Patterns - Autumn/Winter 2011 by Buro Happold

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03/08/2011

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Patterns

Patterns Issue 16 Autumn/Winter 2011

www.burohappold.com

the magazine of buro happold

Issue 16 Autumn/Winter 2011

Profile Sarah Ichioka’s crusade to bring the world to the Architecture Foundation In association with

Buildings Buro Happold

Now soft metrics can design in happy and productive staff too

Asia China is taking the long view on providing for its population explosion

Culture The play’s the thing at Stratford’s Royal Shakespeare Theatre

Buro Happold Comment

Contacts

Buildings Environment and Infrastructure Consulting

By our very nature we are an evolving organisation. We have a strong desire to continually explore and enquire. We are in the growth businessthat in terms knowledge andsuccessful challenge, – virtues haveof driven many the desire to learn, to seize opportunities and to create smart solutions for ourwhy clients. partnerships, which is perhaps our own

Paul Westbury, CEO, Buro Happold

partnership Sarah andvery theheart AF of is all so we fruitful. Our independence sets us apart by allowing us to put with our clients at the do. Our work on the Wadi Hanifah in Riyadh Bringing our expertise to the broadest range of leading technologies and thinking means the is impact of our work can be huge. all about bringing people together by creating a

t is little knownWorking (at least outside the new leisure environment. around the world, building on the many projects and activities since our formation company) thatover Buro was us founded and that technology are cornerstones 35Happold years ago, gives a clear purpose Innovation and a set of beliefs enable our teams to get on Quaker principles. In 1976 the father of our business, both needing close collaboration the very best out of the world’s precious resources. of our company Ted Happold had a vision for to deliver successfully. Such collaborations with We operate at every scale from the smallest shelter through communities and cities to the a new kind of engineering firm that placed the Hoberman Associates are showcased on pages needs of organisations and governments. Our mission is simple: to enable our clients to environment and people its centre. future, His vision – making buildings work harder and achieveata sustainable enhancing22-23 their businesses, enriching people’s lives and playing was to bring the spirit friendship performsociety betterforalltoday overand thetomorrow. world. On pages our of partconsensus, in developing a healthy and sustainable and a duty of care for the environment that 30-33 we reveal some of the extraordinary new he experienced in his spiritual life to his new technology we are developing at Buro Happold. company. We believe that BH has gone on We investigate the interplay between to achieve tremendous things with offices audience and performers at the Royal now established all over the world that offer Shakespeare Theatre; we look at our asset consulting services for almost all aspects of the consulting team established to give clients truly planning, design, construction and management holistic advice; and much more. of our built environment. Yet we still maintain I am acutely aware of continuing the work those founding principles and while enjoying started by Ted Happold and the founding debate we encourage a culture that seeks truth partners. Their vision and values still drive – our people aim for the best solution and it’s a us forward. This issue of Patterns shows how collaborative spirit that drives our business. we live by these maxims and, even with the Seemingly diverse subjects in this issue of wonderful variety and scope of our operations Patterns are united by that collaborative spirit. today, continue to remove inefficiency, serve Sarah Ichioka (p.6-9) talks of the agility and the people that use our buildings and touch the independence of the Architecture Foundation Earth lightly. EDINBURGH GLASGOW LEEDS MANCHESTER BIRMINGHAM

COPENHAGEN BERLIN WARSAW MOSCOW

BELFAST BATH LONDON MUNICH MILAN

SAN FRANCISCO LOS ANGELES CHICAGO BOSTON NEW YORK

BEIJING HONG KONG MUMBAI DUBAI ABU DHABI

CAIRO KUWAIT JEDDAH RIYADH

Patterns

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Global Sector Directors Aviation Neil Squibbs E: neil.squibbs@burohappold.com

Civic and Local Government Stephen Jolly E: stephen.jolly@burohappold.com

Commercial Property Nick Nelson E: nick.nelson@burohappold.com

Cultural Stephen Jolly E: stephen.jolly@burohappold.com

Education Mike Entwisle E: mike.entwisle@burohappold.com

Healthcare Andy Parker E: andy.parker@burohappold.com

Hospitality Paul Rogers E: paul.rogers@burohappold.com

Rail Damien Kerkhof E: damien.kerkhof@burohappold.com

Urban Development and Planning Andrew Comer E: andrew.comer@burohappold.com

Scientific Andy Parker E: andy.parker@burohappold.com

Sport, Leisure and Event Paul Westbury E: paul.westbury@burohappold.com

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06/10/2011 09:55

Contents Patterns is produced by The Architects’ Journal, part of EMAP Inform, for Buro Happold. Editor: Ruth Slavid; design: Brad Yendle, Tom Carpenter; sub-editor: Alysoun Coles; CEO, EMAP Inform: Natasha Christie-Miller.

Patterns is printed by Headley Brothers on FSC-certified paper. ©Buro Happold To contact anybody at Buro Happold email first name.last name@burohappold .com Cover image: Abstraction of sliding roof panels, see p. 22

In association with

Autumn/Winter 2011

04 News Down with the kids, New York honours, London calling, BREEAM in Armagh, Fellowship triumph 06 Profile Architecture Foundation director Sarah Ichioka on her hopes and ambitions for the ‘incubator’ 10 Big picture No longer a polluted, neglected eyesore, Riyadh’s Wadi Hanifah is now a popular family park 12 Strategic asset consulting A really effective decision requires a long-term assessment of even the smallest factors involved 16 Building environments If you want the best from your staff then the building they work in needs to perform too 18 Asia Pacific China’s population explosion is forcing it to adopt sustainable development in all matters 22 Day in the life Windows are opening and closing automatically across the world according to the day’s rhythms 24 Other lives Graphics team leader or illustrator of children’s books – Will Ings is equally at home with either 26 Culture Great notices for Stratford’s reinvented Royal Shakespeare Theatre, from actor and audience 30 Technology Silica gel – the latest sustainable super-product, plus rubbish, Darwin and chocolate cake 34 About Buro Happold Vital information about this worldwide practice, and contacts for key sectors

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News

New York office nets four honours Buro Happold’s New York office has won four awards for engineering excellence from the New York American Council of Engineering. These were in the categories structural systems, for R Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center in Troy, NY; special projects, for the U2 360º tour; systems and studies for the Hawaii Preparatory Academy (left); and research and consulting, for Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida. The first two projects won diamond awards, the highest available.

Making London accessible

Cool kids want to be engineers

David Dropkin, associate with BH’s Inclusive Design team, has joined the Greater London Authority’s Access Advisory Panel with the remit of assisting Julie Fleck, the GLA’s principal adviser on access and inclusion in reviewing and updating the London Plan supplementary planning guidance Accessible London: achieving an inclusive environment. This will continue to place emphasis on the access needs of disabled and the elderly but will also address design issues in the physical environment that affect people of other social identities where appropriate.

Jane Boyle (left), from the Glasgow office, has embarked on a programme to encourage school children to become engineers and scientists of the future. Go4SET links teams of six pupils from Year 8/9 (England) and S2 (Scotland) with companies and universities to offer a 10 week engineering, science, technology and mathematics (STEM) experience. Children from St Luke’s, Barrhead, will design their own eco classroom and visit Buro Happold’s Glasgow office to see just how cool it is being an engineer. Further details are at www.go4set.org.uk/.

Patterns

Armagh wins top BREEAM score The North South Ministerial Council office (left) in Armagh, Northern Ireland, has received a prestigious BREEAM 2011 award. Completed in March 2010, the building received a score of 78.10% achieving an ‘Excellent’ rating under the BREEAM sustainability measuring and accreditation system. Jane Boyle of BH North Europe, which was responsible for all aspects of the scheme’s building services, collected the award at Ecobuild on 2 March in London.

Stratford theatres win Building award The transformation of the Royal Shakespeare and Swan Theatres in Stratford-upon-Avon has been selected as Project of the Year in Building magazine’s annual awards. The judges described this project, for which Buro Happold was both engineer and transport consultant, as ‘brilliantly pulled off and an example of painstaking attention to detail and a long exercise in retention, replacement and renewal’. Architect for the project was Bennetts Associates. See the experiences of two very different users of the building on pages 26-29.

Autumn/Winter 2011

For she’s a jolly good fellow

More offices in major world cities

The American Institute of Architecture has selected Lisa Matthiessen (left), based in the LA office, as one of only 104 new members of its prestigious College of Fellows this year. Matthiessen, partner and head of sustainability consulting for Buro Happold in North America, is the author of Understanding the Costs of Green, a seminal study of the economics of sustainability. Her research into the financial impact of sustainable design enables project teams to break the perceived cost barrier that prevents so many projects from becoming sustainable.

Buro Happold has opened new offices – in Milan and Beijing. The Italian office is at Via Canova 34, 20145 Milano while the Beijing address is Room 1122, 11/F North Tower, Beijing Kerry Centre, 1 Guanghua Road, Chaoyang, 100020. Meanwhile, the Hong Kong office has become a member of the Hong Kong Green Building Council. For the latest BH news go to www.burohappold.com or twitter.com/ burohappold

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Profile

Sarah Ichioka may be young, but her wide experience is broadening the reach of the Architecture Foundation. Ruth Slavid reports

Patterns

arah Ichioka is having trouble getting a British passport. The California-born director of London’s Architecture Foundation recently acquired dual nationality, but to receive a British passport she needs to surrender her existing one for two months – and she is just too busy travelling to do it. Such globe-trotting may seem surprising for the director of an organisation so firmly rooted in London, but in her nearly three years in the post Ichioka has been determined to forge links with architects in other countries. When she took on the role, she says, ‘I was inspired by an exchange programme carried out as a one-off with architects in New York [and thought] this could be interesting to use as a template for other exchanges.’ So far she has organised them with Turkey, Italy, Norway, Poland and Portugal. Her approach chimes with the Architecture Foundation’s mission, stated on its website as to ‘facilitate international and interdisciplinary exchange, stimulate critical engagement among professionals, policy makers and a broad public, and shape the quality of the built environment’. And the Foundation has an important international role as a member of the judging panel for the biannual Mies van der Rohe award for European architecture, and for the European Prize for Urban Public Space.

It also takes young people who have been studying their urban environments to see developments overseas, and it brings interesting speakers to the UK. But all this is focused on the needs of those interested in improving the civic environment in the UK, and promoting and encouraging up-and-coming practitioners. Ichioka’s term of office has coincided with the recession, and she says, ‘I took the job when everybody was questioning what should be done’. She clearly sees her role as helping architects to get work, or at least to develop while waiting for work. ‘A lot of younger practices are struggling to provide built work so it is important to find platforms for their work and opportunities for them to design,’ she says. Ichioka believes that nurturing talent and smoothing the way to work is an important part of her role at the Architecture Foundation, which she sees as ‘an incubator’. Shifting metaphor, she adds: ‘But not in an echo chamber where we are talking to people who would already be talking.’ She also emphasises that her interest is in encouraging ‘new practices’ and not just young architects – a sensitivity towards any implicit prejudice, given that she was only 29 when appointed. She had, however, packed in a lot of experience. She studied history at Yale, but developed an interest in architecture partway through – ‘too late to change my major’. So she went to New York and worked as a community development

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Photograph by Richard Nicholson

Profile

Left Jellyfish theatre built for the London Festival of Theatre. Right David Kohn’s Skyroom on the roof of the Architecture Foundation. Below The Moss Your City installation by PUSHAK. Below right Signage to the Urban Orchard.

fellow for the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development. ‘It was an amazing crash course in New York City,’ she says. ‘If it hadn’t been for 9/11 I would have stayed.’ Instead, depressed by the mood there, she came to London to take an MSc in city design and social science at the London School of Economics, the course set up and run by Ricky Burdett, the founder and first director of the Architecture Foundation. At this stage Ichioka still wanted to qualify as an architect, but came to realise that ‘you could do so much in terms of brief writing and investigating places and spaces without being the person doing the CAD drawing.’ She stayed on for a while at LSE working with an associated consultancy, and did some work with architect Witherford Watson Mann and a small-scale property developer. Then when Burdett was appointed director of the 2006 Venice architecture biennale, Ichioka worked with him on the central exhibition on cities. ‘He was looking at 16 different cities and I went to 12 of them,’ she says. ‘I’m still in touch with a lot of the people I met then.’ When a cut-down version of the exhibition moved to Tate Modern, she went with it, before becoming deputy director of the London Festival of Architecture. Taking the job at the Architecture Foundation marked a change of pace, a longer-term commitment after all the project-based work. This year the Architecture Foundation celebrates its 20th anniversary and, with Patterns

only 30 per cent of its income coming from the Arts Council, its future looks more assured than that of other bodies. It is further strengthened by the fact that it is finding work running competitions and carrying out consultancy. But Ichioka relishes the ways in which it is not too stable. ‘We are an agile organisation,’ she says. ‘And we have great independence. It has been fiercely guarded by past directors. It means we can partner with a whole range of institutions.’ Equally important is the fact that ‘we are not predominantly building based. We can programme off site.’ The current premises near London Bridge, designed by Carmody Groarke, are deliberately basic. They contrast with the failed plan under past director Rowan Moore to build a permanent home designed by Zaha Hadid. Instead, this headquarters has a ‘skyroom’ on its roof – a playful ‘temporary’ installation by young architect David Kohn, for which the Architecture Foundation’s landlord Lake Estates has applied for permanent planning permission. Other projects included an Urban Orchard and the Oikos temporary theatre for Jellyfish, both built as part of the London Festival of Architecture. Designed by Heather Ring of the Wayward Plant Registry, the Urban Orchard brought together the mixture of people to whom Ichioka wants to appeal. ‘It provided a platform for quite high level debate while people were playing table

Guy Archard

Brian Benson

We are an agile ‘organisation with great independence. We can partner with a range of institutions’

Will PrycE

SARAH ICHIOKA 1979 Born, Berkeley California 2001 BA, history, Yale University, New Haven, CT 2003 MSc, city design and social science, London School of Economics 2006 Exhibition content co-ordinator and catalogue co-editor, 10th Venice Architecture Biennale 2007 Consultant curator, Global Cities, Tate Modern, London 2008 Deputy director, London Festival of Architecture October 2008 – present Director, The Architecture Foundation; co-director, London Festival of Architecture

Mike Massaro

tennis in front,’ she says. It also appealed to her interest in gardening. ‘We have a greenhouse in our car parking space at home in Dalston.’ A recent competition with the South Kilburn Neighbourhood Trust appointed Practice Architecture to design a community centre. ‘We are trying to do as much as possible through initiatives,’ Ichioka says. ‘London already has so many fantastic platforms for conversation.’ What about the future? She would like to bring together students at schools of architecture to discuss their different approaches. This is a demographic that the Architecture Foundation is not addressing. It works with younger people on their neighbourhoods and with practitioners, and Ichioka would like to get to grips with the middle of the sandwich. She has also been busy digitising the archive, and talking to previous directors about the 20th anniversary. She would like to extend architect exchanges to more parts of the world. This may not be the easiest climate in which to plan but, Ichioka says, ‘We have proved ourselves to be scrappy survivors in the past.’ Expect more surprises, and plenty of stamps on that new passport – once she has the time to acquire it. Buro Happold is a patron of the Architecture Foundation For more on the AF please go to: www.architecturefoundation.org.uk

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Big picture Wadi Hanifah, Riyadh The Wadi Hanifah has been transformed from a neglected, degraded and polluted area into one that is now a flourishing recreational resource. Buro Happoldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work on the bioremediation facility has rehabilitated the water which is now abundant with plants and wildlife. Immediately adopted by the people of Riyadh, the Wadi is now a treasured environment.

1. Major regeneration of 70km Wadi running through central Riyadh 2. Wadi now a treasured environmental, recreational and tourism resource 3. Bioremediation facility produces 1.5 to 2 tonnes of fish per week 4. Aga Khan Architecture Award winner 2010 5. Potential of up to 1 million cubic tonnes of water per day recycled by 2021

6. Located in the Najd Plateau, the Wadi Hanifah is the longest and most important valley near Riyadh 7. The parks are designed in a way that provides family compartments, so that each family can use it for the day without being disturbed by neighbouring families 8. Natural stone weirs improve the oxygen levels in the water reducing pollution

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IMAGE: ADA

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Nigel Young, Foster + Partners

Strategic asset consulting

Patterns

Consideration of context and consequences is essential to make decisions complete. Ruth Slavid reports

ould you make a major decision without considering the consequences it could have on your life? For all but the most foolhardy of us, the answer to that is no. Yet many major organisations frequently make decisions about their assets without proper advice, believes Hugh Mulcahey. His discipline is â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;strategic asset consultingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; and it is this, he believes, that organisations need to use at the start of their decision making process. Whether a government wants to divest itself of property at a fair price, or a commercial organisation aims to consolidate its property holdings, they need to understand the consequences, and this is what Mulcahey can advise on. He looks not just at built assets, he says, but â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;at

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Strategic asset consulting

Previous page Transport hubs, such as Dresden station, can be the focus for regeneration; Hugh Mulcahey. Below Whitechapel market, which will feel the effects of Crossrail.

the relationship between people, buildings, technology and organisations.’ Mulcahey only joined Happold Consulting in September 2010, but his involvement with the discipline stretches back a quarter of a century. As a newly qualified surveyor with a ‘very traditional’ geography degree from Durham University, he found himself advising the UK government on its plans to divest itself of the New Towns. He persuaded his boss to buy a computer and some software, and created a spreadsheet to calculate ‘whole life costs’ for parcels of properties – a radical idea at the time. The results were unexpected. Several sets of properties were found to be of negative value, and as a result the government either demolished them or handed them to new owners with a ‘dowry’ to cover costs. This

approach, says Mulcahey, has now been enshrined in HM Treasury’s Green Book. Since then he has developed it with the inclusion of risk modelling techniques and, of course, the software has become incomparably sophisticated. Like so many things, it depends on the correct technique, and inputting the right data. ‘Every project has a bespoke element,’ says Mulcahey, ‘and you learn from your mistakes’. Although many clients pay lip service to the idea of strategic asset consulting, in some cases that is all it is. ‘Some just want to be seen to have gone through the process,’ Mulcahey says. ‘Very rarely is it done properly. It is labour intensive, and requires skilled people.’ When it is done properly, Mulcahey argues, the benefits can be substantial.

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Right City centre offices, like Buro Happold’s in London, may be in buildings that are not environmentally ideal, but will have lower carbon footprints than out-of-town offices served by cars.

Patterns

One key area is the adaptation of property portfolios to new ways of working, serving the more nimble and mobile office worker. It is essential, he says, for organisations in either the public or private sector, to understand that they should be thinking beyond the straightforward financial cost of their property to its effect on productivity and, increasingly, on their carbon footprint. For instance, he says, ‘I will ask questions about travel to work. I am very interested in the sustainability of travel.’ It is much easier to build a ‘green building’ with natural ventilation and so on in a business park than in noisy and polluted, traffic-clogged, streets. But, says Mulcahey, an ‘inefficient’ old building in a city centre, to which nobody drives, will have a lower CO2 output overall.

The latest survey of occupier satisfaction by the British Council for Offices, conducted in 2010, showed that occupiers scored their overall satisfaction at only 4.9 out of 10. In particular, they felt that their landlords’ performance on environmental issues was poor and not improving. ‘Architects think about buildings, and surveyors want to let what they have,’ says Mulcahey. As an impartial adviser his input to strategy can be vital. For instance, he is working now for ‘a frustrated occupier’ which owns quite a lot of its space, and wants to reduce its portfolio, much of which is obsolete, and consolidate into some refurbished properties. ‘They are having trouble measuring sustainability and whole life costs and have asked us to come up with a dashboard of Autumn/Winter 2011

measures,’ he says. ‘They have asked us to plan for more flexible occupation.’ Other areas that interest Mulcahey include transport interchanges which can act as hubs of development and, in particular, the airport cities that are planned for some developing countries, where the airport itself will act as the nucleus for development. Before joining Buro Happold, Mulcahey looked at the impact of the planned Crossrail development on the Whitechapel area of East London. An area of low cost housing and retail with a distinctive character on the edge of the City, it will, he believes, suffer considerable upward pressure on property prices as the result of better transports links – something he believes had not been considered seriously. Mulcahey is also looking at how NHS

Trusts in the UK should deal with their estates, given both the pressures to make them greener and the changing nature of the health service, and at the way that universities cope with falling numbers of overseas students and reduced income. These two are particular problems in the UK at present, but Mulcahey believes most the things he considers will apply across the globe. ‘You look at supply and at what the consequences of change will be,’ he says. ‘Happold Consulting is all about evidencebased advice, and that is what we offer.’ To learn more about strategic asset consulting, contact hugh.mulcahey@happold consulting.com

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Building environments Nowadays buildings must work harder and contribute to their occupants’ success. Alice Knight talks to Neil Billett

Patterns

s your building productive enough? According to Neil Billett, director of building environments at Buro Happold, this is the question we should all be asking in the future. He is talking not about hot-desking, but rather of the kind of productivity that helps schoolchildren to learn better, office staff to work better, and hospital patients to get well faster. But surely sustainability is the overriding requirement for all buildings today? Of course, says Billett, ‘It is fundamental to our approach – doing more for less.’ But cutting edge interest now is in designing buildings so the people in them can also perform well. For Billett this is not another layer that supplants the concerns of previous years but something that stretches what has gone before, and it reflects the changes in his line of work. When he joined BH as a graduate in 1989, his discipline was building services, part of MEP (mechanical, electrical and plumbing). It became first building physics then building environments. These shifts reflect the way the discipline has changed, from getting the air conditioning right and arranging the pipes and wires to an ever-growing role in the way a building is designed and performs. He liked building services ‘because of having people in

the equation’ – having non-linear design approaches. As technology developed, it was possible to make more accurate predictions of how buildings would behave. An approach trialled at Velmead School in Fleet, Hampshire, designed with Hopkins Architects, culminated in the Langley Academy in Slough, designed with Foster + Partners. ‘It was planned from first principles along the idea of best performance,’ says Billett. So all ‘black box’ elements were put at the western end, the part of a building that is liable to overheat because of the setting sun. The scheme runs east-west, so that most facades are north or south facing, as these are the easiest directions to deal with. ‘It’s a simple essay in passive design,’ says Billett. Adding the layer of designing for productivity requires what Billett describes as ‘soft metrics’. These are measurements of the performance and behaviour of not only the building but also its users, and how they interact with it. Part of this is how they respond to control systems, and when they switch on lights or open windows. But it also involves feelings of wellbeing and happiness. The way to gather information on this area, says Billett, is largely through postoccupancy evaluation – going back to see how the fabric and the occupants are behaving. This still relates to sustainability, and energy usage. As buildings grow increasingly energy efficient, the more significant their embodied energy becomes. So it is important that their embodied energy operates for as long as possible – so people want to remain in the building and not demolish or remodel it. As building environments has broadened to cover more and more areas, specialisation has also increased. It can cover everything from solar shading to ground-source heat pumps or the use of wood-burning stoves. ‘About 10 years ago,’ says Billett, ‘every time we wanted to make a move, the QS

Below left Langley Academy in Slough. Below right Khan Shatyr, Kazakhstan.

would say it was too expensive, and the architects would say it couldn’t be done. There was always a bunch of naysayers. I thought, I need a team of Eng Doctorates who know more than any other beggar round the table.’ So he started the EngD programme, where the practice supports student engineers investigating interesting subjects. They spend half their time in the practice and by the end of their studies are set to become valuable members of the team. Anybody who meets someone at Buro Happold who is young, bright and ferociously knowledgeable, can be confident they are Autumn/Winter 2011

encountering the future not only of the practice but also of building environments. Khan Shatyr The Khan Shatyr Centre in Astana, Kazakhstan, is a prime example of how engineering design can improve sustainability and interaction. Designed with Foster + Partners, it enhances not only environmental sustainability but also social sustainability and interaction. The ‘giant tent’ is an appropriate response to the extreme climate of Astana, which swings from +30ºC to -40ºC. The height of the

tent (150m) makes air circulation within it possible, reducing the need for heating and cooling at appropriate times of the year. It sheds snow and vents hot air. The ETFE covering allows light in, giving an outdoor feeling for much of the year. Technology, at its cutting edge, is transforming physical and social environments. Neil Billett is a partner at Buro Happold and heads the building environments teams. Contact him on neil.billett@burohappold.com

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Asia I Pacific China is taking a long term approach to its urban population explosion, says Matthew Smith

Patterns

n 1950, 30 per cent of the world’s population lived in cities and 70 per cent in the countryside – by 2050 those figures will have reversed. Nowhere is this trend more obvious than in China where the urban population is expected to reach one billion by 2025 (an increase of 350 million since 2005). This migration, described as the largest in human history, means the equivalent, as Neville Mars and Adrian Hornsby explain in their book The Chinese Dream: a society under construction, of building a new Beijing every year. Around half this increase in urban population is down to cities expanding into previously rural areas. In planning this urbanisation, China can look to the successes and failures of urbanisation both around the world and at home to learn what works and what doesn’t. Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong have developed in very different ways. Hong Kong, for example, is very dense with few private cars. It has only 60 per thousand people, compared to 300-500 in European cities and 600 in Tokyo. With a highly efficient mass transit railway and bus network, 90% of daily journeys are by public transport. This density seems to be accepted by Hong Kongers, but for some moving into the city the daily challenge to find personal space, plus the ever-present noise, are difficult to adapt to. In contrast Beijing has constructed a grid of urban highways and become increasingly dependent on the private car. This is due both to the temptation of car ownership, and the increasing difficulty of navigating the city by traditional means, due to the fragmentation and growth that resulted from the highway building. Although the city has a metro, many consider the stations to be too widely spaced for easy walking to many destinations. It will require concerted effort over decades to reverse this trend. Shanghai has seen its population density in the inner suburbs grow from 2.3 to 4.0 million. Nonetheless, the overall inner city population density has reduced (31,000/km2 to 28,000). While the number of private cars has rocketed from 25,000 to 480,000, at the same time there has been a massive growth in buses (6,000-18,000) and taxis (11,00048,000), and construction of 148km of metro lines. But however quickly the infrastructure is built, it is never fast enough to stem the inexorable movement of people

from urban city centre to the suburbs. Unlike countries that urbanised in the 20th century, China is aware of the need for its urbanisation to be carried out sustainably. Peter Calthorpe, in his book Urbanism in the Age of Climate Change, argues that cities should remain dense and walkable, with good public transport. Creating usable public spaces is important for the quality of life of city dwellers. This seems simple: is it possible for China to move towards a different urban model to that adopted by Western economies? The difficulty for China is its sheer pace of development. Its cautious state-directed approach towards capitalist transition is very different to that of its northern neighbour, Russia (another vast economy that transformed itself rapidly) – where development occurred under Yeltsin through unrestrained market forces. China has certainly been undertaking a process of capitalist reform, but in an explicitly nonneoliberal form in which the state strongly intervenes and directs the economy. This suggests some cause for optimism that China may have the tools to do things differently. The latest reflection of this approach can be seen in China’s 12th fiveyear plan, published in March this year. The plan has a number of objectives relating to urbanisation. There is an aspiration to develop strong high-density populations, resources and environments, and to partially overload some urban areas to optimise development. There are stated intentions to improve the layout and form of urbanisation, and an expectation that large and medium-sized cities will gradually form urban networks to alleviate the pressure on city centres. It acknowledges a need for firm boundaries to the spread of the city, to help protect agricultural land and the city centre. The plan also pledges to improve and protect the environment. This includes reducing the energy consumption of buildings and increasing the use of renewable energy. It will popularise energysaving technology and products. The stated target is to reduce carbon and energy consumption intensity (per unit GDP) by 17 and 16 per cent respectively. It also wants to increase forest cover to improve sequestration of carbon. There is a role for consultants here to help develop an awareness that sustainable management

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Asia Pacific

Could China move towards a different urban model to that adopted by Western economies?

of forests can include the harvesting and use of timber – it is not necessary or desirable to leave forests untouched to make them sustainable. Timber is an important renewable resource for use in construction, particularly if it can be used fairly locally to where it has been harvested. Buro Happold has tried to address this on a couple of projects, and the people involved have been very interested. Developing cities sustainably in China requires approaches at all levels from largescale masterplanning and the development of transport strategies that can grow alongside development, down to the design of individual buildings and parts of buildings. Increasingly people are seeking a built environment that does more than just get them from A to B efficiently, or adopts a one size fits all functional response to design. Use of local materials, respect for local cultures and traditions, and an appropriate reuse or preservation of built heritage are prerequisites. One could say we need appropriate models for sustainable urban design with Chinese characteristics. Buro Happold has worked in the Asia Pacific region for some years and opened an office in Hong Kong in 2009. In 2011 that presence has been strengthened by a Beijing office. The projects below show how holistic, sustainable design can be applied at a range of scales from the city and regional level, to implementation of building design. Over the next few years we hope to work more closely with the Beijing administration to help identify research opportunities, pilot projects and strategic plans as the platform to develop effective responses to urbanisation in the age of climate change. City Xinjiang Autonomous Region – New City Xinjiang in northwest China, which has a population of 30,000, could not expand because of the land uses that surrounded it. Buro Happold, in joint venture with Barton Willmore, is masterplanning a new city that will serve as the northwest gateway to China, with dedicated cycling and pedestrian areas and a major railway station and rail-to-road logistics centre. As the city grows, light rapid transit will be introduced. The population is expected to reach 250,000 by 2025 and construction started in late 2010.

Patterns

City Meizhouwan Port and New City, Putian, Fujian China is developing the coast between Fuzhou and Xiamen with a new container port for 40 ships in Meizhouwan at its centre. Associated with this will be a 64km2, mixed-use industrial zone plus a new city to service the development with housing. Buro Happold developed a conceptual masterplan for the port area, including innovative solutions for flood prevention under extreme events (typhoon coupled with high tide). The project is being developed in stages and Buro Happold hopes to develop detailed plans for transport, energy, water, waste, sustainability and IT strategies for the entire development. Key concerns include maintenance of the coastal habitat and environments as well as transport planning for the broader development. Neighbourhood Chongqing Zero-E The city of Chongqing is the setting for the pilot project of ‘Zero-E’ – a model for large-scale sustainable development which Buro Happold has developed with architect Woods Bagot. Buro Happold’s Zero-E, or ‘Zero Emissions Design’, uses parametric modelling techniques to develop a holistic approach which, from the very earliest stages of design, allows every aspect of buildings, systems and infrastructure design to be tested and assessed in order to achieve the best and most sustainable solution. The pilot project is a 450,000m2 mixed-use development on a former industrial site on the Yangtse river. Group of buildings Tongshan Street, Shanghai Designed with architect Pelli Clarke Pelli, this scheme consists of nine towers, eight of which will be residential. The ninth will contain a hotel plus serviced apartments. It forms part of the Huangpu River Complex Development Area in Pudong, and has been designed to achieve a LEED Platinum rating, the highest level of this American measure of sustainable design. Building Hong Kong Jockey Club Communications and Technology Centre This new Centre at Sha Tin racecourse

Previous page Hong Kong is so densly built and populated that private vehicles are rare. Left Meizhouwan Port and new city. Below left Scheme for Tongshan Street, Shanghai. Below right Chongqingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Zero-E neighbourhood.

We need appropriate models for sustainable urban design with Chinese characteristics brings together previously dispersed functions to give staff a high-quality building, designed by Arquitectonica, and good local transport links. The Centre will be highly transparent, and Buro Happoldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s facade engineers are ensuring this can be achieved without affecting the energy performance of a building intended to be an exemplar of sustainable design. The practice is also providing sustainability consultancy which includes use of the local Hong Kong BEAM Plus environmental assessment tool, the internationally recognised US Green Building Council LEED tool, and also the Life Cycle Costing and embodied carbon Life Cycle Assessment methodologies which form part of the German DGNB tool. The Club aspires to set a very high sustainability standard which will inform its own future environmental policy. Matthew Smith is a director of Buro Happold Beijing and Hong Kong. To discuss urbanisation projects in China, contact him on: matthew.smith@burohappold.com

Autumn/Winter 2011

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A day in the life 1

How adaptive buildings are making people comfortable

acades that use moving elements to create shading are the key to the Adaptive Building Initiative, a joint venture between Buro Happold and Hoberman Associates. Set up to provide turnkey installations of inventive facades, they use techniques developed by Charles Hoberman, along with Buro Happoldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Craig Schwitter and Ian Maddocks, which employ elliptical cams to transform objects from one fixed state to another. Several projects have already been built, or are under construction. We look at how the dynamic shading could react or be programmed to behave on a typical day, in the Middle East, Asia, America and Europe.

Patterns

3.30am GMT / 7.30am Abu Dhabi

9am GMT / 10am Madrid

The first shoppers arrive at Aldar Central Market, Abu Dhabi (4, 5), and with the sun already up, shading to the roofs of the three external courtyards, designed by Foster + Partners, is already shut. When closed, the Permea system resembles traditional Islamic coffered roofs. Permea is a shading system that moves parallel to the surface it is protecting, allowing it to be wholly open, wholly closed or in any condition in between.

Lawyers are milling round in the central atrium of the Audiencia Provincial at the City of Justice in Madrid (1, 2). The day started out cloudy and most are wearing heavy jackets. Now the sun has come out, but they will not overheat as the purposedesigned Strata opens partially over the central space. The shading works on a triangulation system, and when fully open disappears into the triangulated grid of the roof. An algorithm combines historic data with real-time sensing of sun data to determine the best solution.

5am GMT / 2pm Tokyo

Rain. As workers return from lunch, the shutters open on the POLA Ginza building in Tokyo. Hoberman Associates with the Adaptive Building Initiative developed a custom-designed system for the building designed by architects Yasuda Atelier and Nikken Sekkei. Its 185 separate shutter mechanisms are installed within the double facade of the 14-storey building. Each shutter, measuring 1m by 3m, is made from a curved acrylic sheet.

11am GMT / Midday, Madrid

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a hectic day at the City of Justice (1, 2) but the lawyers and their clients keep their cool. As the sun rises higher, so the shading extends further over the roof not only of the central atrium but of all the atria of the two circular Foster + Partners-designed buildings, which house the Tribunal Superor de Justicia (high court) and the appeals court.

1&2. City of Justice, Madrid. 3. Tessellations in the Harvard meeting room wall move from fully open, through semi-obscured to nearly closed.

1pm GMT / 8am New York

3.30pm GMT / 7.30pm Abu Dhabi

Workers are arriving at the Stony Brook Foundation, New York, in a good mood because the day is sunny. As the sun strikes the southern facade of the building it causes the Tessellate panels to close. The four panels, each measuring 6.7m tall by 5.6m wide, work as an artwork, a shading device, and a demonstration of the way the technology works.

After a busy day, Aldar Central Market is quiet, with just a few people sweeping up. As the sun sets, the Permea coffers open to create a slender lattice that complements fixed shading elsewhere on the project (4, 5).

3pm GMT / 10am Harvard

An important meeting starts in Gund Hall, part of the Graduate School of Design at the University of Harvard (3). To prevent interruption the participants activate the interactive wall to provide privacy. This wall uses the adaptive fritting technique, where fritting is applied to a number of glass or plastic panels. As the panels slide past each other, the frits can either overlap, allowing views through, or be staggered, providing near obscurity. At Gund Hall, six motorised panels make up a 1.2m by 7.2m panel, housed in a curved wall. Autumn/Winter 2011

4. Aldar market, Abu Dhabi. 5. The roof at Aldar market starts the day open but soon moves to partially obscured and then fully closed, to omit all light.

be made of metal or plastic set between sheets of tempered glass in a steel frame. 5.30pm GMT / 6.30pm Madrid

The courts (1, 2) are in their late afternoon/ early evening session. As the sun goes down, the shading opens fully.

4pm GMT / 11am Harvard 7.30pm GMT / 8.30pm Madrid

The meeting ends. A couple of people stay to chew the fat, but signal a willingness to be interrupted by returning panels to the ‘open’ position, a pattern of sparse dots (3).

Smartly-dressed people arrive for a drinks reception at the City of Justice (1, 2). Shading is closed to give a more intimate feel to the evening.

4.30pm GMT / 11.30am New York 10.30pm GMT / 6.30am Tokyo

New York clouds over and the Tessellations at Stony Brook ‘open like flowers’. Workers at their desks have an uninterrupted view out, which helps give them a second wind before lunch. Each panel uses a different pattern – of circles, triangles, squares or hexagons – that can open into an opaque mesh and close to let light in. The Tessellate module consists of overlapping screens, which move relative to each other to create the effects. They can

As the city starts to wake and the first workers appear in the street, the sun rises, and the shutters on the facade of the POLA Ginza building start to close. For more on Adaptive Buildings visit www.adaptivebuildings.com or email craig.schwitter@burohappold.com

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Other lives

Graphics team leader William Ings puts his skills to work in childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s books Patterns

t work I’m the London graphics team leader – we produce images and designs for internal and external use. But when I’m not there I illustrate books, usually children’s. My latest project is The Great Global Puzzle Challenge with Google Earth – published on 11 April – an international online treasure hunt that links destinations and sets puzzles that can be solved using Google Earth. It will also be the subject of an exhibition later this year at the Ackermann & Johnson Gallery in London. The book has 14 large illustrations. I used aerial maps and Google Earth to put them together. I hand draw in ink on large pieces of paper, scan them into the computer and colour them on the screen. I had a month to do all 14 drawings, so I had to work every evening, every weekend, and wake up early to do it. That intensity puts pressure on relationships, although it is rewarding working really hard – even to the point of exhaustion. But I always made sure my work at Buro Happold didn’t suffer; in fact it has benefited from the experience. Accurate depictions Everything in the Google book was drawn with technical correctness, putting buildings in the right place in the cities; but of course it was an interpretation. For instance, the Colosseum in Rome faces the right way towards the Forum with Circus Maximus to the south. I like looking at things from different angles. All these perspectives are drawn freehand. I like inventing new angles and often think one up new for a scene while doing something entirely different, so I always carry a notebook to scrawl them down. People must wonder what I’m doing. Doing these books expands the creativity I bring to BH, and things I have learnt through working professionally influence the drawings in turn. Through drawing buildings for architectural and engineering purposes, I can draw these kinds of things with aptitude and speed. And publishers like my ability to meet deadlines and handle targets – illustrators are notorious for missing deadlines. I studied graphic design and illustration at St Martin’s College of Art in London. My interest in the built environment just happened naturally. It’s resonated in all the work I’ve ever done. While other children were drawing dinosaurs, I was making

Autumn/Winter 2011

minute intricate worlds of buildings and machines. I must have been naturally drawn to it. When I left St Martin’s I got onto an agent’s books. I did a lot of editorial work for newspapers while I was at Foster + Partners, where I spent two and a half years working as a graphic illustrator on competitions. Later I changed agents and started getting larger and larger book work.

Left Ings’ take on (from the top) New York, London and Tokyo for the Google book (far left). Below William Ings working at home.

Licensed to thrill A lot of artists don’t like their work going out into the public realm, but I strangely enjoy it. It has always been my dream to have my books published. I’m really pleased that this book has an educational purpose and will be in schools around the globe. My own work is bright and colourful – not so corporate. I put all sorts of bizarre things into it – TV shows I’ve watched, books I’ve read, references to my old work. One of the strangest goes back to my childhood. My sister and I were allowed just one videotape. Neither of us wanted to erase the film on it, A View to a Kill [a 1985 James Bond film with Roger Moore and Christopher Walken] and we must have watched it 200 times. As reference to that and a loving nod to my sister, I always put Max Zorin’s airship from the film into my work – in the Google book it floats over London. Eclectic influences I adored Tintin and Asterix when I was growing up. I want to emulate those books and produce a modern day equivalent. I am in the middle of negotiations for a comic-strip type book, which I’m writing as well. It is set in modern times – a strange hybrid of the Flashman novels [by George MacDonald Fraser] and Asterix/Tintin, with touches of Dumas, all in a modern day setting. It is a heroic, tongue-in-cheek story set in some of the world’s hot spots. I am also working on a series of books called Seven Ages. The first two are the seven ages of planes and the seven ages of ships, and so it goes on. The planes book goes all the way from Icarus to the present day. I love all things mechanical. I also like the fact that Asterix has Latin jokes, intelligent jokes; and even if a younger audience doesn’t necessarily understand them, it stays with them. In the same way, I like to drop in random bits of information that I’ve learnt. I’ve been at Buro Happold for five years

and working with the firm’s engineers is extremely rewarding. Striving to improve the combination of intelligent designs with intelligent graphics and illustrations never stops being challenging and fulfilling. Delivering clarity to the message intended for a client and having a winning presentation is always a joy, and not least because the creativity is often greatly appreciated by the engineers. I have the great good fortune to have two roles in life, and both are my passion. Even if I’d been an accountant I would still be scrawling in my notebook. To find out more contact william.ings@ burohappold.com

24 25

Culture

An actor and a member of the audience applaud the new Royal Shakespeare Theatre

Patterns

osie Keep is a long-term visitor to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford on Avon, and James Tucker an actor in the ensemble company. They talked about their reactions to the new theatre the day after Tucker played Oswald in King Lear, the first Shakespeare play to be performed in the new auditorium. Rosie Keep: I first came here when I was at school nearby in the 1960s, to see David Warner, which was fantastic. In those days, I took the theatre for granted as a physical entity. As a child you are not aware that you are in a great period of theatre. We used to go to the stage door after the show and queue for signatures. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d just turn up and get standing tickets. We have lived in Stratford for most of 40 years. I am a Friend of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and I try to see everything that is on. James Tucker: The first time I came to Stratford was as an audience member when I was 17 or 18. I had seen RSC productions before but not here. It was a very popular season so I had to get house tickets and sat in good seats. There was such an acreage of auditorium. I had a good start. I have been working for the company since 1997. In the old theatre, I had a small part in Measure for Measure on the main stage, but a lot of my work was in the Swan Theatre [the smaller 490-seat theatre in the original Victorian Gothic building].

Autumn/Winter 2011

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Culture

Previous page The auditorium. Left and below New views and outside space.

RK: When they built the ‘jam factory’ [the local name for the 1950s building] everybody hated it until it was threatened with being pulled down. It was pretty uncomfortable in the audience. I remember nights in the gods where I thought I’d pass out with the heat. It was terribly stuffy and you couldn’t see or hear properly up there. You were more awestruck but less involved when there was a proscenium arch. Last night I was sitting in the stalls by one of the runways built out from the stage and the actors brush past you – you are really involved. The actors now are much more human and available. I think that’s good. JT: I like the fact that the ‘picture frame’ of the proscenium arch has gone. The old building was quite overwhelming for a young actor – it was quite dark. Actors are used to fairly rough or makeshift conditions but it was very dated by the time I came here. RK: I’ve sat at each level in the new theatre now. The first thing we came to see was a taster, because we’re Friends of the RSC. We sat in the front row at the very top. The audibility and visibility were good. The next performance was of the Messiah, and I had the best seat in the house, on the curve at the front of the first gallery. JT: Last night was the first full-on performance in the new theatre. Until about 6 o’clock we were saying it’s just another show. We had done it before, on the same footprint, at the temporary Courtyard Patterns

Right A vertiginous view. Far right, top to bottom In a dressing room, in the bookshop, in the restaurant.

Theatre. But then we realised how excited the audience was going to be. The space felt much more intimate than at the Courtyard – it was much better acoustically. You didn’t feel you had to work so hard to project. RK: I was very excited by the building work as it progressed. Originally I was one of the philistines who were all for bulldozing the jam factory and building the Sydney Opera House. I thought they should have got Frank Gehry or someone really visionary to shake it all up. There was a pressure group called HOOT, Hands Off our Theatre. It was very difficult for the architects to design something very contemporary that wasn’t going to upset the town. But I think they have succeeded. And I like the things they have kept. I realise now that if they had built a completely new building, you would have had to establish an entirely new relationship with it. I don’t feel I quite own it yet. I don’t think you do until you have seen lots of performances that you love. JT: People are still feeling their way around back stage. I tried a different route the other day and found I’d locked myself out. And there are issues with the openness of backstage and the wings. A lot of actors are really pleased with the understage. At the Courtyard, if you went down there you had to crawl. Now you can walk. We have the Ashcroft Room above the Swan Theatre as a warm up space before a performance, where we can run around

I love the way the green room and dressing rooms spill out to the river Autumn / Winter 2010

and stretch ourselves and use our voices. And the dressing rooms are much better kitted out. We have more comfortable seating in them, and there are showers on the same floor. It’s really good to have daylight in the dressing rooms. If you stand on the other side of the river, you can see the actors moving around, which I really like. RK: I love the way the green room and dressing rooms spill out towards the river. I love how they’ve done that. Before, there was just a narrow footpath beside the river, and now they have created a terrace. I have seen school parties use it as a meeting place. And it’s a lovely place to stop for coffee. Until this building opened there wasn’t anywhere nice to eat. We have eaten at the restaurant [on the top floor]. We had good food and very good service, and the views were wonderful. It’s great to have another really good bookshop in town selling good souvenirs and cards for visitors and children as well as a proper selection of serious academic books and play texts for students and more dedicated academics. It’s a lot lighter and there’s much more space to browse than in the old RST or the Courtyard Theatre. Buro Happold provided multidisciplinary engineering services on the reconstruction of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre

28 29

Technical

How to see through sustainability ilica aerogel is ‘an exciting new material which could provide an environmentally sound and cost effective solution to improving the energy performance of existing buildings’, claims Mark Dowson, an EngD (engineering doctorate) student at Buro Happold. Dowson, who trained in industrial design, says aerogel is ‘ideal for designing new retrofit products that retain heat, transmit solar energy and diffuse natural light’. To date, he has looked at aerogel as an alternative to double glazing and how it performs as a solar air collector on a live refurbishment project. He has also made some of the material himself, to study its environmental impact. ‘The trouble with double glazing is that it Patterns

isn’t a cost-effective retrofit,’ Dowson explains. ‘It can take up to 100 years to get your money back, so I tried to find an alternative. We need new ways to increase the value of expensive and disruptive measures like solid-wall insulation. The UK faces a major challenge to improve the energy performance of its housing stock.’ His research led him to aerogel, a much vaunted material with little hard evidence on how it performs in practice. ‘Aerogel is a nanoporous translucent insulation material that contains up to 95% air, retains up to four times as much heat as conventional insulation and is highly transparent to light and solar radiation.’ Dowson’s experimentation to improve single glazing can be found in the respected International Journal of Sustainable Engineering. He found that ‘by covering a

Sustainability needs new thinking as well as technology

single-glazed window with aerogel granules inside a clear plastic panel, heat loss could be cut by 80%, equivalent to triple glazing’. Although Dowson’s prototype allowed plenty of light to enter the room, it restricted the view out, so he designed several moveable solutions incorporating aerogel, such as pop-in secondary glazing, sliding shutters and air-tight blinds which could be opened when not needed. Dowson believes these types of ‘translucent’ retrofits have many potential applications. Payback periods as low as 3.5 years were calculated for these products. In another study, Dowson made some silica aerogel in a lab to get an idea of the material’s embodied energy. He says that ‘despite uncertainties up-scaling nonindustrial production, the aerogel recovered

1. Aerogel solar collector

Opposite Visualisation of the house in Thamesmead with aerogel solar collector. This page How the solar collector works (far left), and diagrams showing the technology and potential applications of aerogel.

2. How aerogel works

Light

Light diffused

Sound

Sound transmission reduced

Heat

Heat transfer minimised

Moisture

Moisture resistant

3. Concepts to improve windows

Magnetic airtight hinged shutters

Airtight venetian blinds

‘Pop-in’ magnetic secondary glazing

Internal/external airtight roller shutters

Sliding shutters integrated into external wall insulation

4. Schematic of aerogel solar collector

Control dampers Exhaust hot air extracted from kitchen and bathrooms (~23◦C)

MVHR CONTROL STRATEGY

Fresh air supplied to living room and bedrooms

- Temperature monitoring inside collector - System is bypassed in summertime - System is bypassed at night

its embodied energy and embodied CO2 in 0.5-3 years. These results show the material has a measurable benefit over its life-cycle. Lower paybacks would be expected from industrial production which runs at a higher efficiency.’ Dowson presented this study at the International Conference on Applied Energy in Italy, earlier this year. At Buro Happold, Dowson has been designing a highly insulated flat-plate solarair collector containing an aerogel cover for an ambitious housing refurbishment in Thamesmead, south-east London. The project is part of the UK government’s Retrofit for the Future programme, which seeks to identify innovative and scalable whole-house refurbishment strategies, in preparation for a vast retrofitting programme to improve the environmental performance Autumn/Winter 2011

Outside air brought in

of the nation’s housing. Dowson explains how ‘the Thamesmead estate is a key example of the poorly insulated concrete dwellings built in the 1960s. It was immortalised as the setting for the dystopian fantasy film Clockwork Orange, and featured in Skins, the UK Channel 4’s controversial student drama.’ Dowson’s ‘aerogel solar collector’ seeks to make use of the particular properties of aerogel – the fact that it is such a fantastic thermal insulator, yet allows sunlight to pass through it. Dowson says ‘the 6m by 0.9m prototype will be connected to properties’ newly installed mechanical ventilation heat recovery (MVHR) system. Exhaust air from the kitchens and bathrooms will be fed through the collector and heated, before moving to a heat exchanger where it preheats the incoming supply air being brought

Extract to outside

in to the living and bedroom spaces’. Dowson predicts that ‘on a cold sunny day in winter, the prototype should pre-heat air entering the house to 25º-30ºC. In summer the MVHR will bypass the solar collector.’ Many other measures are also being taken on the building, such as renewable power generation and external cladding. Aerogel is being used to insulate the ground floor and the front door within another innovative prototype. Dowson’s key part in the monitoring of the project will continue to expand his understanding of the performance and potential of aerogel. To learn more about innovative uses of aerogel, contact mark.dowson@burohappold.com

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Technical

Below Deliveries and removal of waste block the service road behind Princes Street.

It’s not a technological solution but a social one

It’s rubbish, but it’s pretty good rubbish James Hobson, based in the Edinburgh office of BH, talks rubbish. A lot. But then that’s his job. He is its waste management expert, an increasingly important discipline. And he is making a valuable contribution – not least on his own doorstep. After meeting a development officer from Edinburgh City Council to discuss waste on the city’s prime Princes Street, he came up with a proposal to save money and CO2 while improving the street environment for users. Hobson, who has worked in waste management in Ireland and New Zealand, is now influencing how waste is dealt with from the earliest stages of a masterplan. ‘Waste is often seen as an end of pipe problem,’ he says. ‘It comes from what we buy, use and throw away.’ But he says we must tackle how people select, deliver and consume. Princes Street is both high profile and typical of many streets, with many delivery lorries and waste collection vehicles. Each shop tends to have its own individual contract for waste removal, so the street gets clogged with vehicles collecting waste while the service road behind it has a proliferation of waste containers. And then there’s the service costs. Hobson suggested ‘shared servicing’– a single fleet of vehicles that delivers goods and removes waste. Small vehicles would shuttle deliveries from a common distribution centre to the shops. This would cut down on goods traffic and, Hobson believes, reduce packaging waste, which forms about 70% of all typical retail waste. The same vehicles could take waste back to the distribution centre for processing. Secondly, waste would be collected by a single contractor. A shared contract would be cheaper and the small bins would be replaced by shared collection units, stored underground. Bulk collections of items such as food waste could in turn be returned to locally-built micro waste-to-energy plants to be digested and converted to energy. Shopkeepers would have to sign up to a common system. Hobson is still in discussion and would love to see his scheme adopted. ‘It’s not a technological solution but a social one,’ he says. These can be the hardest to implement, but the benefits are clear. To learn more about waste, contact james.hobson@burohappold.com

Patterns

Darwinian design It would be nice if buildings ‘evolved’ naturally to behave better, but Ralph Evins is doing the next best thing – using mathematical tools akin to Darwinian natural selection to ensure we get the best possible designs. Evins, one of 15 research engineers at Buro Happold studying for an EngD (his is at Bristol University), is looking at the development of genetic algorithms for building design. He is investigating how to design buildings with the best possible figures for CO2 emissions in relation to cost. Evolutionary computing is faster and more accurate than the standard approach. It starts with random designs, and an algorithm selects those with the best performance. These are ‘spliced’ – part of one is combined with part of another, and may be subject to random mutations – and returned to the selection loop. Typically, says Evins, you start with 50 models of a building, and put them through 50 iterations. You end up with a set of buildings to plot on a graph, all with an unbeatable balance between cost and emissions. This is not all new – evolutionary computing has been around for about 30 years, but it has not been extensively applied to buildings. Although only halfway through his doctorate, Evins already has a beta version of the tool, which is being applied on live projects. As well as optimising design, it can help come up with verifiable rules of thumb. ‘For instance, we have found that if you want to reduce your CO2 output beyond a certain point on housing, you have to start adding photovoltaics,’ he says. To discuss Darwinian algorithms, contact ralph.evins@burohappold.com

Unity is strength Successful projects depend on much more than simply having a good site, plenty of money and a skilled design team. And while the claim that a good client is essential is doubtless true, it does not go far enough. To succeed, a scheme needs good relationships between the client and those responsible for design and delivery. Whatever the aspirations and mission statement of an organisation may be, it is its individuals that deliver the results. Buro Happold’s Phil Hampshire and Jim Crouch have been exploring a way to measure the attributes and aspirations of people in a particular team, to make the idea of delivering ‘value’ more than just an aspiration which everyone pays lip service to. They have developed a ‘value improvement process’, to ensure not only that all in the team work together well, but also to identify what everybody wants to get out of the process. Hampshire explains: ‘To deliver value we need to give our clients something that fits their needs in a way that delights them. It must reflect their individualism too, after all, not everyone loves chocolate cake!’ During their research, Hampshire and

Not everyone loves chocolate cake

Right Example of survey results on a school building showing ranking of the various requirements in the brief by people involved in the scheme.

Autumn/Winter 2011

Crouch came across the concept of a value survey, a way of measuring which values are most important for a group of people, and what the differences are. A spider graph highlighting the results showed that for the group at BH, the top values were ‘meaning in work’, learning, enjoying work, honesty and being capable. The largest deviations tended to be on the lowest ranked elements. Hampshire and Crouch took the survey to a live schools project, and measured the aspirations relating to it. Five groups of people were asked to rank 18 different aspirations for the building – the management, teaching staff, governors, the design team and local residents. In some areas aspirations differed widely. For example, while the design team and local residents valued direct access to outdoors, for the others it was far less critical. And whereas the teachers and governors put larger classrooms near the top of their list, it was relatively unimportant for the other groups. The techniques used to gather the information were unusual as well, including rapid surveys carried out using Survey Monkey, and ‘speed storming’, which gave people just one minute to describe a problem

REQUIREMENT

with their existing building, followed by three minutes for the group to come up with solutions. Hampshire says this way of working might be extended to social networking sites in future. The overall aim was to break down barriers and create an atmosphere where everybody’s views were treated as of equal importance. This helped to tease out results that might not always be apparent. Crouch says that the approach ‘will help the project team understand where the priorities lie’. To achieve optimum satisfaction levels it is important that the design team and clients align their aspirations before the design is completed. The best building is not necessarily the one that wins design awards. It is the one that fulfils the aspirations of its clients and users. The process that Hampshire and Crouch have developed should help to ensure that even more buildings succeed according to these criteria. To learn more contact jim.crouch@burohappold.com or phil.hampshire@burohappold.com

RANK MANAGEMENT TEACHING STAFF

GOVERNOR

DESIGN TEAM

LOCAL RESIDENT

ALL

01 Offer more space (larger classrooms)

02 Offer dedicated specialist rooms (ICT suite, artroom, library, shower room, food tech).

03 Be energy efﬁcient and be environmentally designed

04 Be attractive and airy offering views for all

05 Have direct access to outdoors from all classrooms

06 Be a practical and pragmatic building with ﬂexibility for future changes, development and potential expansion

07 Have creative ﬂair and memorable design

08 Have a garden area for pupils to grow plants/vegetables

09 Have a modern IT network and www. connectivity

10 Be easy and cost effective to maintain

11 Incorporate state-of-the-art building technologies

12 Use and demonstrate sustainable use of materials

13 Be in keeping with its setting

14 Make the most of natural resources (sun/shade, orientation, wind and views)

15 Will not date over time

16 Have a clear separation of wet and dry areas

17 Offer suitable storage facilities to provide ready access in classrooms

18 Have low running costs and be economically viable

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Buro Happold Buildings Environment and Infrastructure Consulting

By our very nature we are an evolving organisation. We have a strong desire to continually explore and enquire. We are in the growth business in terms of knowledge and challenge, the desire to learn, to seize opportunities and to create smart solutions for our clients. Our independence sets us apart by allowing us to put our clients at the very heart of all we do. Bringing our expertise to the broadest range of leading technologies and thinking means the impact of our work can be huge. Working around the world, building on the many projects and activities since our formation over 35 years ago, gives us a clear purpose and a set of beliefs that enable our teams to get the very best out of the world’s precious resources. We operate at every scale from the smallest shelter through communities and cities to the needs of organisations and governments. Our mission is simple: to enable our clients to achieve a sustainable future, enhancing their businesses, enriching people’s lives and playing our part in developing a healthy and sustainable society for today and tomorrow.

EDINBURGH GLASGOW LEEDS MANCHESTER BIRMINGHAM

COPENHAGEN BERLIN WARSAW MOSCOW

BELFAST BATH LONDON MUNICH MILAN

SAN FRANCISCO LOS ANGELES CHICAGO BOSTON NEW YORK

BEIJING HONG KONG MUMBAI DUBAI ABU DHABI

CAIRO KUWAIT JEDDAH RIYADH

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Buro Happold Comment

Contacts

Buildings Environment and Infrastructure Consulting

Paul Westbury, CEO, Buro Happold

COPENHAGEN BERLIN WARSAW MOSCOW

BELFAST BATH LONDON MUNICH MILAN

SAN FRANCISCO LOS ANGELES CHICAGO BOSTON NEW YORK

BEIJING HONG KONG MUMBAI DUBAI ABU DHABI

CAIRO KUWAIT JEDDAH RIYADH

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Middle East Office 515, 5th Floor Al Akariyah 2, Olaya Street PO Box 34183 Riyadh 11468 Saudi Arabia T: +966 (0) 1 419 1992

enquiries@burohappold.com www.burohappold.com

Global Sector Directors Aviation Neil Squibbs E: neil.squibbs@burohappold.com

Civic and Local Government Stephen Jolly E: stephen.jolly@burohappold.com

Commercial Property Nick Nelson E: nick.nelson@burohappold.com

Cultural Stephen Jolly E: stephen.jolly@burohappold.com

Education Mike Entwisle E: mike.entwisle@burohappold.com

Healthcare Andy Parker E: andy.parker@burohappold.com

Hospitality Paul Rogers E: paul.rogers@burohappold.com

Rail Damien Kerkhof E: damien.kerkhof@burohappold.com

Urban Development and Planning Andrew Comer E: andrew.comer@burohappold.com

Scientific Andy Parker E: andy.parker@burohappold.com

Sport, Leisure and Event Paul Westbury E: paul.westbury@burohappold.com

Autumn/Winter 2011

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Patterns

Patterns Issue 16 Autumn/Winter 2011

www.burohappold.com

the magazine of buro happold

Issue 16 Autumn/Winter 2011

Profile Sarah Ichioka’s crusade to bring the world to the Architecture Foundation In association with

Buildings Buro Happold

Now soft metrics can design in happy and productive staff too

Asia China is taking the long view on providing for its population explosion

Culture The play’s the thing at Stratford’s Royal Shakespeare Theatre