{"id":4187,"date":"2021-11-03T15:05:42","date_gmt":"2021-11-03T15:05:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/ksa\/?p=4187"},"modified":"2021-11-03T15:05:42","modified_gmt":"2021-11-03T15:05:42","slug":"expert-comment-relearning-is-now-vital-for-the-built-environment-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/ksa\/2021\/11\/03\/expert-comment-relearning-is-now-vital-for-the-built-environment-industry\/","title":{"rendered":"Expert comment: Relearning is now vital for the built environment industry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now COP26 has arrived,\u00a0<\/em>Professor Henrik Schoenefeldt<\/em><\/a>\u00a0reflects on the challenges for the build environment and explains why relearning will be essential for the future of architecture globally. He said:<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018As world leaders meet for COP26, the endeavour to keep global warming two-degrees below pre-industrial levels shows that decarbonisation of the built environment is critical. The industry must reduce emissions resulting from construction and operation of buildings, and challenge vehicle-dominance in urban design.<\/p>\n

\u2018To achieve these goals, current practices in architecture must be fundamentally transformed. Current approaches are strongly influenced by the 20th<\/sup>\u00a0Century, and changes cannot be confined to minor tweaks. The necessary changes will not only affect the physical form of buildings and cities but also the way we approach the design, construction and operation of buildings.<\/p>\n

\u2018The overarching challenge for the industry is therefore to engage in relearning. The climate emergency requires architects and other built environment professionals to redirect their creativity towards achieving resource-efficient solutions.<\/p>\n

\u2018In the UK\u2019s larger cities, a regular approach is to demolish existing buildings rather than extending or adapting them. The common argument that older buildings are less energy efficient overlooks the fact that the construction of new buildings can emit large quantities of carbon. The production of steel, brick and concrete can be highly carbon intensive.<\/p>\n

\u2018We also need a different approach for decarbonising historic buildings. Coverage on historic buildings emphasises their energy inefficiency but this imposes modern expectations on buildings designed to follow different principles.<\/p>\n

\u2018Historic buildings require an approach to environmental design grounded in an understanding of how buildings in the past were designed and operated; working with historic principles.<\/p>\n

\u2018Designers and developers are keen to announce the environmental credential of new projects, but buildings rarely perform as intended. Only a small proportion of new buildings undergo performance evaluations, resulting in few architects knowing how their designs are performing. They do not have data about the quantities of carbon emissions their projects are producing or if new, supposedly low-carbon buildings, are meeting the target designers and clients had set.<\/p>\n

\u2018This knowledge gap is a major barrier to an evidence-based design of the built environment. Intimately intertwined with this issue of evidence-based practice is also the need to establish a new culture of cross-industry learning. Architects cannot establish this culture change alone. It can only be achieved through a closer and more long-term partnership between those who design, operate and use buildings.<\/p>\n

\u2018The climate crisis is fundamentally an educational crisis, which applies to architects and all professions involved in the creation and maintenance of the built environment.\u2019<\/p>\n

Henrik Schoenefeldt is a Professor of Sustainable Architecture and AHRC Leadership Fellow. He is currently leading a large AHRC-funded project investigating the Houses of Parliament\u2019s historic ventilation system.\u00a0 The project, entitled \u2018<\/em>Between Heritage and Sustainability \u2013 Restoring the Palace of Westminster\u2019s nineteenth-century ventilation system<\/em><\/a>\u2019, feeds into the Palace of Westminster Restoration and Renewal Programme.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now COP26 has arrived,\u00a0Professor Henrik Schoenefeldt\u00a0reflects on the challenges for the build environment and explains why relearning will be essential for the future of architecture … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34790,"featured_media":4188,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[158264],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/ksa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4187"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/ksa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/ksa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/ksa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34790"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/ksa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4187"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/ksa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4189,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/ksa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4187\/revisions\/4189"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/ksa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/ksa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/ksa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/ksa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}