What ever happened to quality public buildings?

A few weeks ago my wife and I celebrated our 13 years of blissful marriage with a day trip to St Albans with our two kids. Having negotiated the one way system and found a multi storey car park we set out on foot to visit the Cathedral.

The History of St Albans Cathedral is somewhat chequered and was brilliantly brought to life for us by the guide who showed us (and our surprisingly attentive children) around. 

Originally founded as a Benedictine abbey founded by King Offa in ad.793 the current building was begun in 1077 by the Normans and was extended in the "Early English" style as the congregation grew. this extension can clearly be seen as the Norman rounded arches give way to the more pointed style further down the nave.

In 1539, the various buildings around the Cathedral were demolished and sold as building materials to a local contractor, leaving just the main church and gatehouse still standing and the Town purchased the church from the King as a parish church.

The financial burden of maintaining the building became too heavy for the town to bear and, as a result, the building began to fall into a state of disrepair. In the 1800s Lord Grimthorpe stepped in and, on the basis that he was allowed a free hand with regards to design, funded the complete restoration of what we now see.

Now, it is clear that Lord Grimthorpe had no architectural training and (according to our guide) little taste, but he managed what must have been an incredible feat, turning a virtually derelict building into one of the finest churches in the region.

Having been wowed by the Cathedral, I was equally impressed with the 1980s extension, which is known as "The Chapter House". This addition was designed by Sir William Whitfield and the brief was very simple. The original chapter house (destroyed during The Reformation) had been the hub of daily life of the monastery and the new building should be its modern equivalent.

The Chapter House, crafted from over 500,000 reproduction Roman bricks, flows effortlessly from the Cathedral and the detailing, when combined with the use of the exposed brick and concrete, screams of craftsmanship!

I could not help wondering (as I waited for the family to emerge from the toilets) why it is that so much of our recent public architecture has failed to meet the standards of architecture and construction quality that is clearly visible in this sensitive addition to a much loved historic building.

There has been much debate in recent weeks about the quality of the buildings resulting from the drive to rebuild our schools and hospitals and there will be, no doubt, much pressure to reduce the cost to the public purse of such projects in the future, but is this a false economy?

The week before visiting St Albans I attended a design workshop at Harlow Council's relatively new Civic Centre. This is a building that was designed and constructed as a part of a wider project to redevelop the area of Harlow Town Centre known as the Water Gardens.

The project was privately funded and, in my opinion, the architecture and quality of what has been delivered leaves something (well actually quite a lot) to be desired. It's not just the poor quality materials that are distressing but also the lack of thought in the detailing.

I could not help wondering, as I walked along the corridor feeling every board of the access floor flexing and squeaking below my feet, how long the Civic Centre will last - is it destined to be a listed building of the future - I doubt it very much!

In these unprecedented times of financial restraint, should we be looking to short term cost savings when it comes to public building projects or should we, instead, be looking to ensure that the design and build quality is such that the building outlasts our generation?

In my opinion, we need to have a radical change of approach when it comes to the commissioning of public buildings. we need to throw off the thinking that says that cheap and quick is best - in the medium to long term the short term savings are thrown away as we revisit or demolish poorly conceived buildings that are no longer fit for purpose or fundamentally flawed by bad design

Instead we need to embrace the concept that public buildings should last longer than those who envisage them. We need to embrace good design - by appropriately qualified professionals - and accept that good buildings should be fit for purpose and capable of accommodating change. They should offer the occupants both visual and environmental comfort and should be a lasting statement of our era.

In short, we need a return to the Architect as the central figure in the design of our public buildings and realistic budgets that allow us to construct buildings that my Grandchildren can visit and marvel at when they celebrate their 13th Wedding Anniversary!.

Does the update to Part L really address Climate Change?

Last week I finally got around to reviewing the new Approved Document Part L of the Building Regulations which, for those of you who I have completely lost already, deals with the Conservation of Fuel and Power in buildings. Part L (as I shall refer to it) has, for some time now, been the primary tool of the Government for reducing the carbon footprint of both our residential and non-residential building stock through the application of ever tougher performance standards for the thermal envelope of a new building, the efficiency of any heat source used to heat said building and, latterly, requirements for some energy efficient lighting installations.

The basic aim of Part L is to drive down the CO2 emissions of buildings on an ever steeper curve until, eventually, new housing will be carbon neutral. The latest version of Part L comes into force in October of this year and, according to some, is likely to add around 6% to the cost of the construction of a new dwelling. The cost implications for extensions and refurbishments is talked about less and will probably vary - needless to say it won't be cheaper to build after October '09!

Last week I also got to go to the first day of the first Test Match against Bangladesh at Lords.

Now, you may be forgiven for asking what the connection was between these two momentous events, let me explain.

On my way to Lords and facing an hour long commute to St Johns Wood, I grabbed a free copy of the Telegraph courtesy of a free voucher. Having caught the train at Harlow Town station I settled down and opened my paper to wile away the journey and, on page 3, was confronted by the headline "A summer of '76 every decade (Met Office predicts)", it's worth a read (although I would suggest you read the rest of the blog first before clicking on the link above)!

The long and short of the article is that the Met Office, whilst dropping their seasonal predictions (after all who can forget the summer of unbroken Bar-B-Ques we had last year) the Met Office continues to provide the Government with long range forecasts and is predicting that climate change will result in extreme droughts occurring ten times as often as they do now with their worst case scenarios indicating an increase of temperature of 4degC from current averages! All of this is being compared to the Summer of 1976 which (so I am told - being two at the time) was excruciatingly hot with temperatures reaching record highs of 36degC. These exceptionally hot conditions led to reservoirs and rivers drying up, water being rationed, people being rushed to hospital with heat exhaustion and forest fires breaking out left right and centre!

Now, we should take this with a pinch of salt, after all it is only a prediction and a long range one at that, but it does raise an interesting point. Eleanor Burke, Climate Extremes Scientist with the Met Office, states in the article that:

"Britain has to prepare for 1976-style droughts. This could include designing buildings to cope with heat......"

Approved Document Part L of the Building Regulations addresses the conservation of energy primarily through the use of insulation and air tightness to keep heat in but what happens when you want to keep temperatures low? The Approved Document does cover the control of Solar gain but, in my opinion, does not ensure that extreme air temperature levels outside the building do not affect the level of comfort inside the building.

One of the criticisms that can be leveled at Part L, is that it can promote a singular approach to energy efficiency (i.e. increasingly high levels of insulation) at the expense of other considerations, after all it was never originally designed to be a vehicle for driving down carbon emmissions! In doing so it fails to recognise the benefits that can be gained in providing a stable internal environment all year round.

As Architects, we often see buildings that have been constructed with a good level of insulation that have then needed air conditioning or other mechanical cooling devices to stop the occupants overheating in summer. This is particularly noticable in lightweight buildings.

We also see other examples, such as St Albans Cathedral (which I also visited this week - more about that in another post) where, through the limitations of building technology at the time, the building retains a stable internal temperature all year round due to it's massively thick masonry walls.

This use of thick masonry structures to regulate internal temperature is known as Thermal Massing. Thermal mass is a property that enables building materials to absorb, store, and later release significant amounts of heat. Buildings constructed to be thermally massive absorb energy (heat) slowly and hold it for much longer periods of time than lightweight buildings, which are designed to heat up quickly and rely on insulation to stop heat escaping.

This effect delays and reduces heat transfer through a thermal mass building component, leading to three significant benefits:

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  There are fewer spikes in the heating and cooling requirements, since mass slows the response time and moderates indoor temperature fluctuations.
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  A massive building uses less energy than a similar lightweight building due to the reduced heat transfer through the massive elements.
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  Thermal mass can shift energy demand to off-peak time periods when utility rates are lower.

The greatest advantage with thermally massive buildings, in the context of the Telegraph article, is that the effect is the same whether the heat source is internal (i.e. underfloor heating) or external (i.e. extreme external temperatures), the structure is slow to radiate heat.

If we are faced with the likihood of increasingly hot summers, it is not sufficient for Part L to simply look to make the heating of our houses and work spaces more effcient, it also needs to look to make the cooling of those same spaces equally as efficient and preferably passive.

Although the latest update to Part L is much welcomed, until it encompasses all aspects of achieving a comfortable environment for building occupiers, it will remain an ineffective way of addressing both the cause and effect of Climate Change!