Better design could make new homes cooler
First, in order to maximise profit, developers often do the bare minimum required by legislation, without any consideration of the building's performance in use over its lifespan. This desire for economy also often leads to the reduction of natural elements (such as tree planting in urban areas), which may otherwise assist in tempering heat buildup.
Second, too often we seek to solve fundamental flaws in the building design with bolt-on solutions, when instead we should design for climate resilience from the outset. The move towards air conditioning as a response to overheating problems illustrates this. Even the new Part O building regulations – which cover ensuring that homes do not overheat – allow the use of machinery rather than requiring an adequately responsive building fabric.
Design expertise from environmentally minded professionals such as chartered architectural technologists can help to overcome these problems without using energy-hungry machinery. Considering the orientation of the building, incorporating a natural ventilation strategy and utilising materials in the building's fabric that mitigate heat gain can greatly reduce the risk of overheating. But such principles are often disregarded in order to cut costs.
The climatic situation we find ourselves in requires a shift in the very basics of building design. The knowledge is available. It just needs to be employed.Chris HalliganChartered Institute of Architectural Technologists
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
17 minutes ago
- Telegraph
If we have time to stream Netflix piffle, we have time to steam a pudding
In skittish mood during his tour of the Hebrides, Samuel Johnson devised a satirical meditation on a pudding in the style of a popular volume of religious homilies: 'Let us seriously reflect what a pudding is composed of.' The ingredients, he mused, are elemental: 'flour, that… once drank the dews of the morning; milk, pressed from the swelling udder by the gentle hand of the beauteous milk-maid… an egg, that miracle of nature'. And so on. Satire aside, puddings have been for centuries the foundation and ornament of our national culinary heritage. Even the French, swift to belittle the cuisine of these islands, are keen on them. 'Ah, what an excellent thing is an English pudding!' wrote François Maximilien Misson, visiting England in the 1690s. Several centuries later, Simon Hopkinson recalled with satisfaction an occasion when the Michelin rosette-laden chef Alain Ducasse dined at Bibendum, where he was so taken with Hopkinson's steamed ginger sponge pudding that he asked for the recipe. (A homely affair of breadcrumbs, flour, stem ginger, treacle and egg, the method is given in Hopkinson's recipe book, The Good Cook.) But have our historic puddings become an endangered species? A poll by YouGov for English Heritage finds melancholy evidence of popular decline, at least where homemade puddings (defined by the survey as a cooked sweet course, including pies and crumbles) are concerned. Two thirds of households in England, Scotland and Wales make a pudding once a month or less, while the remaining third never make one at all. By way of encouraging us to rediscover our traditional confections, English Heritage is offering a couple of pudding-inspired ice-cream flavours at its sites: sticky toffee, and apple crumble and custard. Ice cream now seems in danger of joining pizza toppings as a repository for random and essentially ill-advised flavour combinations: a summer pudding ice cream might have proved more appetising. Jane Grigson observed in her book English Food that puddings were 'some of the first victims of mass catering and manufacture'. Making them takes time (Hopkinson's ginger sponge needs to be steamed for two hours – about as long as it takes to watch My Oxford Year, the preposterous rom-com currently streaming on Netflix.) And time is the essential ingredient that many of us now lack. But there is also the question of the effort-to-enjoyment ratio. Hopkinson's ginger sponge is delectable, but some of the sturdier puddings belong to a less sedentary era. In Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels, spotted dog, figgy dowdy and drowned baby are popular delicacies of Captain Jack Aubrey's wardroom. But Lobscouse and Spotted Dog, a recipe-book based on the food described in the novels, suggests that they might lie heavy on the insides of anyone not in the habit of running up the ratlines. The original purpose of many puddings, to provide as many calories as possible, as cheaply as possible, has now been overtaken by fast food. And the generations are dwindling for whom a steamed pud with custard was the nostalgic equivalent of Proust's madeleine. So perhaps the proper place for most puddings is a dignified retirement to volumes such as the forthcoming English Heritage Baking Book – to be revived, occasionally, by those of us with a yearning for a suet-based culinary hug with custard on top, and a two-hour film to watch.
BBC News
17 minutes ago
- BBC News
Two men trapped in 60m Peak District cave rescued
Two men have been rescued from a 60m (197 ft) deep cave in the Peak working for Derbyshire Cave Rescue Organisation said they were called at 21:40 BST on Saturday to assist a group of four who had descended Eldon Hole, near Chapel-en-le-Frith, earlier in the rescue organisation said two adventurers had managed to climb out, but the other two men were unable to escape without from the team attended, with two cavers going underground while the others set up for a haul. The rescue team said the two trapped men were hauled smoothly up to the surface and everyone was out of the cave by 03:00 BST on Sunday.
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
Better design could make new homes cooler
There are two main issues driving the problem of overheating in modern housing (Overheated homes: why UK housing is dangerously unprepared for impact of climate crisis, 10 August). First, in order to maximise profit, developers often do the bare minimum required by legislation, without any consideration of the building's performance in use over its lifespan. This desire for economy also often leads to the reduction of natural elements (such as tree planting in urban areas), which may otherwise assist in tempering heat buildup. Second, too often we seek to solve fundamental flaws in the building design with bolt-on solutions, when instead we should design for climate resilience from the outset. The move towards air conditioning as a response to overheating problems illustrates this. Even the new Part O building regulations – which cover ensuring that homes do not overheat – allow the use of machinery rather than requiring an adequately responsive building fabric. Design expertise from environmentally minded professionals such as chartered architectural technologists can help to overcome these problems without using energy-hungry machinery. Considering the orientation of the building, incorporating a natural ventilation strategy and utilising materials in the building's fabric that mitigate heat gain can greatly reduce the risk of overheating. But such principles are often disregarded in order to cut costs. The climatic situation we find ourselves in requires a shift in the very basics of building design. The knowledge is available. It just needs to be HalliganChartered Institute of Architectural Technologists
