SBID and ‘Retreat, defend, attack’ at the Building Centre
Last week I stopped into a Building Centre event where the newly founded Society of British Interior Design (SBID) hosted three speakers on sustainability, and there was a lot of talk about whether green design can be made sexy enough to appeal commercially. Cole Thompson Anders’ Nick Thompson, who is leading SBID’s Sustainability sub-committee, argued that good environmental performance of buildings leads to increased health and well being of users and enhanced organisational productivity - and hence makes good business sense. I like this line of argument - familiar from Behnisch’s Genzyme Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts - but it is very hard to measure.
Interestingly, the BRE has decided to tackle this issue. SBID and BRE are launching a joint six month study to develop case studies of this research with a view to developing a commercial toolkit for this methododogy. For further information, contact info@sbid.org or Jon Mussett at BRE. I was surprised to find that no members of the audience have yet attempted to use SKA Rating, the online tool for greener interior fitouts.
While at the Building Centre, I managed to catch the tail end of RIBA think tank Building Futures‘ small exhibition on flooding, a series of boards hung in the cafe - some inaccessible because they were behind occupied tables.
With the threat of rising sea levels, Building Futures’ study explores the future security of the UK’s coastal and estuarine cities. The exhibition has been on display at the Building Centre, London before travelling to Portsmouth (15 - 27 February) and Kingston-upon-Hull (15 – 28 April 2010). View the full report here.
Hull defends proposal
Portsmouth retreats proposal
A collaboration with the Institution of Civil Engineers, ‘Retreat, Defend, Attack’ presents some fun facts; the length of the UK coastline is 12,429 km, compared to 7,600 km in Italy, 4,964 km in Spain, and 4,427 km in France; and some sobering ones: around 10 million people live in flood risk areas in England and Wales. The report proposes responses to flooding scenarios for Hull and Portsmouth - two of the UK’s highest flood risk areas. In Hull in 2007, 600 streets, almost 9000 homes and 91 of the the city’s 99 schools were flooded.
Three scenarios for each site are illustrated:
RETREAT: Hard engineering defences are no longer sustainable or affordable. Moving the line of defence inland and allowing flood water to occupy previously protected city areas is the only option.
DEFEND: There is a growing deficit of flood defences which public funding does not cover. Flood defence systems must be made commercially viable to attract private investment.
ATTACK: Significant population increase means building out into the water, via stilted and floating structures. This has proven successful abroad where due to high demand for space, the public and private sector are both willing to invest in expanding seaward.
It’s good to see this type of work coming out of Building Futures.
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Filed under: Green event, Green practice
Unsurprising that the BRE are muscling in on territory that has traditionally been the domain of the Usable Buildings Trust et al.
It isn’t all that hard to comparatively measure personally scored improvements in health and well-being or productivity using a survey and dataset. The key problem is turning the output from a survey into a cash figure - and how then to reward the design team/contractor.
Thanks for publicising the Ska rating system - I hadn’t heard of this as an Environmental Consultant, so I’m unsurprised that the audience was light on people with experience of the process.
The SBID sustainability initiative is inclusive and ongoing and seeks to engage with all interested parties involved with the design of buildings and interior fit-outs.
SBID welcomes all feedback and collaboration on the subject of sustainable interiors. BRE were the first to engage and step-up but this does not exclude the UBT or any other organisation.
As previously discussed with Hattie Hartman, SBID is keen to bring her insight and knowledge of the SKA Rating to the for-front.