Greening the valleys

Sustainability
The first of our regular reports from the RIBA regions examines eco-thinking in Wales

Words Eleanor Young

Early in the blair years Wales’ first minister Rhodri Morgan wanted to draw a distinction between Labour in Westminster and the still-in-touch-with-roots-and-reality of the Welsh party. He summed up the divide as ‘clear red water’. 

Clear green water is now rippling between the policies on construction and sustainability of England and Wales. In the summer, Planning Policy Wales required all new dwellings to reach Level 3 for Sustainable Homes. This ramped up September 2009 requirements for developments of five or more to achieve code level 3, and BREEAM ‘very good’ on larger non-residential schemes. The devolved Building Regulations could go the same way with an accelerated reduction in energy use through Part L.

Pierre Wassenaar, president of the Royal Society of Architects in Wales and an architect at Stride Treglown, welcomes the inclusion of sustainability targets under planning legislation as it moves the emphasis up the programme. A recent survey of RIBA members in Wales found 67% felt the planning stage was the best place for such regulations, although most thought English regulations should remain for energy.

While the RSAW is working closely with the Welsh Assembly to ensure the message is not confused, that potential exists and a supply chain time lag could be a problem. Forging ahead with a low carbon economy and building up the skills and delivery is critical to the Assembly’s strategy.

In a statement to RibaJ, environment minister Jane Davidson said: ‘I am convinced that improving the way we plan and build is vital if we are to reduce Wales’ carbon footprint and protect the environment for future generations. That is why I have been determined to use the planning system to help move us towards zero carbon buildings, and why I secured transfer of the building regulations to Wales from 2012.’

The assembly government also sees sustainability as an opportunity. Davidson adds: ‘I am committed to ensuring that Wales makes the most of economic opportunities associated with greener living. Raising our expectations of building performance will have consequential  benefits, helping us develop new skills and jobs based on emerging green technologies, products and ways of working. This will help Wales move to a more sustainable, low carbon economy.’

Special case
‘Wales is slightly different to England,’ says Wassenaar. ‘Ministers always make the point that the Assembly has sustainability written into its charter. Wales sees itself as a bit of a front runner and pushes things harder in project terms.’  Wales is small, so professional and construction organisations and the government itself are closer. ‘There is a sense that industry can respond and debate with the legislature better than elsewhere,’ says Wassenaar.

As across the UK, even commercial practices are positioning themselves as sustainability experts. Stride Treglown used the excuse of new offices to design itself a building that has been awarded Breeam ‘outstanding’. Its annual CO2 emissions are predicted to be 14kg /m2 – less than half what Building Regulations demand. Community projects will often aspire to be green. Local authorities may vary in how informed they are about sustainable construction but Britain’s first Passivhaus office was for Powys Council.

Beyond the urban industrial belt of south Wales are smaller practices and projects. Many, such as architect David Thomas in Ceredigion, would argue that their rural setting make them more aware of the need for sustainable building, while the link between production and consumption in providing water and energy are apparent in reservoirs supplying English cities like Birmingham and Liverpool, and the growing number of wind farms. Some of these players are notable – such as Christopher Day, whose profoundly holistic buildings delight those who stumble across them, or David Lea who has been quietly influential, most recently in the Centre for Alternative Technology’s (CAT) newest building, his £5m Wales Institute for Sustainable Education – completed in September.

Over the last 35 years Machynlleth’s CAT has experimented with sustainable living. The Assembly chose CAT’s new building to launch its newest (and watered-down) climate change strategy in October, committing to reduce greenhouse gases by 40% by 2020 from a 1990 base. But of course CAT is way ahead of this sort of policy. Architect Pat Borer has worked with and built for CAT for years and teaches on its part 2 course, whose alumni will add to CAT’s influential diaspora. As early as 1998 Borer wrote The Whole House Book which previews many of the sustainability concerns now providing the route to the upper echelons of the Code for Sustainable Homes, and he worked on the acclaimed WISE building with long-time collaborator David Lea.

One step ahead
Borer, who has lived in mid Wales since the 1970s, sees various influences coming together to create a sustainability culture there. ‘Wales is one of the best places for renewables and alternatives. There are incomers but they’re rural and not from the mainstream. That fits well with the native Welsh who are industrious but non-confrontational. The Assembly makes a point of moving ahead before the English establishment and represents Wales quite well that way.’  He admires the assembly targets but, in a throwaway line, admits to doubt on whether anyone will meet them. He cites a lack of skills in builders and contractors, for example in installing insulation. ‘You get blank looks from most of them,’ he says.

The Welsh School of Architecture has also been hugely influential. It has fostered a sense of a national architecture – alternative strains of a more organic style developed under the headship of Dewi-Prys Thomas and beyond. It provides a centre for research, much of it around sustainable subjects; and the Design Research Unit Wales, which bridges practice and research, is providing an informed, vigorous and interesting approach to projects including Margam Park Environmental Discovery Centre. ‘Sustainability is implicit in all we do,’ says Wayne Forster, deputy head of school and involved with the DRUw. The Welsh School of Architecture is also home to the Low Carbon Research Institute which brings together Welsh university expertise on sustainability. As part of that Tata Steel is working on giving its rolled steel life as a higher value product and researching energy generation on it. In a neat piece of synergy DRUw is designing the innovation centre in part of a redundant rolling mill at Shotton, Flintshire – using some of the products.

DRUw also designed one of the buildings on the Welsh Future Homes project on the old steel site in Ebbw Vale. It was a good example of putting research into practice, locally sourcing material and creating a higher value from this high volume Welsh product. Even better, it has a Welsh name and folkloric history. Ty Unnos is a beam and post system of local small-scale timber laminated together. It refers back to the tradition that a house built in a night on common land gave the householder the freehold. Welsh Future Homes also proved the impetus to the first certified Passivhaus windows manufactured in the UK. With money from the assembly the BRE got together six relatively small local joiners and a window specialist and worked up a set of shared details and had them licensed.

Architect Andy Sutton, architect and associate director at BRE Wales and South West, was involved with the process. He suggests that many in the Welsh supply chain had been waiting for a proven market before investing in delivering sustainably. Since 2009 Wales has had its own version of a retrofitting initiative like England, named ‘Arbed’  (‘save’ in Welsh). While the English programme invested £17 million and had 86 projects, Arbed has an initial investment of £30 million. Instead of taking one house at a time each of the 26 projects upgrades between 50 and 500 units of social housing. That is around 6,000 homes, focused in lower income communities. It has also given added impetus to designers.

Sutton works in south west England as well as Wales and sees a different, pragmatic quality to the questions he gets in Wales. ‘They want to know how to get details to work,’ he says. But he sees dangers for the profession in the Welsh sustainability push. ‘We look to sustainability consultants and M&E engineers but we should have the basic knowledge to get through planning and BREEAM pre-assessments. It is important that we understand and capture the right holistic building solution, otherwise we end up being handed rational boxes onto which we plonk a facade.’ His prescription is intensive short courses that build skills and confidence, to be rolled out as environmental professional development later in the year with the RSAW.

While edging ahead on sustainability there are downsides to an over-emphasis on it. DRUw’s Forster says: ‘It’s hard to criticise because the policy has been put in place for all the right reasons. But sustainability has become over dominant in the area. It would be helpful if people talked about design standards. There is a policy and practice gap: for many projects achieving a good BREEAM rating becomes the be-all and end-all.’ If architects and the industry in Wales can combat that tendency and scramble for compliance they could emerge ahead of the game – well set to export their sustainability skills to England and beyond.