Planet friendly architecture, guidance and inspiration
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Taking the fuss out of architecture and building projects

Following the viral reception to my first newsletter...

… I thought I’d better continue to release something worth reading.

Ok, ok, it probably* didn’t go viral, I didn’t get an extra 5000 subscribers overnight but I think most of you didn’t delete or unsubscribe so I think this is a good sign... Happy days.

This month I’ll be giving an overview of my opinion on how to how to choose sustainable materials, and what I think is important, plus sharing some practical advice along the way. Hope this is helpful.

*definitely didn’t!

Choosing sustainable materials

…that really have a positive environmental impact.

I’ve noticed an encouraging trend over the last few years.

‘…and what is that trend?’ I hear you scream out with genuine curiosity.

Well, people are starting to care more about how and what their buildings are built from. You know, the like raw materials that literally make up a building. People seem to be shifting away from just caring about how much energy their building consumes when it’s finished and they’ve moved in. People are starting to care more about how their building materials are made.

This is something that has been playing on my mind for a few decades, it featured in my 1997 dissertation at university, (yep, I’m really that old) which dealt with limitations to energy conservation.

So, what does this actually mean? What difference does this make? This is about the energy and carbon emissions, that go into making a material and product.

• The energy consumed to create the building, including; raw material extraction, processing and manufacture, transportation and building. Called ‘Embodied Energy.’
• The carbon emissions generated to create the building, including raw material extraction, processing and manufacture, transportation and building. Called ‘Embodied Carbon.’

I don’t want to blind you (or me for that matter) with the proper in depth techy and sciency stuff (is sciency actually a real word) but essentially what this means is that if a material or product has a lower embodied energy and lower embodied carbon score this is better for the planet.

Less resources have been used to make something and then build with it. 💡

I think trying to ensure we use materials and products that have reduced environmental impact is a worthy cause and worth trying to do.

I think I will write more about this in the future but for now let’s just have a look at three examples.

• Concrete blocks – made from cement, water and small pieces of stone, formed into building blocks. Cement manufacture usually uses huge furnaces to burn limestone which is then crushed into cement powder. This process emits a huge amount of smoke and fumes. Higher score, not so good. 🔥
• Timber – err, this stuff grows on trees right, cut a tree down [hopefully not in the Amazon rainforest], cut into pieces and then build with it. Lower score, better. 💚
• PV solar panels – made with lots of industrial processes, chemicals and materials that harm the planet through extraction and nasty toxic processes. Most of them seem to be manufactured in China and then shipped over to where we live. A lot of China’s manufacturing energy is currently generated from toxic coal fuelled power stations. Higher score, not so good. 🔥 > (but hey it’s ok right, I’ll conveniently ignore all of this when I use it on my building, as it’ll save my bills and help the planet).

Unfortunately, trying to do the right thing for the planet often comes with less desirable knock-on effects.

• Materials and products with lower embodied energy and carbon often cost more to purchase. This saddens me as it seems to push these sorts of materials to wealthy people. I wish there was something we could collectively do about this.
• Some of the materials and products with lower embodied energy and carbon also burn like crazy in a fire, so choose and build carefully.

This is a huge topic and I will probably dip in and out of this over time. Needless to say it’s not as black and white as you might like to think.

For now, I hope this helps you think through some of your choices when it comes to building stuff or just buying things in general, and how these choices can have a better impact on the planet.
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Find out how some forward thinking clients are making a difference

About a year ago we were approached by a family in Sheffield to help them enlarge their home with some much-needed family space.

From the very first conversation, it was clear they were very passionate about making better choices for the material selection, that had less impact on the planet. Absolutely loved this. 🙂

Things like:

• No concrete for the foundations.
• A timber framed structure.
• Insulation made from natural organic materials, such as wood fibre insulation.
• No gypsum plaster.
• Timber cladding to the external walls.
• Kitchen worktops that use recycled wood chips, called Foresso. [Do a search for Foresso, I quite like the look of it].

Trying to eliminate concrete foundations was difficult. We investigated several ways of doing the foundations, and while we couldn’t fully eliminate concrete (tricky ground conditions) we did reduce the concrete needed by about 7 tonnes. So, a low concrete foundation system. Preliminary calculations have demonstrated that we’ve saved about 1050kg of CO².

This project also has some really interesting design features, such as stepping the corner around an existing magnolia tree with a window seat near the tree, using an angled side wall to reduce the impact on the neighbours, internal walls at 45 degree angles to create better flow and improved layouts and ceiling height sliding doors to create a ‘broken plan’ layout.

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This project is currently on site right now, (being built through the British winter 🥶) and should be mostly finished next year at some point. Can’t wait to share more about this over the coming months.
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You can read more about this planet friendly project by clicking here

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Want to create something incredible that is environmentally friendly? Please do get in touch and we can kick things off with a chat.

Let's talk

New places

Well done to Michael in Australia for kind of nearly getting last months photo right. Michael guessed somewhere in Asia. That was broadly correct but not close enough to warrant top marks, sorry! The photo is of one of the ancient buildings in the Forbidden City in Beijing, China. I visited about 13 and a bit years ago. Some amazingly crafted ancient buildings still standing strong.

So, where do you think this photo was taken. If you think you know where the photo was taken or like the photo and want to find out more, hit reply and let me know. You know, I think I might award a prize to the person who guesses the image correctly.

If you are new to my newsletter then each month I share a photo of somewhere I've been. Just sharing something about my love of buildings and nature. I also love travelling to new places and cultures. Whenever I go on holiday, I try to take a few photos of buildings and places I find fascinating and interesting. I’m by no means a professional photographer but I’d like to share some of these places with you, hopefully they capture something of what I experienced.

Whatever next?

Well, it’s nearly Christmas time, time to celebrate. Really hope you, your family and friends have a fantastic time over this season.

I managed to make it out to a Christmas party in London a few weeks ago. Yes, I did indeed wear my bowler hat (now known as Bowler Hat Man). As a small business owner having a Christmas party for less people than you can count on one hand is hard to arrange successfully. However, I’m part of a small business community where we all support each other, and a bunch of us came together for a little knees up and some crazy karaoke (definitely a spectator sport). If you also run a small business and want to find out more about this community and how they can support you, let me know, location is not an issue.

Next time we will dive into retrofitting existing buildings, and what I think is important. Keep an eye out to find out more.

That’s it for now, hope you enjoyed this and I look forward to sharing more with you soon.

By the way, in case you are wondering, you’ve been sent this email because we’ve spoken in the past, perhaps discussing your project, or you have asked me a question via the website, social media or we have met in real life. I do hope you found this email helpful, entertaining and inspiring. However, if this is not the case, please hit unsubscribe at the bottom. I’ll try not to be offended, although I probably will be a little bit! I know, I know, it’s me, not you (it usually is).

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