Wednesday 27 July 2016

Jason Fitzsimmons: Resilient people - designing buildings for a healthy nation

Resilience to climate change in the built environment covers many areas.  Buildings can be designed to protect us from the elements and with security of water supply.  There is no need for them to overheat with the modelling tools and data available today.  Good thermal design is well understood, (if not always practiced), water can be saved with low flow rate design and  optimum drainage strategies can be implemented to reduce flooding. 

What about the people for whom these buildings are being designed?  Designing to enable resilience in people can also be part of the design process; this is about designing buildings beyond comfort from a physics perspective and looking at it also from a biological and health perspective.  A healthier individual is one who is more resilient and adaptable to climatic changes.

What should be considered that affects the health of an individual? Social isolation and exclusion, designing community cohesion, air quality, chemicals, electromagnetic radiation (EMR), noise, fuel poverty, shared green space, and permaculture design are a few areas considered below. 


Torrington Blue Coats School  designed in accordance with Building Biology (BBA) principles


Social isolation is an important issue today.  It is well known in health circles that together with a healthy and active lifestyle people who are part of a local community live healthier and longer lives.   
During the 2003 European Heatwave more than 40,000 people died with almost 15,000 deaths in France alone.  Lessons can be learnt from this.  In Paris the majority of victims of overheating were those who were elderly, living alone in the roof spaces of high rise ageing and poorly insulated apartments.  
The office for national statistics in the UK found that in 2011 there were over 7 million people living alone and almost 60% of people aged over 85 were living alone. Social isolation of vulnerable people is a key issue.  In Paris the key factors that contributed to the deaths of so many were exasperated by the fact that heat wave occurred during the months of August during the holidays, where less were people checking on the elderly.  Together with social isolation the build up of heat stress in a poorly insulated fabric went unchecked.  In a society that is increasingly isolating itself, designs need to do more to counter this.
Work by JRF has also found similar issues.


An example of a shared permaculture garden space

It’s important that with the design emphasis on building physics and climate change that other important design considerations do not get forgotten such as construction material selection.  Many modern building materials and insulants which save energy often contain inherent chemical, physiological and biological risks, made with chemicals that can ‘off-gas’ into the internal environment for many years.  Buildings are being made increasingly air tight and rely on occupants opening trickle ventilators.  This coupled with the fact that more and more time is being spent indoors that leads to exposure times that even low concentrations of harmful agents could affect health in the long term and cause chronic diseases.  It is even more important therefore  that any construction materials used are as natural and healthy to the individual as possible. 

Wood fibre insulation (Mike Wye)

Another area for concern is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) from low frequency electric and magnetic fields from electrical circuits to high frequency radiation from mobile phones and broadband.  The World Health Organisation (WHO) and various worldwide health studies have identified that certain exposure levels to EMR can lead to migraines, nausea, dizziness, fatigue and can even be carcinogenic.  Nevertheless, we continue to fill our buildings with levels of EMR that exceed levels recommended by the WHO and without consideration to their possible side effects.   With the ever increasing  inclusion of Wi-Fi in so many of our consumer goods, such as Wi-Fi in light bulbs, smart meters, Wi-Fi in fridges telling you when to buy cheese etc., we are becoming further tied into the need for continuous high frequency radiation without stopping to think about the health effects.   

Bedroom designed along BBA principles – natural construction materials and no EMR in bedrooms
A particularly vulnerable area in the home is the bedroom.  Studies on the levels of EMR in the bedroom carried out by Gale & Snowden Architects have found cables running beneath beds, telephones and radios on bedside tables within 1 meter of an occupants head all emitting EMR way beyond any safe acceptable exposure limits.  Ideally the bedroom should be a sanctuary, free of EMRs, chemicals and with optimal comfort levels to enable us to sleep soundly allowing our bodies and minds to regenerate.
It is summed up clearly by the BBA
“At the heart of Building Biology lies the notion that nature is the golden principle to which we should be designing our buildings, so that for instance, electromagnetic radiation levels and air and water quality should match nature as closely as possible.”
What can be done to address social isolation and make buildings healthier?   One of our recent projects was a care home; at the heart of this design we designed a community building/café surrounded by a courtyard and permaculture planted garden.  The care home was curved inward with every flat looking into the garden and community space.   Fuel poverty was addressed through a highly insulated envelope following Passivhaus principles. Good air quality was designed in, chemicals and EMR were designed out through the careful selection of natural materials and by following the principles as laid out by the BBA which was set up to address health in building designs.  The designs were also thermally modelled into 2080 weather scenarios to design in resilience and adaptability.   The permaculture garden not only created a space to cool down but also a space to socialise. This case study featured in the recent CIBSE TM55 Design for Future Climate: Case Studies 2014.   

The same design principles are used when designing social housing for Local Authorities as well as commercial buildings such as offices and leisure buildings.

50 apartment care home project with shared permaculture garden and community centre designed to Passivhaus and Building Biology Standards

The existing building stock is another area for concern.  As designers of super insulated and healthy buildings we were saddened to read in this BBC news article that more than 1 million families in the UK cannot afford to heat their poorly insulated homes, and are living in squalid, damp, cold and mouldy conditions. Given that in 2000 Parliament aimed to end fuel poverty by 2016, it is clear that there is still a long way to go.  

An example of unsatisfactory standards of living - photo from www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35834733

A healthy home that is comfortable in both summer and winter should be a fundamental right of any family. This is more than simply providing shelter from the elements; the standard of housing has to be adequate for the health and well-being of the individual. It is well known by medical professions that damp and mouldy conditions affect the immune system, often resulting in respiratory infections, allergies, and asthma; these are not thriving conditions for growing families, and the mental stress associated with these conditions should not be underestimated.

Barberry Close Passivhaus social housing scheme designed in accordance with Building Biology principles
Designing buildings to be resilient is not just about building physics and overheating; it can and should also provide comfortable, healthy conditions in which people can thrive and in which they will then be resilient to future climatic changes.  By putting the resilience of the individual at the forefront of the design process the resilience of the building will fall into place.     



Jason Fitzsimmons is an Associate at Gale & Snowden Architects and has a background in building physics, renewable energy engineering, healthy building design and is a climate change adaptation consultant.  Jason has carried out extensive research work and has been published several times in areas such as natural ventilation, overheating and climate change adaptation   Jason also runs a building troubleshooting and testing department within the practice using a wide range of test equipment.  

Tuesday 12 July 2016

Briony Turner – When it’s not good for the built environment sector to feature in the top three…

Hot off the press, the Committee on Climate Change has just published an independent Evidence Report, titled “UK Climate Change Risk Assessment 2017” setting out the latest evidence on the risks and opportunities to the UK from climate change and providing a localised breakdown for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The top 6 priorities identified for urgent action over the next five years are:


The built environment is closely linked with the top three of these six immediate priority areas. The risks presented are not just physical but also cover impact on public health and well-being.

The background is that every five years the Government must publish a UK-wide Climate Change Risk Assessment setting out the risks from current and predicted impacts of climate change on the UK.  This latest synthesis report identifies 56 urgency categories of risks and opportunities for the UK that climate change presents. 

Let’s start with the weather…

The good news is that those beavering away at the Met Office on the projections appear to be spot on with their predictions. The expectation of milder winters and hotter summers for the UK have increased in line with global observations, sea levels have risen by 15-20cm since 1900 and the recent episodes of severe and sustained rainfall are consistent with our climate change projections.  The not so great news is that if the projections are correct, then our cities, particularly the built environment which is not currently required by law or standard to take account of and adapt to climate change, are woefully under-prepared.


Key climate change risks requiring urgent action identified by the CCRA

The top three priorities for action, flooding, overheating and water supply are risks we are already experiencing manifestations of now.  At the CCRA launch event Lord Krebs specifically identified concerns about the number of buildings and key infrastructure still being built in high flood risk areas and also the risks presented to health and well-being from overheating of buildings.  These risks are brought together with current and future socioeconomic trends in the technical chapter 5 focused on “People and the built environmentwhich should be compulsory reading for every built environment professional.

The chapter covers the opportunities from warmer weather, urban air quality, overheating in buildings, water supply, flood and coastal risk, moisture risks from flooding, risks posed by high winds, structural stability, historic and listed structures and gardens, infectious diseases and pests, population health and health protection. The message is clear, we cannot continue to build and plan our cities without regard for their impact on the components that underpin basic human needs, particularly adequate shelter, food and water.

Another key risk identified is that to natural capital.  This includes soils which literally underpin cities. It is easy to forget about the valuable infrastructure lying beneath the ground.   For the built environment community, contaminated land, how it has been treated and how it responds to a changing climate is vital knowledge.  The ARCC network hosted an event with CIRIA last summer and discovered that whilst flood risk was a consideration in contaminated land assessment, there are still some knowledge gaps in terms of the complex relationship between climate change, soil moisture, groundwater and contaminant mobilisation.

We have plenty of knowledge about what interventions need to be carried out to our homes and cities to make them more resilient from the EPSRC funded ARCC network of flooding, overheating and smart adapting cities, the former Zero Carbon Hub’s overheating work programme, the Flooding& Coastal Erosion Risk Management network, the Innovate UK Design for Future Climate competition, the BRE Resilience Centre research programme, the London Climate Change Partnership and JRF’s Climate Just facility to name but a few of the many resources freely available.


Should we be planning for a 4ºC world?

In the Q&A after the launch, it was suggested that planning and built environment decisions should be considering a high emissions scenario with global temperatures rising by 4ºC (great map for world from Met Office here), meanwhile still working internationally with partners under the Paris Agreement (which resulted from COP21 back in December) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to prevent global average temperature rise from breaching a 2ºC  rise on pre-industrial levels. When it is not just capital investment, but human lives at stake, there’s something to be said for taking a lead from our emergency services colleagues: plan for the worst, hope for the best.

Our built environment is fundamental in determining the risk magnitude not just of the top three risks identified in the CCRA, but of those for many other sectors, particularly health and social care.  We, as a collective of professionals and citizens, have the ability to affect which way the magnitude dial swings between now and the next risk assessment exercise.  Whilst we could continue Business as Usual and intensify many of these risks, the extensive membership of cross-sector groups like this CIBSE Resilient Cities group indicates a professional appetite for tackling the challenges presented head on and building to take advantage of the opportunities too.



Being leaders rather than laggards could have commercial advantage

The UK is in prime position to lead on deploying the adaptive pathways and adaptive management techniques needed for improving the resilience of cities. We have the understanding of how our changing climate might impact not just on sectors, but also the inter-dependencies between them.  There's some excellent work that could underpin this by UCL who are working on the HEW project for inter-dependencies between housing, energy and well-being and by the Infrastructure Transitions Research Consortium regarding infrastructure inter-dependencies. 
Adaptive pathways and adaptive management approaches allow for an agreed approach to coordinate activity, achieving adaptation through sequencing and structured approaches. They work at policy levels but also at organisation levels, as a way to work with existing working cycles, for instance existing refurbishment and maintenance plans.  There will be also an increasing driver from investors to at least understand, if not adapt to reduce risks from climate change. The world's largest ratings agencies, Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s now assess climate and energy transition risk factors which will have  credit implications for corporate and infrastructure debt instruments.  

The CIBSE Resilient Cities Group brings together cross-sector researchers and practitioners with a shared interest in making our cities more resilient to a changing climate.  It provides an opportunity for knowledge exchange and horizon scanning, but also brings together those willing to apply these ideas in practice. Now, more than ever,  we need this type of collective pooling of knowledge to start informing mainstream policy and practice.  Help us to do so, join us!









Briony Turner is a PhD student at King’s College London and is Knowledge Exchange Manager for the ARCC network.