emigration should have at least three
years’ experience and a thorough
grounding not only in their own
specialism but in the way it fits with
others: “Too many engineers just ¢
ISSUE 02 / BSD MARCH 2009
58 WORKING ABROAD
¢ focus on one discipline,” he says.
Australia is another market that’s not
suffered too badly in the recent downturn.
Clark says the government is investing
heavily in PFI schools and hospitals, and
sustainability engineers enjoy a much
higher status. “ESD – environmental,
sustainability and design – consultants play
a much more prominent role at the start of
projects. It’s a defined role on government
schemes – all hospital projects in Victoria,
for example, have an ESD consultant as a
separate engagement as part of the design
team.”
Of course, the climatic conditions and
the engineering solutions will be very
different to the UK, although the basic
principles still apply. In hotter countries,
green building is more about reducing air-
conditioning and conserving water than
keeping heat in.
Clark says it’s very rare for Australian
buildings to have double-glazing – shading
is far more important – and because the
country has been hit by drought for the last
seven years, water conservation is a top
priority.
“If you’ve spent your life doing schools
in the UK, doing one in Dubai is very
different,” agrees Watts. “There are some
things that do transfer like use of daylight,
internal spaces and acoustics, but
everything to do with climate is completely
different. The way you treat external spaces
and the amount of external space, for
example.”
There are also different social
expectations, such as the separation of men
and women, and it’s a good idea to swot up
on local historic forms and streetscapes.
Arab populations may have taken to air-
conditioned glass skyscrapers with startling
alacrity, but the drive for low-energy
buildings has prompted designers to revisit
traditional cooling features such as wind-
towers and narrow streets oriented to
maximise breezes.
Technicalities aside, engineers may
also have to play more of a customer-
facing role. Hoare Lea opened an
office in Abu Dhabi last year, and head
of recruitment Natasha Cragg says she
looks for employees who are able to
represent the firm at the highest level.
“It’s important they can manage clients
and the projects through other offices
wherever they might be. International
working may suit some individuals more
than others – being self-motivated,
adaptable and tolerant of other cultures and
ways of doing things is essential,” she says.
“Integrating in a completely new
environment where you don’t know anyone
can be tough, and so someone who is
willing to get involved and wants to get
out and meet new people will make the
best of the opportunity.”
One major difference
BSD MARCH 2009 / ISSUE 02
“
UK engineers will face working abroad is
the motivation of clients. In the UK the
adoption of sustainability measures has
been driven largely by legislation. In
It’s a very short window of countries without such legislation, a
opportunity. They’ve pragmatic approach may work. In China, for
example, McNab says clients are looking for
certainly got very good an economic rationale – and may need a bit
more of a nudge to go for it.
m&e engineers in the Far “They’re looking to enhance the value
East, but so far they of buildings and reduce management and
maintenance costs. Engineers have more of
haven’t had the market a persuasive role. Sometimes engineers
pressure to think about pride themselves on being able to deliver
on the client’s brief. But actually, in relation
sustainability to the sustainability agenda, you have to go
a bit further and make your client aware of
”
things that they can do, things that are in
addition to just meeting the brief.”
IT’S ANOTHER CULTURE
And of course, there are also the cultural
differences. “In China, you don’t assume
anything,” McNab says. “The Chinese do
think in a different way, there’s no simpler
way of putting it.”
He recalls an example from the early
days of working with a Chinese client. He
suggested one solution, which was knocked
back, so he offered something else. “They
said ‘hang on – what is correct? Before you
said we should do this’. It’s very different to
the whole lateral-thinking English thing
where you find a way through.”
Watts warns that UK engineers may
struggle to understand local aspirations –
wealthier people in hot countries often prize
US standards of comfort. “That means
pretty much directly high energy. For some
areas, that doesn’t matter – in the Gulf,
they’ve got plenty of it. In the past six
months, that’s completely changed at
government level, but the general
population expect places to be cooled to
19C, which is really far too cold.
“The US is changing pretty quickly,
and we never had that aspiration in the
UK anyway, but in a way that’s quite
dangerous as you might come across
as having no sympathy for what they
aspire to.”
The other warning Watts
gives is one of urgency. “It’s a very
short window of
opportunity. They’ve
certainly got very good
mechanical and electrical
engineers in the Far East,
but so far they haven’t had
the market pressure to think
about sustainability.
“They’ll learn though, so you have
to keep ahead of the game, and keep
adding new things so you’ve always got
something new to teach people.”
Foreign clients and construction
teams will learn fast – the message is, if
you want to go, go now.
 BSD4JOBS.COM 59

BSD4JOBS.COM
LOG ON TO BROWSE Mechanical Engineers
THROUGH OVER 100 Our Building Services team in Newcastle is seeking to
recruit Mechanical Engineers to work on a variety of

OPPORTUNITIES exciting projects, particularly within our busy Education

and Lifestyle sectors.

ONLINE TODAY Our ideal candidates will be either at Engineer or Senior

Engineer level, and should possess a BEng or MEng (or
equivalent) in Building Services or Mechanical Engineering,
and be working towards Chartered Engineer status. They
To advertise your vacancy with bsd4jobs.com should also have demonstrable design experience in the
please telephone 020 7560 4249 Mechanical aspects of Building Services engineering, and
an awareness and interest in the principles of sustainable
design. As well as their technical skills, they will have
previous experience of managing the design of projects
and leading a small team of engineers.

The successful applicants will join a dynamic team, with

excellent training and development opportunities; as well
BT
B
DPNQFUJUJWF
TBMBSZ
BOE
CFOFåUT
QBDLBHF

For further details of this position and to apply please visit

our website at www.cundall.com/careers, or contact our
HR team.

Cundall Johnston & Partners LLP

www.cundall.com

Property group

ENERGY TEAM MANAGER

£39,345 to £43,733 a year.
Lancashire County Council has put climate change
and energy efficiency at the top of the agenda with
a recent restructure of its Energy Team. An
excellent opportunity has consequently arisen for a
suitably qualified and experienced energy
professional to lead the team of up to 8. With an
annual energy bill of £15M and a portfolio of 2,500
buildings, this is a demanding role and will require
the ability to work quickly and effectively towards
delivering challenging targets.
The successful applicant will have at least 10 years
of relevant experience in energy management and
be able to demonstrate a thorough knowledge of
energy management techniques and understanding
of the legislation concerning energy efficiency and
climate change. You will have the required drive
and self motivation combined with experience of
Ref: R00222JH
managing and motivating staff in this exciting and
rapidly developing field of work.
Informal discussion: Chief Engineer,
Mr M Tidmarsh, on 01772 533243.
37 hours a week, required as soon as possible
based in the Energy Team, County Hall, Preston
PR1 8RE. This post is covered by the Rehabilitation
of Offenders (Exemption) Act 1975. If successful,
you will be required to apply to the Criminal
Records Bureau for a 'disclosure'. This is an
essential car-user's post, set at band 1199cc.
However, we may consider you if you cannot drive
because of a disability. We are conducting a job
evaluation exercise and as a result the salary of this
post may increase or decrease, or stay the same.
Apply online or telephone 0845 053 0008.
Closing date: 20 March 2009.

www.lancashire.gov.uk/vacancies

To advertise your vacancy with bsd4jobs.com please telephone 020 7560 4249 ISSUE 02 / BSD MAR 2009
60 BSD4JOBS.COM

Yr Amgylchedd a Gwasanaethau Technegol The Environment and Technical Services

UCHEL BEIRIANNYDD DYLUNIO MECANYDDOL SENIOR MECHANICAL DESIGN ENGINEER
Cyfeirnod Swydd: ET030209 Cyflog: £24,331 – £28,270 y flwyddyn Job Reference: ET030209 Salary: £24,331 – £28,270 per annum
Am sgwrs anffurfiol cysylltwch â Rhys Griffith ar 01248 752161. For an informal discussion, please contact Rhys Griffith on 01248 752161.
DYDDIAD CAU: HANNER DYDD, DYDD GWENER 6 MAWRTH 2009. CLOSING DATE: 12 NOON, FRIDAY 6 MARCH 2009.
Mae’r swydd uchod yn disgwyl dyfarniad swydd The above post is awaiting job evaluation
Mae gwybodaeth pellach a ffurflenni cais ar gael drwy ein safle we Further details and application forms are available from our website
www.ynysmon.gov.uk. Neu gallwch gysylltu â’r Uned Adnoddau www.anglesey.gov.uk. Alternatively, you can contact our Human
Dynol ar 01248 752504 neu e-bostio swyddi@ynysmon.gov.uk. Resource Unit on 01248 752504 or e-mail jobs@anglesey.gov.uk.
Mae Cyngor Sir Ynys Môn yn Gyflogwr Cyfleon Cyfartal
Isle of Anglesey County Council is an Equal Opportunities Employer

Searching for jobs

online just got easier
Come and visit www.th-associates online and you’ll notice we’ve made significant improvements
with our new website, making your job hunting experience much easier and more enjoyable.
Features of the new website include:
Find out instantly when a relevant new job becomes live by registering for job alerts
Up to the minute industry news
Find out about exciting changes at TH Associates
Hemel Hempstead T: 01442 230 100 London T: 0845 5050 100
www.th-associates.com E: contactus@th-associates.com W: www.th-associates.com

Energy Performance
Contracting Engineers (PCE)
Honeywell Building Solutions (HBS) is a strategic business unit in
Automation and Control Solutions (ACS) and part of a world leading $35
billion turnover company.
The need to improve energy efficiency in our buildings to address climate
change and carbon emissions is today among the top priorities for
governments and large companies. This has led to a demand for energy
efficient products and services. HBS is rapidly growing its energy solutions
business and we need skilled and experienced people to help us meet this
demand. This is a rapidly expanding and exciting market, influenced by
positive market drivers and providing excellent career opportunities in a
dedicated, professional team of energy specialists.
We are seeking two PCE’s who will report directly to the EMEAI Energy
Solutions Development Leader. You will be responsible for identifying and
quantifying the energy solutions opportunity, analyse the financial
implications including both cost and savings and assist in communicating
the business justification to the customer.
● Ideally a Chartered Engineer or working towards achieving your
Chartership.
● Demonstrable experience in HVAC detailed engineering, working
for HVAC consulting firms or Mechanical contractors
● Demonstrate business, job costing, financial, contract management,
leadership and customer skills.
● Experience in energy auditing as Low Carbon Consultant or Low
Carbon Energy Assessor
● Be willing to travel and work on European projects
Please send your CV and covering letter to:
Gill.Pinder@honeywell.com Please email or call: 01344 656379
for more information or to discuss other positions including sales.

BSD MAR 2009 / ISSUE 02 To advertise your vacancy with bsd4jobs.com please telephone 020 7560 4249
 BSD4JOBS.COM 61

Courses

Civil and Building

Engineering
UK’S LONGEST ESTABLISHED CONSTRUCTION MSc COURSES
MSc Construction Management The Department is one of the leading multi-disciplinary construction
MSc Construction Project Management departments in the UK and has been highly rated in the recently
MSc Construction Project Management published Research Assessment Exercise. The Department’s taught
(work-based distance learning) postgraduate programmes are well regarded by industry and are
MSc Building Services Engineering accredited by a range of professional institutions including ICE,
MSc Low Carbon Building Design and Modelling IStructE, IHT, RICS, CIOB and CILT. The Department also offers
(NEW COURSE)
MSc Sustainable Transport and Travel Planning renowned research programmes: MPhil/PhD and EngD.
MSc Transport Policy and Business Management
For further details contact: Mrs J M Robson
Department of Civil and Building Engineering
Loughborough University, Leicestershire, LE11 3TU, UK
T: +44 (0)1509 222604 F: +44 (0)1509 223981 E: J.M.Robson@lboro.ac.uk
www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/cv/pg/index.html
Ref: CV/5453

We’ll get you to the door.

BSD4jobs is the new dedicated recruitment website for building services engineers.
Bringing the same great functionality as all UBM’s 4jobs sites, you will be able to take advantage of:
9 An intuitive one-click search system allowing results to be filtered quickly and easily
9 Search for companies with ease in our ‘recruiter A-Z’
9 Add your profile and CV so recruiters can search for you
9 Register for up to 5 job alerts
Stay in touch with the best industry jobs, register online now.

To advertise your vacancy with bsd4jobs.com please telephone 020 7560 4249 ISSUE 02 / BSD MAR 2009
BACK PAGE
YOUR DIGITAL WORLD
Ben Smith of Faber Maunsell shares his
cyber secrets, while the BSD blog site is now
in full swing. To join the debate, click on
www.bsdlive.co.uk/blog. You can also sign
up for our weekly newsletter and register for
BSD’s digital edition.
BEN SMITH
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR,
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
GROUP, FABER MAUNSELL
What is the one website you couldn’t
live without?
I subscribe to the Guardian newspaper.
http://digital.guardian.co.uk/guardian/
That’s my favourite website… but I don’t
read it enough. The one I couldn’t live
without is probably National Rail Enquiries.
What is your favourite gadget?
Probably my iPod, but there’s a lot of
rubbish on there. I have a Blackberry – that
is really useful.
What’s the most useful website you
access for your work?
If I’m doing sums, www.digitaldutch.com/
unitconverter. If I’m writing proposals,
www.planningportal.gov.uk. I spend a lot of
time on government sites – DECC, CLG,
Defra, Environment Agency – the stuff is
never where I want it to be.
BSD MARCH 2009 / ISSUE 02
What was your last album download?
Kings of Leon, Only by the Night.
The subject of the last email you received?
Re: ‘Target Zero logo’. It relates to a project I
am working on, looking at how you design
zero carbon commercial buildings. There is
a press launch coming up. Maybe you
should come to the press launch and do a
nice little feature!
Social networking or face-to-face?
Face to face. I do have a Facebook page but
I think I’m too old for it really.
Who is your favourite blogger?
I don’t do much blogging myself but the
guys in the office are “tapped in”. They are
often talking about carbonlimited.org and
are also into “House 2.0”. [George] Monbiot
does a good blog at www.monbiot.com.
The best link you’ve been sent?
http://www.climatecrisis.net/trailer/ It’s not
good, it’s scary. Everybody should see it. I
was so taken by it that I helped organise a
viewing for our clients.
What was the last thing you bought
online?
More trainers – it’s an inconvenient truth.
BSDLIVE.CO.UK
Guests on the BSD blog site
include Dave Cheshire of Faber
Maunsell on the drive towards
zero carbon, Cal Bailey from NG
Bailey warning the industry not
to slip on sustainability in the
face of the recession, and Anna
Exley of HSS Hire talking about
the company’s commitment to
sustainability.
WE LIKE FEEDBACK
A bsdlive.co.uk news story
headlined “Climate change
irreversible, says NOAA” inspired
our favourite feedback this
month.
Mark Britton commented:
“What has happened to the
phrase “global warming”? It now
seems this isn’t happening…
scientists have shifted wording
to avoid the use of the phrase,
as it shoots down their theories
and doomsday scenarios. Yes,
climate change is happening,
sure we dump lots of bad things
in the atmosphere… but are we
the cause of climate change,
remains to be seen… of course
the effects are irreversible by
anything we do, if we don't
cause it in the first place.”
John Henderson added:
“Have you been watching Top
Gear again, Mark?”
JOIN IN
For daily news updates, industry
comment or to have your say,
click onto bsdlive.co.uk. Send
your latest projects, pictures and
flythroughs to
bsdeditorial@ubm.com
tuesday 03 thursday 05
march 2009
earls court, london

register for your free invitation

www.ecobuild.co.uk

headline sponsors headline supporters

the world’s biggest event for
sustainable design, construction
and the built environment
 EXPERIENCE YOUR SYSTEM DESIGN
BEFORE THE FIRST CONNECTION IS
MADE.

Create and share more complete construction documents

with better efficiency in a familiar software environment
designed specifically for mechanical, electrical and
plumbing engineers.

Contact an approved reseller today for more information.

Autodesk’s network of approved resellers offer the best advice, training

and support to choose the right software and then get the most from it.

Within the UK there is an extensive network of Autodesk Value Added

resellers providing:
• Industry-specific training
• Technical expertise
• Production information
• Telephone support
• Networking and integration
• Hardware and services to meet all your objectives

3 5

Contact an authorised reseller today.

www.adris.co.uk www.cadassist.co.uk www.cadline.co.uk www.excitech.co.uk www.TruAxis.com

SOUTHAMPTON STOCKPORT STAINES ENFIELD LONDON
Tel: 02380 868947 Tel: 0161 4408122 Tel: 01784 419922 Tel: 0845 370 1447 Tel: 020 7981 2640
1 2 3 4 5

Autodesk and Autodesk® 3ds Max are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., in the USA and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders.
Autodesk reserves the right to alter product offerings and specifications at any time without notice, and is not responsible for typographical or graphical errors that may appear in this document. © 2008 Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved.