fairslife

I have just opened another blog at fairslife - News views and comments on how Second Life can and is contributing to today’s and tomorrow’s Real Life built environment, design, build and facilities management agendas. Please visit, post and comment.

Olympic Shortfall

Britain is facing a huge skills shortage that could undermine the success of the Olympics. The country urgently needs thousands more electricians, plumbers and bricklayers if the games are to be ready on time. Even if it finds them, there are not enough qualified chefs, security staff or cleaners either.

Guardian May 1st 

BOMA Top 10 Energy Efficient Strategies

As reported on the US Buidling Design and Construction site, BOMA (thats The Building Owners and Managers Association) to commemorate Earth Day and bring awareness to the importance of energy conservation in commercial buildings, published their top 10 ways for building owners and managers to reduce energy consumption. They are:

1. Check that Equipment Is Functioning as Designed
Regularly inspect all equipment and controls to ensure they are functioning as designed.
Double-check
Energy Management System (EMS) programming to make sure that operations
are optimized. One firm corrected an EMS software programming error
from “And” to “Or” and saved $3,700 annually.

2. Consider Your Cleaning Options
Team Cleaning-Janitors go through the building as a team floor by floor, and the lighting is turned
on/off as they progress through the building.
Occupancy Sensors-Install
motion sensors that will turn lights on when janitors are cleaning and
automatically turn them off when the floor is vacant.
Coordinate-Have
janitors coordinate with the security crew to walk through the building
and turn off equipment that was inadvertently left on by tenants.
Day Cleaning-Why not have the janitors clean during the day while the lights are already on?

3. Encourage Tenants to Turn Off Equipment
During off hours, make
sure to power down everything – such as copiers, kitchen equipment and
task lights. Use cleaning/security personnel to turn off miscellaneous
items such as coffee pots, kitchen equipment and individual office
lights.

4. Use High Efficiency LED Exit Signs
Replace inefficient exits
signs with high efficiency LED exit signs. LED exit signs operate 24/7
and have lower maintenance costs due to their extended life.

5. Institute an Energy Awareness Program
Create promotional
items, post posters, write news releases-tell everyone about your
commitment to energy savings. Use your company newsletter and
company/building announcements to keep tenants informed about your
energy savings goals and how they can both help and benefit.

6. Install Monitor Power Management Software
In U.S. companies
alone, more than $1 billion a year is wasted on electricity for
computer monitors that are left on when they shouldn’t be. Avoid those
wastes by installing power management software for computer monitors
and CPU/Hard Drives.

7. Change Incandescents to CFL and HID
CFL lights use less
energy, have a longer lamp life, and produce less heat, thereby
reducing heat load. Also, check the lighting in restrooms, closets,
server rooms and some common areas. Thanks to the 2005 Energy Bill,
lighting retrofits and upgrades that meet energy efficiency
requirements may be tax deductible, up to $.60 psf.

8. Harvest Daylight
Locate workstations requiring high illumination adjacent to windows.

9. Evaluate After Hours Usage
Talk to the tenants to learn if
they are actually using their space during the lease-required operating
hours. Adjust building operating hours to reflect actual tenant usage.

10. Adjust Ventilation
Reduce exhaust and outdoor-air ventilation
rates within codes. Take a look at the fans and adjust ventilation in
unoccupied and low-density areas to reduce the ventilation to a
practical, yet comfortable level.

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Free Steps to Heaven

Picked this up from Mel Starrs at Elemental this morning.

Property week have made their news and searchable database free on line at propertyweek.com As Property Week say:

“News, gossip and data are ‘must haves’ for property people the world over. Today Property Week brings you all three every day FREE through our new website”

This follows on from Building who have adopted a similar approach in moving away from subscription for on line publishing. Lets hope many others follow

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BoKlok

If that sounds like a product from Ikea to you, then you are correct. The name BoKlok means “smart living” in Swedish, and is Ikeas approach to prefabricated housing. Last month, it received planning permission for 36 dwellings in St. James Village, Gateshead. Live Smart@Home, a subsidiary of the Home property group, will oversee construction.

Since it started the line with Skanska in 1997, Ikea has built 3,500 of these prefab dwellings through Scandinavia, Norway, and Finland. BoKlok apartments are designed much like the retail giant’s furniture, although not quite flatpack !

Units arrive on site with their interiors already installed; the roof, exterior walls, and plumbing added afterwards. (Just as well considering the queues at Ikea last weekend)

More at Bloklok

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Asta La Blackpool Baby

Many of the media and news items this week covering Arnold Schwarzenegger attendance at the Tory Conference at Blackpool to speak on climate change issues pose the question – what can the Californian Governor tell us about environmental issues? (What can Arnie Teach Cameron?)

As Blackpool is on the Lancashire Construction Best Practice Club ‘patch’, I also asked the question what can the Californian construction and facilities industry teach us?

Well, plenty – from a quick search through web sites and on line case studies

Long regarded as leader in environmental issues in the states, adopting such programmes as LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design – promoting a ‘whole building design’) and California Title 24
standards, the State of California has an impressive web presence to inform and educate on Green Buildings.

In Dec 2004, as Governor, Arnie issued an order to take aggresive action to …reduce environmental impact of construction and facilities… (I am guessing when Arnold Schwarzenegger issues an aggressive order people take notice!)

The Green Building approach recognises that ‘Buildings account for one-sixth of the world’s fresh water withdrawals,
one-quarter of its wood harvest, and two-fifths of its material and energy flows’ and sees building green as an
opportunity to use our resources efficiently while creating healthier
buildings, providing cost savings to all Californians through improved
human health and productivity, lower cost building operations, and
resource efficiency–and it moves us closer to a sustainable future.

Check out Green Building Design and Construction site, it contains a wealth of information, tool kits, overview of training programmes and case studies illustrating the benefits gained through building green (a cost saving of 1$ per sq foot in one case)

And with Californian temperatures probably close to what we can expect here if climate change predictions materialise, can we learn for example how they address school buildings that work in summer? For example CHPS, the the Collaborative
for High Performance Schools programme offers a
Best
Practices Manual to assist architects, engineers, and school
administrators in designing and building schools to provide an enhanced
learning environment for children. In 2006 Californian voters allocated $100 million dollars to fund the design
and construction of energy efficient, healthy school facilities for the
California public school system.

So – over to you Roger to invite Arnie along to the LBPC rescheduled sustainability meeting at Blackpool’s Solarus Building !!!!

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Design may force school to close in summer

Combining design that is fit for purpose and climate change will increasingly be the challenge that faces our industry. The Guardian report on the 9th April may well hint at things to come:

Teachers yesterday demanded the right to walk out of hot classrooms during soaring temperatures, claiming “glasshouse” schools were putting children’s safety at risk.

David Brinson, from the National Union of Teachers, said: “How can children stay safe, be healthy, enjoy and
achieve if they are in an environment that is at best uncomfortable andat worst downright dangerous.”

New schools, such as privately-sponsored city academies, built with large glass windows may
“look wonderful” and win architecture prizes but they were “completely unfit for the purpose”.

Eek

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Are you being trained for the world you will inherit? – the 2030 Challenge

The above title came from the recently received e-newsletter from the USA 2030 Challenge. The 2030 challenge seeks to reduce carbon emissions from new and existing buildings by 2030. The newsletter and the 2030 challenge makes for excellent reading, in particular:

• targets set for each building sector – new and existing
• informative background information on climate change
• global case studies of design and construction that address sustainability and environmental impact
• archived web casts

But what really caught my interest was the contribution that the building sector makes to the total US carbon emissions…

Combining the annual energy required to operate residential, commercial, and industrial buildings along with the embodied energy of industry-produced building materials like carpet, tile, glass, and concrete exposes buildings as the largest energy consuming and greenhouse gas emitting sector….the architecture and building community is responsible for 48% almost half of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions annually. Globally the percentage is even greater.”

What is the UK figure? With the exception of housing do we have targets set for each building type – new and existing? What is the UK building sectors annual carbon emissions and what is the trend? (the USA is 700 million tonnes per annum – a three fold increase since the 1960’s)

Check out and consider adopting the 2030 Challenge?

syndicated to isite, blog4fm and zero champion

Travel Plans

In preparation for the forthcoming travel plan event, I am using the Dept for Transport tool kit – a series of pdfs, aimed at the employer in managing travel plans. Access them here

The draft agenda for the Travel Plans Awareness Event can be downloaded here

The BREEAM assessment for new build and refurbishment calls for:  ‘evidence is provided to demonstrate that a travel plan has been developed and tailored to the specific needs of the users of the assessed development’

see BREEAM Offices 2006 DESIGN & PROCUREMENT PRE-ASSESSMENT ESTIMATOR

PFI versus PPP in Liverpool BSF

News on the Contract Journal web today reports that Liverpool BSF (Building Schools for the Future) is to take a PPP route rather than PFI

The Contract Journal web article cites two quotes from Liverpool BSF on their chosen route,

“We have already built a partnership with the private sector for ICT and design – clearly that narrows the scope for the potential of a PFI deal. It also allows us to start delivering the programme about a year earlier than if we had gone down the conventional route.”

and

a PFI deal would have been a “bureaucratic nightmare” involving “seven sets of lawyers representing seven different bodies from different schools”.

Your views?

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