green house in Limpopo

Lengau Lodge in Limpopo, South Africa, is illustrated and described in New Sustainable Homes: Designs for Healthy Living. This house, like many others that are far from municipal services, has incorporated a number of features to minimize resource consumption and maximize comfort:

• thatch roof is an excellent insulator;
• high ceilings and large gable end windows allow cross-ventilation;
• structural timber is of locally grown plantation pine;
• bricks are locally manufactured;
• design allows deep penetration of sunlight to reduce need for lighting;
• winter sun heats concrete floors and thick masonry walls;
• shower water drains into planting areas;
• septic tanks overflow to aerobic rock filters and into wetlands; and
• gardens include drought-resistant wild grasses.

The house is also described in Architect Online.

nextgen biofuels

We're into Web 2.0 for the Internet, and Biofuels 2.0 for liquid fuels. Scientists investigating various technologies for the next generation in biofuels are punting them because they avoid the biggest pitfall of ethanol, which is that it encourages farmers to switch from growing food to growing feedstock for fuel, pushing up the price of food.

One possibility is the use of bacteria to produce biomass from which ethanol can be extracted. Another is the conversion of fructose into dimethylfuran, a fuel that stores 40% more energy than ethanol. And Canadian group Dynamotive is already producing bio-oil from human sewage and waste products of agriculture and other industries.

These emerging technologies may have disadvantages of their own, which is why it's dangerous to assume that new energy sources will allow us to continue with business as usual. The cheapest and safest energy is the energy we don't use. Reduce, reduce, reduce.

affordably green

If the interest shown by architects is any indication of housing trends, then green architecture may be starting to move into the mainstream (in the US, at least). Delegates at the recent national convention of the American Institute of Architects talked about how affordable housing - yes, affordable housing - could incorporate features like reduced heat loss, reduced use of toxic materials, improved ventilation, low-flow plumbing fixtures, energy efficient appliances, recycled building materials and even green roofs.

There also seems to be increased recognition of the importance of improved connections in walkable communities. Traditional neighbourhood models are seen as unsustainable, but implementing strategies like increased residential densities to support public transport also require other changes to make neighbourhoods livable: things like a greater range of housing types, mixed-use areas and more active parks. Lining public squares with housing, and giving streets features that welcome pedestrians are seen as part of an approach to designing the public realm for safe, healthy, sustainable communities.

In Cape Town I know of two low-income sustainable housing developments being planned (in Philippi and Oude Moulen). As in the US, most such developments rely on some sort of handout to get off the drawing table, although the Kuyasa project in Khayelitsha shows promise for developing a financial model that is less dependent.

Meanwhile, the best corporate effort on office buildings in Cape Town consists of little more than sticking some PV panels on the roof of BP's headquarters, completed four or five years ago in the V&A Waterfront. It seems we can't yet escape the pattern of showing green credentials by adopting a few cutting-edge technologies. Time to move on. There is growing evidence that there are circumstances where building green can be profitable, but most corporates, architects and engineers don't yet realise this.

foot traffic

Many downtown city streets started with lots of room for pedestrians, and it took a while for street planning to adapt to motorized traffic. In the pre-tarmac days of the private automobile, vehicles could get stuck in muddy quagmires that were better for horses than for autos. But once cars were embraced with new engineering standards for street design, the pedestrian era began its decline. As pressures increased to fit increasing traffic volumes between downtown buildings, pedestrians were relegated to narrower sidewalks, and crossing these busy streets became a growing challenge.

In other parts of many cities, the battle for automobile supremacy was won and lost long ago, but downtowns have remained a site of struggle because of the sheer number of pedestrians jostling for space. Downtowns are also environments where it is clearer than anywhere else that car drivers become pedestrians after parking.

Los Angeles is trying to reverse the historic trend with its Downtown Urban Design Guidelines and Standards that not only require wider sidewalks and consistent pedestrian treatment within a district, but - more importantly - recognise that different circumstances call for different pedestrian treatments. The process of developing these standards has required addressing the perennial challenge of demonstrating to city transportation officials that the objective is not to exile cars, but to create better environments. By engaging in the debate between planners and engineers, the city has also made it clearer to developers what is expected of them. And that, I am sure, is good for business.

Here's a blog dedicated to downtown LA issues.

grand dam

It's renewable energy, but is it sustainable? Hydro power produces zero carbon emissions, but what will the Grand Inga, planned to be the world's largest hydroelectric dam, do to the land and communities of the Congo River? This is just one of a number of big hydroelectric schemes proposed or under construction in Africa aimed at addressing a serious power shortage on the continent, but electricity generated on this scale will not easily reach those who presently rely on paraffin and biomass fuels for household energy.

Distributed energy systems could do much more for developing local communities, increasing awareness of the need to conserve energy, and increasing the range of renewable power sources. The energy challenge needs a team effort, where the team is not just the World Bank, the World Energy Council and Southern African Power Pool utilities like Eskom. There are other criticisms of the Inga project.

At 39,000 MW, Grand Inga will be nearly as large as South Africa's existing generating capacity. Power from Inga will be distributed to countries throughout the continent, including South Africa.

guerrilla infrastructure

I don't know if you'd call this graffiti or a random act of community empowerment, but there must be a few people tickled pink by Toronto's unofficial bicycle lanes. [via Abram]

If you're interested in the real thing, Toronto actually has quite a good bike plan. No, I'm not a spokesperson for Mayor David Miller, I looked at it when I was a transport consultant there. The problem is lack of implementation. One of the city's innovative - and controversial - strategies is to paint narrow bike lanes that are just wide enough to tell everybody that cyclists belong on the road, without actually separating them from the general traffic. I've been looking for some pictures, but haven't found any. (Have you seen any pics, Abram?)

For all you hardcore bicycle planners, here's the full City of Toronto Bike Plan.

energy efficiency in low-income housing

Ten South African projects have been approved by the global CDM (Clean Development Mechanism) body under the Kyoto Protocol. Most CDM projects in South Africa and globally tend to be for biofuels or other fuel switching projects, so I was interested in seeing the Kuyasa housing project in Khayelitsha make the list.

The R95 million project consists of the upgrade of 2400 houses to improve energy efficiency. As an upgrade of standard RDP houses, there is no use of low-carbon building materials. Nevertheless Vienna-based Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP) has chosen Kuyasa as a model project for national replication, and hopes to address the barrier of home financing for low income communities.

The Kuyasa Project, which created significant energy savings through the installation of insulated ceilings, solar water heaters and energy efficient lighting in low income homes, achieved international recognition in 2004 when it was awarded Point Carbon's Best CDM Project at the Carbon Market Insights Conference in Amsterdam. The project has been so successful that it was the first to qualify for the WWF’s CDM Gold Standard.

Monitoring of the pilot phase of the project showed measurable improvements in indoor temperatures, and each house is expected to produce emissions reductions of 2.7 tonnes of CO2 per year through electricity savings.

it's not about the car

After decades of planning cities to make it easy to drive and park cars, it has become "normal" that it should be difficult to walk and cycle to wherever it is that we want to be. Everything is geared towards accommodating the car, and any attempt to promote alternatives tends to be seen as anti-car. People say that nobody wants to walk, so why should we change cities to be pedestrian-friendly or bicycle-friendly? What they aren't prepared to acknowledge is that the way we've been planning has actively changed society's travel behaviour. If people don't want to walk, it's because it's difficult and unpleasant. And it's difficult and unpleasant because planners have made it that way (or at least allowed it to happen). People haven't changed, their environment has changed.

Transport planning and the spatial planning of cities work together; and they don't just follow human behaviour, they shape it. Planning is not a neutral science, it is a tool that guides the decisions you and I make about where to live and work, how far we are prepared to commute, and how we get around. Despite a gradual dawning of awareness in the transport planning fraternity that it's a losing proposition to maintain the ease of motorised travel to which we have become accustomed, the planning process is still in the dark ages.

LEED gaining momentum in US

Despite criticism that the LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) certification process can add significantly to the cost of a building because of the documentation required to prove its green credentials, a significant number of buildings are being approved by the US Green Building Council:

It's a sign of how far the council has come that architects now compete for clients by listing how many LEED-rated buildings they've designed. The group figures that 5% of all current nonresidential building construction in the country -- some $10 billion worth -- is seeking certification. "This movement has created a whole new stream of economic development," says council co-founder and CEO S. Richard Fedrizzi. "We're at a tipping point."

As the UK is doing with its Code for Sustainable Homes, Washington D.C. is phasing in a requirement that commercial and city-funded residential buildings meet LEED certification requirements, mandated by the Green Building Act of 2006.

UK lighting the way

The unveiling on 11 June of the Lighthouse, billed as the UK's most sustainable modern* home built to date, demonstrates that it is possible to meet the standards set by the UK's new Code for Sustainable Homes:

The prototype building meets level six of the government code, which looks at water, energy, waste and six other criteria covering a building's overall sustainability performance. The code was introduced in December as part of the government's plan to make all new homes carbon neutral by 2016, a target which some have described as impossible.

In achieving the highest code level, this prototype building would qualify for the UK's stamp duty exemption for being zero carbon. An article from BioRegional provides the UK government's definition of "zero carbon" and a link to the Code for Sustainable Homes. The UK government wants all new homes built after 2016 to be zero carbon.

*Once upon a time, all homes were zero carbon and built entirely with local materials. Some still are, but usually because the owners have no choice, like this Lesotho family. Funny how it's been the very rich or very poor who build sustainably. It will take initiatives like the UK's new code to bring sustainable living into the mainstream by forcing builders to adapt.