Small World Centre delivers big eco message:The Small World Centre, for community arts in Cardigan is a warm, light, welcoming building, which, among other things has achieved a BREEAM Excellent rating for the architecture and environmental features. The structure – the actual physical building, has been constructed in line with the principles of the Small World Theatre group, which has been operating for over 30 years. ... ...

How do real people choose green technology?: - There’s general agreement that we need to use a lot less resources in buildings. In energy terms, domestic buildings produce one in every eight tonnes of carbon emissions in the UK. That figure gets bigger if you recognise the carbon emissions from generating energy in the first place, and that’s not counting the emissions associated with making the construction materials themselves. Alice Owen, University of Leeds, introduces their latest research ... ...

Creating Low Carbon Towns: - Creating a low carbon future is not primarily a technological problem, but is embedded in the economic, social and behavioural environment of each locality. This makes it a population or community problem – a large change amongst a few people makes little difference – hence the solution to the problem must be mainstream in order that the whole community gets involved. Most community schemes are limited to those individuals who are already committed to reducing their carbon emissions. But the problem is that, however large the changes these individuals make in their own lives, the impact of their changes make little measurable difference to the overall problem. In contrast, modest changes by an entire population can make a measurable difference. That is one important component of the WREN model...

Self Sufficient for Electricity - Pico Hydro: “With the main components of my tripartite off grid system installed, I want to move on to discuss the pros and cons of each of the technologies. I’m going to start with what has become the micro-backbone of my system, the hydro, without which, despite all the hassle it has caused me over the years, I would still be forced to use the grid occasionally”. Keith Hall reports

Interdisciplinary research: ‘Eco-build’, ‘green build’, ‘Passivhaus’, ‘low carbon home’ and ‘ecotowns’ are all terms which are starting to be applied to any number of house build schemes in the UK. It would appear to many that the UK has environmental builds popping up in a thousand guises all over the country. Who is mapping these new builds and eco-retrofits? Is there a central database from which knowledge can be drawn asks Jo Moulds?...

RetroFit for the Future: Anne Thorne Architects LLP won 2 of the Retrofit for the Future bids; both of them are mid terrace houses. One is in North London and one in Stoke on Trent. The Edwardian terrace house near Alexandra Palace, London, (Hawthorn Rd) was built as 2 flats, and is being combined into one 3 bedroom house, and the client is Metropolitan Housing Partnership. The Stoke-on-Trent house (St Lukes St) is part of a small terrace on a steeply sloping site, which was saved from demolition under the late Government Pathfinder scheme through local opposition. The client is Sanctuary HA. Fran Bradshaw and Jennie Swain report ...

AECB Local Groups: Members of AECB meet up at regular, informal events held by the local groups throughout the year. These are great occasions for members and invited guests to talk with like-minded enthusiasts, to take advantage of networking opportunities, and to find out about innovative eco products and systems. Jo Saady and Debbie Mauger explain ...

Green building physics - Carbon content of heating fuels Part 2: In the last issue we looked at the carbon emissions that result from burning different fuels, and how this is a result of their chemical structures. This is half of the story when it comes to emissions from heating fuels. In this issue, we are going to examine ‘efficiency’ of boiler plant, and how these two factors combine to help us understand the carbon emissions that result from different heating systems.

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