London Build Lessons

Last week the annual London Build Expo took place. It was a chance to meet lots of allies and collaborators and hear how others in the industry are tackling the climate crisis, advancing social justice and championing inclusion. I learnt a lot and wanted to share some of this with you:

First-up, on the Sustainability Stage, I was particularly interested to hear Kelly Dickinson , Romain Richli and Alison Davis discuss how they ensure their colleagues, collaborators and supply chains are working towards the same goals to deliver low carbon procurement. Advice included: having dedicated Sustainable Procurement Managers on projects, continuously promoting the same message through workshops with colleagues, and going beyond competition to share knowledge and process throughout the industry.

It was great to meet Flora Walker and talk about the overlaps between inclusive and climate-just design, we also shared some thoughts on eco-ablism and the importance of making change that is meaningful and accessible (NB: campaigns against plastic straws are neither!). Flora spoke on the “Jeff, Do We Still Have the Portable Ramp Somewhere in Storage?!” panel and highlighted how we need to consider ALL the protected characteristics within the Equality Act. One topic, often forgotten, is the safety of women and girls. Lack of overlooking, overgrowth of bushes, poor lighting and under provision of diverse routes through spaces all create scenarios where women and girls are at higher risk within our cities. She mentioned that, although it is essential to ensure design teams are inclusive and diverse, it will never be possible to have everyone's needs represented within a team - we need to think more broadly about how spaces impact everyone. We need to engage our empathy. It was also so great to hear Jean Hewitt talk about the new British Standards on Neurodiversity (PAS 6463:2022) and Menstrual health and menopause in the workplace. Such important work!

Next up, I joined a lively panel on Tall Buildings and how we need to rethink these in light of the climate crisis. My fellow panellists Lina Fontevedra Diaz , Jay Morton , Viviana Muscettola and chair Debbie Flevotomou RIBA - THINK NATURE Ambassador raised some really key issues, such as ensuring community permeates upwards through tall buildings, focusing on wellbeing and getting the facade design right to reduce overheating, maximise solar gain in the winter and minimise heat losses.

My take was a little different. Due to the potential harm tall buildings can cause and their ability to impact high numbers of people, we need to hold ourselves to higher standards when designing tall. We discussed the correlation between embodied carbon emissions and the height of buildings over 4-9 storeys, the worsening of urban heat island effects and the concentration of outdoor pollution at street level through the canyon effect. Cycling past tall buildings can often be a bit of a nightmare due to increased wind speeds, particularly in the City of London. First, let's consider: can we achieve the density we need at lower heights. Architects from Peter Tabori to Peter Barber have shown that mid-rise high-density is achievable, beautiful and desirable. I talked about FCBS, Alison Brookes & Gort Scott's Unity Place project in Kilburn, and Buckley Gray Yeoman 's own Edward Street Quarter scheme in Brighton being great examples of just this.

If we do build tall, let's advocate for more transparency: on embodied carbon and in-use energy consumption. Let's make Post Occupancy Evaluation the norm, and do proper impact assessments on occupant wellbeing.

But we couldn't finish without stating the absolute obvious!

The best tall building is the one that already exists.

At BGY we champion the retention, retrofit and adaptive reuse of existing buildings. Our YY London project, led by Adam Whitlock Wood and Amy Hill, currently under construction, is an excellent example of a tall building in Canary Wharf where retention of the existing structural frame saved more than 10,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions. https://yylondon.com We were able to take the opportunities presented when replacing the facade to improve thermal performance and add biodiverse amenity space.

We agreed that retrofit of our existing tall buildings is a crucial way we can tackle the climate, cost of living and energy crisis. I had to mention the great work both ECD Architects Ltd and Collective Architecture are doing, referencing their EnerPHit Wilmcote House and Woodside Flats projects respectively.

The afternoon kicked-off for me at the Creating Social Value in Construction panel, a tricky subject to make real, chaired beautifully by Paula McMahon . Her final question: "What's the best thing you've ever done?" brought home what social value is all about, and the panel gave great examples: creating female teams in Saudi, tackling homelessness in partnership with Shelter, providing computing and language skills to communities in Tower Hamlets and making community allotments.

Next, I learnt about Responsible Sourcing with Sustainable Supply Chains. Key takeaways for me were Teik Tan MSc MCIPS calling for: a focus on lifecycle rather than upfront costs, heat-mapping of where sustainability impact/risk lies within what you are specifically procuring, asking the right questions of suppliers and setting SMART deliverables (rather than open-ended questions that can lead to meaningless greenwash).

The final (and arguably best) panel of my day was Putting Passive House into Practice. Here a group of absolute experts, Marion Baeli , Gwilym Still , Mark Martines and Peter Kelly were chaired by (the always incredible) Sara Edmonds . The group talked about the ambition and measurement gap between building regulations and where our building performance needs to be. It became clear that Passive House isn't just a route to super low-energy buildings but also an effective method to ensure build quality and robustness. The five fabric principles of passive house are insulation, air tightness, minimising thermal bridges, MVHR and high-performance glazing, but quality control also plays a massive role in the standard, with accurate energy modelling, third-party certification, robust QA and on-site testing & verification being essential. Orientation, form factor and solar shading are also important when designing to meet passive house standards. All-in-all a passive house is incredibly healthy & comfortable to live in, and very cheap to run.

Peter Kelly touched on procurement challenges, including engaging highly skilled installers and getting your hands on bio-based materials (that are often produced in Europe and are impacted by post-Brexit supply barriers). The group also agreed that detailed workshops with your Quantity Surveyor are important to ensure any extra cost that might be associated with passive house isn't inflated through assumptions or a lack of information. We need to give our QSs a list of anything that might be different from a compliance-only scheme and ensure these are explicitly priced, rather than accepting a percentage lump sum extra for passive house.

The day would not have been complete without meeting many climate buddies, sharing what we are up to, the challenges we face, how we are tackling these, and planning further collaboration, thank you: Filipa Oliveira , Katie Cairns , Sara Edmonds and Konstantina Tsapakidou !

I love the enthusiasm and generosity demonstrated by everyone at London Build, and think we need much more of this to tackle the myriad crisis we face! If you'd also like to be part of action on climate justice and the built environment, get involved with Architects Climate Action Network (ACAN) and to continue the conversation come along to our next event, held in collaboration with UK Architects Declare : Practice Action Assembly.