Conclusions

It is reassuring to know that there are practices, professionals and academics who are dedicated to understanding how our buildings work, and are willing to share this information – as is evident from the breadth of case studies and essays in this book. However, the case studies; Innovate UK research programme; and discussions with contributing authors, architects and engineers make clear that there are also a number of emerging themes and areas of concern.

Firstly and most alarmingly there are some practical issues that recur regularly, including:

• the industry’s failure to establish clear protocols for setting up and commissioning building management systems
• the frequent issues with sub-metering
• in the domestic sector, the unfamiliarity generally with the installation, servicing and commissioning requirements of ventilation systems.

If we fail to address these first two systemic problems it is very unlikely that we will ever be in a position to improve building performance. How can we get started if the basic diagnostic information is not in place? In the domestic sector, where whole-house ventilation is becoming more common, we desperately need the training and accreditation schemes that can guarantee that the relevant skills are taken up. Perhaps we will see a new trade specialising in this field, rather than leaving the critical installation of ductwork to general labourers and the commissioning and balancing to electricians, as we do now. In the meantime it is estimated that nearly a quarter of new homes every year are being handed over with mechanical ventilation and heating recovery (MVHR) systems.¹¹⁶ Given the findings of the Innovate reports and the research by the NHBC Foundation there must be serious doubts over their performance, and whether adequate indoor air quality is being achieved.

In addition, despite many projects following similar protocols for the collection of information (for example the TM22 methodology) there remain challenges around getting this into a format that is meaningful and understandable to a wider audience, including designers. This is particularly the case when predictive models focus on regulated energy only, making comparisons with in-use energy difficult. There needs to be a much clearer and more explicit understanding of what is being predicted and how data will be collected.

There are ongoing efforts by industry to collect and publish data on energy performance, notably projects like CarbonBuzz or the Building Data Exchange from the Innovate UK research programme. This data is intended to be used to spot trends and identify benchmarks. We have found that the context of the data can be as valuable for designers as the aggregated information – for example learning how to optimise ventilation strategies, or understanding operational problems with particular technologies. In addition, the most valuable benchmarks are those that relate to previous projects by the same team, where there is a clear understanding of what the benchmark represents and how feedback can be applied. For example, Heelis was used as the most relevant benchmark for the Woodland Trust building.

Another recurring theme is the balance between complexity and simplicity in technology and building services, and also in building design and form. Here the designers’ skills must be honed. Understanding the energy model is essential to avoid unnecessary complication, which impacts on energy performance, and also to inform design decisions. We need to be aware of energy-related improvements that might be needed generally to balance specific architectural invention and delight. We need to acquire what Bill Gething describes as ‘energy literacy’. The spatial and structural ingenuity of a building such as John Hope Gateway creates its own challenges. The structural timber roof, visually expressed but passing from inside the thermal envelope to outside, creates bridges for heat losses and complexity in detailing. The well-used terraces with their overhanging canopies extend the internal spaces outwards, but the constant activity and movement from inside to out throws up another set of dilemmas for the economical control of the internal environment. In the schools projects designed by Architype there is a noticeable trend towards simplicity in the later buildings, arising from a better understanding of the energy model and the buildings in operation. But at what point does this simplification become too reductive – with the energy model determining or even overriding inventive design? The answer must surely be easier to find if the development and understanding of the energy model is in the control of the designers and not executed remotely for separate compliance purposes. Likewise, we must be wary of the complexity in services and operation that seems to make buildings difficult to use, inefficient and wasteful in their running, but also in the redundancy of under-used or unused technology that Dr Judit Kimpian identifies. Here the compliance regime and the sustainability certification system must be partly at fault, but without real-world feedback it is hard to see where these processes can be improved, or regulation made more appropriate for buildings in use.

We are fortunate to have had such a concentrated investment in building research realised in the Innovate UK programme, but it is regrettable that much of the learning has to be extracted from lengthy reports and data. Will it help to improve practice and regulation? The information gathered may be there to be ‘mined’, but the network of experts and the culture of cross-disciplinary study have dissolved. In the future we will need to look to the enlightened clients in university estates departments and in organisations such as the UK Green Building Council and Better Buildings Partnership, which have started to publish data and promote performance-led processes. These are also the client bodies that seem best placed to set benchmarks.

We also need to find ways of valuing other aspects of design as part of the building performance evaluation process. Several projects in this study – Greenfields, John Hope Gateway and the WWF Living Planet Centre – have both administrative and public functions, and the success of the public activities in each, including unforeseen numbers of visitors, has made comparison between predicted and actual performance harder. In these situations it is important to be able to understand that this, in part, is a measure of the success of the building. Therefore, when considering the performance gap it must be understood in the context of other issues and the wider impacts of our buildings. In Derwenthorpe, although the average energy use in the homes by residents was smaller than the average in York, their transport use was much higher. Derwenthorpe is a desirable place to live, attracting people from a wide area but in many cases increasing their travel distance to work. Understanding and being able to balance the diverse ways in which design and use come together will be important in the future so we can reduce overall energy use.

In the professions we continue to embrace sustainability to the point where nearly all buildings claim some sustainable credentials – often expressed through ‘badges’ and accreditation, but with little hard evidence that these good intentions are being delivered. Universities and professional bodies have yet to act in a coordinated way to bring together research so that professionals can improve their practice.

Finally, collectively we have not found ways of consistently working together with fellow consultants, contractors, occupiers and building managers that can reinforce and improve the profession. We believe there is a case for a different approach, calling as others have for a ‘new professionalism’ in which the responsibility for creative endeavour continues beyond the issuing of a completion certificate or a handover. This carries with it three undertakings: that we assume responsibility for our building’s operation; that we acknowledge mistakes and recognise failures, for improvement and for learning; and that we undertake to learn from the user experience of our buildings. Implicit in this approach is an emphasis on outcomes and the processes that achieve them, rather than standards.

It may seem regrettable that policy commitments to zero-carbon buildings have faltered, but perhaps in this pause – and it must surely only be a pause – we can take stock of whether our approach and our professional duty should be reappraised.