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Cutting Carbon by Design
Cutting Carbon by Design
Cutting Carbon by Design
Innovation in building design reduces carbon emissions.
Groundbreaking software is helping building designers in the small and medium enterprise sector develop designs that cut carbon emissions cost-effectively. The ingredients: state-of-the-art 3D gaming technologies, cutting-edge computer modelling and simulation programs and live product data sourced from construction industry suppliers.
The result: just one of the tools being developed from the Living With Environmental Change-accredited Low Impact Buildings Innovation Platform, led by Dr Fionnuala Costello from the Technology Strategy board. The initiative is stimulating fresh thinking in the UK’s emerging ‘green’ buildings industry – and providing policy-makers with hard evidence on the real-world performance of novel energy-saving measures.
This initiative is supporting a total of 400 projects across the UK. All are trialling a huge variety of innovative carbon-cutting technologies. The Empower project, for instance, is developing energy-saving consumer gadgets to meet demand for a whole suite of products, from ‘smart’ meters to cooker controls, which can easily be incorporated into any new-build property.
The Rotherham 2010 project, meanwhile, has retrofitted six social houses using solar panels, airtight floors, low-energy appliances and other measures, with the aim of achieving an 80% reduction in carbon emissions. The tenants have now moved back into the properties and a two-year monitoring programme is under way, looking at everything from air quality and humidity to overall energy usage. The tenants, though, are already feeling the benefit.
“The free hot water I receive on a sunny day is fantastic”, says one, and her neighbours are equally delighted. “Over the past two days, the temperature in our home has stayed at a constant 20 degrees,” they comment. “And that’s with the boiler turned off”.
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