Coherent and realistic regulation for sustainable building as part of a climate positive political environment is needed urgently, writes Eleanor Young
Planning a 6m² side return extension for a couple preparing for their older age, Jo Edwards of Edwards Rensen Architects came up against the London Borough of Islington’s requirement for every project to have BREEAM Excellent certification. She calculated what this would mean for a typical residential extension: an extra £160,000. Of that, £30,000 would go on extra fees – BREEAM assessors, acoustic and flood risk consultants. Meanwhile, listing and conservation area status is likely to stop many homes being able to fulfil the criteria, even on double glazing.
In the Hackney studio of Henley Halebrown, RIBA J Rising Star Jack Hawthorne has been puzzling over how to build homes with lower embodied carbon when the Greater London Authority has timber on its list of banned combustible materials for its housing projects.
Phil Coffey of Coffey Architects, picking up an award for a finished building, asked the deceptively simple question of why projects could be considered sustainable only when they went above and beyond the statutory regulations, often at significant cost to those commissioning them.
As calls for better regulation of carbon move up the political food chain – with ACAN’s petition, alongside the urging of RIBA and other institutions, to regulate embodied carbon, and Architects Declare entertaining MPs in the House of Commons – it is time to reflect.
The questioning of sustainability regulation is becoming more vocal. Not from anarchists or right-wing conspiracy theorists but from those whose jobs are becoming impossible in the face of clumsy mechanisms of change and competing legislation, and who don’t want lose the art of architecture amid the technical demands of sustainability.
We really need a regulatory roadmap that prioritises solutions for this existential threat and offers architects a way to balance competing demands
To meet the government’s legally binding climate commitments and reduce the extent and impact of global warming, regulation must step up. We know it is lagging and the system is full of contradictions. Government has a chance to catch up in a small way when the second round of consultation on Part L closes. But we really need a regulatory roadmap that prioritises solutions for this existential threat and offers architects a way to balance many competing demands.
Islington Council is reportedly now planning to exclude domestic projects under 500m² or five residential units from its BREEAM requirements. Jo Edwards has shifted to calling for the right sort of certification and for BRE to design a more scaleable certification scheme that can shift the conversation without costing the earth.
In the meantime, this month has a strong theme of female leadership: the women who head our four Future Winners practices, the woman taking up the presidency at IStructE and, in Saudi Arabia, Dr Sumayah Al-Solaiman forging a new path for architecture and design. In the architecture profession we still see far fewer women in the profession (31%) than studying architecture (55% at Part 1) and a significant pay gap of 16% between those women who stay and their male counterparts. Our commitment on the RIBA Journal is to continue to celebrate these powerful examples on our pages.