Architect Gone Rogue - Zinc Week 8

For myself, friends, family, former colleagues, future colleagues, clients, collaborators, acquaintances, investors, interested bystanders picked up on the way and other generally nosey people...

This is the journey of an Architect gone rogue and trying something different.

Week 8

Week 8 was a busy one due to the confluence of personal working 'sprints' and more eye opening Zinc programme content. This included an interesting presentation on CART IP (Carbon Recycling Technology), which was eye opening in the context of the circular waste systems angle I've been exploring with Guy Naor , system mappings workshops, 'beehive' standups to try and leverage the networks of the cohort, an explainer on the Zinc Investment Committee format in March, private executive coaching, catchups with old contacts and user interviews.

CIBSE Build2Perform

The highlight of my week was Tuesday with Natalia Baltazar at the CIBSE Build2Perform event at the Excel Center in London, where the latest trends in building services and opportunities in the built environment were on show.

I had pretty low expectations going into it, having spent too much time commenting on and coordinating M&E (mechanical and electrical) packages ??

We were, however, surprised to find an interesting programme featuring talks from Architects, environmental designers and academics supplementing all of the air-source heat pump exhibitors.

My favourite talk was Architect Marion Baeli of Studio PDP revisiting 10 Deep Retrofit projects from 10 years ago to discuss how they had fared. Supplemented by Build Test Solutions (who did the measuring) and Toby Cambray at UCL, the talk touched on how the respective buildings had performed in terms of thermal performance, relative humidity, co2, mould risk, air quality, air tightness and hygrothermal performance since their Retrofits. They were worth doing, it turns out.

More interesting was to see how old-school some of the sensors and equipment used to calculate trickier aspects of the performance of the buildings appear to be, and separately, the definitions of 'building intelligence' applied by industry leaders such as Noda and Evotech Technical Services .

Lingering thoughts:

1. Why can we not measure building health (fabric performance, not just the space inside) affordably with real-time permanent devices? Would building insurers, mortgage providers, home owners want to know this?
2. What if buildings were valued, bought and sold based on their scientifically measured condition, rather than finger-in-the-air home buyers surveys, market-based 'Location Location Location' style valuations and inadequate and inaccurate EPCs?
3. What health insights could be gained from gaining X-ray like understanding of buildings, both for the buildings themselves and for the health of those living, working and playing within them?

Zinc VB7 Christmas Party

We had a party, which was great fun ?? ??????????

Giant Connect 4, Giant Jenga and a whole lot of bunting. Thanks Zinc for hosting.

Thanks

Natalia Baltazar for perspective ??

Joanna Lee for the lowdown on commercial waste at General People ???

Ali Ahmad for a rundown on electrical trends in the built environment ??

Gabbi Cahane of Stride.VC for an enlightening talk on brand ??

Caroline Cattini-Dow of Historic England for a great chat about the history of building services and for sharing your passion about the state of construction ??

Thought of the Week