One of the reasons why there’s a big focus on projects in the US (other than technology development) is the relative lightness of the permitting and approval process.
There are now six sub-workstreams within it.Each one is looking at different aspects of embodied carbon: the importance of whole-life carbon, benchmarking, the collection of case studies, etc.
The aim is to gather knowledge and offer industry advice.. As part of this effort, some data has been published on the Landsec/Bryden Wood project, the Forge.This ground-breaking P-DfMA office building project is currently being delivered on-site in London, featuring an almost 20% reduction in embodied carbon.It’s a fantastic achievement, and because The Forge is a Platforms construction project, we’ll be able to take what we’ve learned to create further benefits on future projects.. With the Forge, we’ve been able to prototype the project in advance of it going on-site.
We’ve been able to look at things like different concrete mixes, relating to the self-compacting nature of the concrete.Through evaluation of embodied carbon, we’ve been able to offer lower carbon concrete mixes, tested before being transferred.
In this case, Easispace put temperature sensors in the concrete, with mobile phone alerts indicating when the concrete became strong enough to strike the shuttering.
This process of fine tuning the concrete enables it to be kept as low-carbon as possible, optimising it for strength, while still keeping the building process as quick as possible.Are we working to find and deliver the client’s purpose and do we accept that narrowing down on that outcome can only come from constant iterations and evolution of understanding?
The idea that the purpose and objective can be captured in a document and then a design team (human-intelligent-machine) can simply deliver it, is as frightening as the robot childminder.. For Design to Value the rules should be:.Altruism – the aim should be to maximise the value to the client, understanding the underlying purpose.
Uncertainty – the problem statement and value drivers should remain uncertain.Iteration – there needs to be a dynamic process: try, analyse, evaluate.
(Editor: All-in-One Foam Rollers)