bere:architects

Latest Camden passivhaus pictures

Bere Admin — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 11:23:19 +0000

Passivhaus update London and Wales

Bere Admin — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 07:24:26 +0000

The Camden passivhaus home is about knowledge transfer from Austria and Germany and the Welsh Passivhaus project is about trying to apply this knowledge to social housing prototypes. We are also working on a terraced Welsh Passivhaus home to save more money and energy than detached houses.

Where there is political will, such as in Wales, we believe it is possible to achieve 90% energy savings in houses now. This is in spite of the Welsh heads of valley location having Winter conditions as unfavourable as an Austrian mountainside. This is because, whilst the winter outdoor temperatures in Wales are warmer than Austria, there is a lot less winter sun on a Welsh hill than on an Austrian mountain.

We are trying to show that the UK can and should be making massive savings on all new buildings NOW. The less-developed world is understandably becoming very frustrated with the lack of action from the developed world. Two days ago, the chief negotiator for India at the Copenhagen and Mexico climate change conferences described the overall achievements so far of the UK, America and Australia as “pathetic” and he is absolutely right about this.

Passivhaus conference is huge success

Bere Admin — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 07:26:40 +0000

What was planned as a small Camden and Islington Passivhaus conference on February 3rd for local architects and council employees, quickly became an over-subscribed event and a major UK Passivhaus conference. Refer to the following link for more details: www.cuttingthecarbon.co.uk/news/15/101

Welsh Passivhaus update

Bere Admin — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 07:14:00 +0000

These are the first prototypes for passivhaus homes at Ebbw Vale in Wales, to be on show at the Eisteddfod in July this year. 700 homes are planned for the site over the next few years. Wales is going zero carbon on all new homes from next year (2011) and it is possible that they will define zero carbon as based on the Passivhaus standard of energy efficiency. This is a definition of zero carbon that is 3 times more ambitious in terms of specific heat requirements than the English definition of zero carbon to be applied to new homes in England in 5 years time.

Camden Passivhaus update

Bere Admin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 06:51:37 +0000

Camden Passivhaus, Camden, London
(due to be completed March 2010)

The primary objective of this project is to achieve a comfortable home for a young family, whilst minimising energy consumption. This house has been designed to use less than 13kWh/m2/a for heating (a typical new home in the UK is likely to consume nearer 100kWh/m2/a)

The project is a 120m2 single family house split over two floors, with two wild flower meadow roofs and a south facing garden. (more…)

Camden Passivhaus Conference

Bere Admin — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 21:42:50 +0000

Wednesday, February 3rd 2010 (Camden Town Hall, Judd Street)

Councillor Alexis Rowell of Camden Council, the Liberal Democrat ‘Eco Councillor’ and very active chair of the Camden Sustainability Task Force has organized what will arguably be the first dedicated Passivhaus conference in the UK (The AECB could also arguably claim this). The decision to organize the conference came after a period of broad but intensive research by Alexis and the Camden Council Sustainability Taskforce on cutting carbon emissions in UK buildings. This research was carried out in the UK (inviting a wide range of experts to present to the Sustainability committee) and abroad (research visits) by Alexis and other Liberal Democrat councilors.

One of the most convincing research visits included a trip to Frankfurt to meet the leader of the passivhaus schools programme there, Axel Bretzke, and to visit the successful Riedberg School, now famous throughout Europe for its proven success in cutting energy consumption to amazingly low levels. Axel explained that the Frankfurt school was developed after energy and air quality monitoring of traditionally designed schools. Apart from the high energy demand of contemporary traditionally designed schools, they found, in practice, appalling winter air quality in schools that relied on only natural ventilation. By combining natural (summer) and active (winter) heat recovery ventilation, the Riedberg passivhaus school is now famous throughout Europe for achieving extremely low heat energy and electrical demand, whilst at the same time achieving extremely good summer and winter air quality. (more…)

Archant London Environmental Awards 2009 – winner

Bere Admin — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 11:15:06 +0000

bere:architects are very pleased that our office and Justin’s home known as ‘The Muse’ has been honoured with the 2009 award for Best Environmental Project. This was a particularly enjoyable occasion because this prize gave Justin the opportunity to meet Penny Poyzer, leader of the judges, who was one of the original project members of the Hockerton Housing Project with Robert and Brenda Vale. A weekend in Cambridgeshire and a visit to Hockerton are planned for the Spring….

www.ecocouncillor.org.uk

Bere Admin — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 13:21:15 +0000

Councillor Alexis Rowell’s website provides an update on the Camden Passivhaus.

www.ecocouncillor.org.uk

Response to Amanda Baillieu’s editorial leader in Building Design: “Is global warming hot air?”

Bere Admin — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:45:12 +0000

Read the original post here

Justin Bere, 6th Nov 2009

Amanda, if you are searching the internet for scientific facts, may I suggest that you dip into Cambridge Professor David JC MacKay’s extremely scientific and highly respected book at www.withouthotair.com. There you will see graphs showing the big rise in atmospheric CO2 levels that occurred between about 1800 and 2000. Scientific fact.

To those who remain sceptical about the cause of this, MacKay asks “does sceptic mean someone who has not even glanced at the data? Don’t you think, just possibly, something may have happened between 1800AD and 2000AD? Something that was not part of the natural processes present in the preceding thousand years? (more…)

Amanda Baillieu shocks Building Design readers with her outburst

Bere Admin — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:02:26 +0000

Amanda Baillieu shocks Building Design readers with her claim that the science of global warming is just ‘hot air’ (the text of this article was toned down Monday 9th November, 9pm)

November 6th 2009, Amanda Baillieu today wrote a shocking article in Building Design. In her title piece, she refers to “the increasing evidence against man-made climate change” however she does not explain what she means by this and appears to have no real interest or grasp of the issues. When challenged to substantiate her claim, she did no more than refer to “the dizzying range of ideas that are being debated” – without giving details of a single one of them.

Her ‘twitter’ site gives some indication of what is behind this. Items 2, 4, 13, 17, 18 below are written by Ms Baillieu. Ref to no.18 at 10.03am on Nov 4th indicates that it seems to have started by an article she read in the Guardian about a judge finding that someone was discriminated against for his environmental principles. At 10.07am she exclaimed to the world “Basically believing in man made climate change is a bit like hoping that fairies live at the bottom of the garden.”

This is followed by some mind-numbingly vacant utterances from another journalist and a designer. (who’s home page curiously says “We are the leading UK consultancy working across public health, sustainability and planning.”)

(more…)