Aspiration, aspiration, aspiration

Role models matter. High-profile projects can fire the imagination. As for property prices… Kevin Telfer taps into the sources of inspiration for eco-refurbishment.

The prime time TV show Grand Designs is both popular,and highly aspirational. And presenter Kevin McCloud’s architectural odyssey has been full of insight into different aspects of sustainability in architecture. McCloud himself has always been wary of died-in-the-wool environmental- ists, and even suspicious of the term ‘sustainable’ – often used, he argues, in the vaguest possible way. But his move to found his own development company, HAB, which is “committed to creating communities which are a pleasure to live in and sustainable”, is a perfect example of how eco-architecture is moving into the mainstream.
 
Grand Designs, by its nature, focuses more often on the blank canvas – or the major rebuild – than on what most of us would understand by such terms as ‘refurb’ and ‘retrofit’. And it’s not hard to understand the appeal of the clean and gleaming zero-carbon new-build home. But there aren’t too many of those around at the moment, as the building industry’s steep learning curve is still in its early stages.

This is where eco-refurbishment comes in. It’s becoming an increasingly popular option – not just an effort by well- meaning people to ‘do their bit’, but also because it’s seen as a smart route to decreasing domestic running costs,future-proofing homeowners against energy price increases. What’s more, the world of eco-refurb is getting seriously trendy – casting off its hitherto common epithet of ‘dull but worthy’. And being trendy may well mean profits for the enterprising owners of newly greened homes.

For the embodiment of eco-chic, take a look at the work – and the client list – of architects Michaelis Boyd. Based in Notting Hill, they are responsible for a raft of highly fashionable projects including the Electric Cinema on Portobello Road, high-end bars and restaurants, and the minimalist pads of a number of celebrities including Michelin-starred chefs and supermodels. But they are perhaps now most well known for the eco-refurb of that famous, though it must be said, rather less trendy, resident of Notting Hill, David Cameron. In Cameron’s house, as well as significant structural works, they revamped the insulation and installed rainwater harvesting along with solar panels and (notoriously) a micro-wind turbine.

Among other notably high-profile and exemplary projects in expensive, fashionable areas of London are a refurbishment in Primrose Hill, and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea’s ‘Flagship Home’ at 36 Beaufort Gardens, just around the corner from Harrods.
 
The Primrose Hill project, in Berkley Road, is the work of Bill Dunster Architects’ ZEDfactory. Most famous for their new-build work including BedZED and BowZED, they have also been extremely active in the field of refurbishment. Their concept of ‘ZEDUP’ aims to provide an economic way of improving a home’s performance to carbon-neutral level. What they’ve been doing in Berkley Road, now nearing completion, is a high-budget and high- specification refurbishment for a wealthy client, featuring numerous sustainable elements that not only relate to energy efficiency, but other resource use too, particularly water. The approach is similar to that seen in ZEDfactory’s new-builds: decreasing the energy requirements by making the building as airtight, insulated and thermally efficient as possible, and supplying the remaining energy requirement from renewable sources – in this case, solar hot water, solar electrical panels, a wind turbine and a wood pellet boiler using sustainably sourced fuel.
 
Whereas the Berkley Road house will command a market price in the millions, the Flagship Home in Knightsbridge has a different flavour. This is a six-storey, multi-occupancy nineteenth-century terraced building containing a two- bedroom flat and 18 bedsits – four of them allocated as keyworker accommodation with lower rents. Owned by the borough, it is located within a conservation area, but the entire building had fallen into disrepair. The decision was then taken to use it as a showcase for a low-carbon approach to regeneration, aiming to achieve a 60% cut in building-related emissions. Working to a design by ECD (Energy Conscious Design) Architects, the building was given greater airtightness, more insulation, low-energy appliances and solar heating which supplies an estimated 60% of hot water demand. Monitoring so far reveals that carbon emissions have been more than halved.

Just a few years ago, in terms of public perception at least, if not in reality, ‘ecological architecture’ conjured up an image of camping in the woods and wearing socks and sandals. Yet these examples and many more indicate that, along with other low-carbon economy ideas, eco-refurb is being ardently adopted by urbanites and city-based architects. And its popularity is clearly not just evident in our major cities but across the country.

Although this development may seem entirely positive, there are also potential difficulties with the phenomenon – and particularly with the notion of eco-refurbishment as a kind of fashion accessory. Are eco-makeovers in danger of being just another consumer must-have – or an ‘offset’ for those holidays to Thailand and the school-run SUV – rather than something that is integrated within an overall sustainable way of life?
 
Not according to Duncan Baker-Brown, director of Lewes- based BBM Sustainable Design, who won the Daily Telegraph’s Eco-house of the year award in 2006. He says that homeowners are attracted to the idea of eco- refurbishment not just because it is worthy – or trendy – but because it makes a building perform efficiently, improving the quality of life for its occupants at the same time as reducing running costs. “The last three years have seen an enormous rise in eco-refurb,” says Baker-Brown. “We now have almost too much of this kind of work for us to keep up with.”

Before 1975, extraordinary as it might seem, new houses did not have to conform to any energy performance criteria. Even then, the standards which were introduced began from such a low base, and levels of enforcement were so questionable, that a culture of energy-inefficient housing remained endemic. This has left a legacy which is a huge problem, both in terms of emissions and energy costs– particularly with energy prices as prone to sharp increases as they have been in recent years. So there would seem to be an obvious benefit in the kind of low-carbon refurbishment that offers some protection against further hikes in fuel prices.|
 
But the key question for homeowners is whether a capital investment in increased energy efficiency, or in generating their own power, will pay for itself within a reasonable period of time. And the answers vary. “It is so hard to generalise,” says Steve Harris, a senior architect at ZEDfactory, “because there are so many different types of building.” Solar photovoltaic panels, for instance, are one form of microgeneration that many might want to consider. A study done at ZEDfactory suggests that the payback time would be approximately 15 years for an average 100m2 house with 20 solar PV panels, if the surplus energy were to be sold back to the grid on the most preferential utility contract currently available. Of course, if fuel prices really went through the roof, that 15-year figure would be significantly reduced.

Pointing to the fact that Germany’s impressive retrofitting culture is a long way ahead of the UK, Harris lays part of the blame at the door of government. “At the moment government incentives are rubbish,” he says, “and there are simple measures that could bring payback times down to five years instead of 15.” Two obvious incentives would be the removal of VAT on eco-refurbishment, and lower council tax bands for high-performance homes. Above all, though, he stresses the “necessity to develop a robust market case for refurbishment, as reliance on government handouts can create a culture of passive dependence.” To this end, ZEDfactory is working on a government-sponsored initiative called T-Zero, which has assembled a wide range of expertise to try and find a market-based solution to making eco-refurb a much more widespread phenomenon.

In the end, might our widespread obsession with house prices be the paradoxical key to progress on this front? That’s how it looks to Zoltan Zavody, the Energy Saving Trust’s building strategy manager. While he’s blunt about the need for government to offer more encouragement for refurbishment – “there’s no policy framework at all at the moment,” he says – he points to resale value as one way in which the market is already beginning to recognise the benefits of high performance buildings. And he argues that this effect should become more tangible with time. “Very soon an un-insulated, energy-inefficient Victorian semi is going to look an extremely unattractive proposition to buyers when you could buy a highly efficient home with low running costs instead.”

One thing is for certain – there are millions of inefficient homes out there, waiting to be greened. In terms of making any kind of meaningful impact across the board, eco- refurbishment is still in its early stages. Architects, high-profile clients and television shows can all help fuel a widening aspiration towards greener living, as awareness of the threat of climate change translates increasingly into behaviour change. Link that to the aspirations that the British have come to associate with house prices, and it could really spell a change in the carbon footprint of the existing housing stock.
 
Kevin Telfer is a freelance journalist and co-author of ‘Earthships: building a zero carbon future for homes’.
 
BBM Sustainable Design,  Energy Conscious Design,  ZEDfactory,

26 June 2008

Kevin Telfer

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