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Green Building Bible, Fourth Edition
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Green Building magazine: Eco-pads! - How big is big enough?

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  1.  
    • CommentAuthorGBP-Keith
    • CommentTimeMay 13th 2007
     
    We are featuring this revolving eco-pad to be built using reclaimed tyres in the walls in the next edition of the magazine. It is big!

    large - perhaps over-large houses being called green buildings sticks in the throat a little. What do others think? Should a home have a maximum floor area to rightly call itself eco. Should the Code for Sustainable Homes (and other standards) address this issue?

    http://www.mistral-pr.co.uk/library/ashtonclose.htm
    • CommentAuthorGBP-Keith
    • CommentTimeMay 13th 2007
     
    Here is a short news item about the home from our news server.

    http://www.newbuilder.co.uk/news/newsFullStory.asp?ID=1931
    •  
      CommentAuthorecoworrier
    • CommentTimeMay 13th 2007
     
    Wow thats huge, is he opening a hotel?:surprised:
    For a home to be sustainable there should be a maximum floor area - number of people in the household ratio.
    As one of the major problems with the lack of housing at the moment is due to the dramatic rise in households since the end of the first world war (single person occupancy a main culprit) , if we are to have sustainable housing this factor cannot be ignored.
  4.  
    What grates with me is that you can build in the countryside if you can afford to put up a half million pound mansion of "outstanding architectural quality" but you can't buy a 20 acre small holding, with a genuine intent to farm it, and build yourself a low impact cottage. That's one rule for the rich, another for the rest of us isn't it?
    • CommentAuthorGuest
    • CommentTimeMay 14th 2007
     
    "The rotation is not a gimmick and will help create more energy than the 700-tonne home will use".

    Someone help me out with the physics here.

    "it will become the most energy efficient, cost-effective 'green' design in the UK."

    Ah, I get it, it's a joke.
    • CommentAuthorLizM
    • CommentTimeMay 14th 2007
     
    The Code does have a credit relating to ratio of footprint area to total area. Perhaps the next revision could have a credit of area per occupant. It could also mean that the tiny flats that you get in cities could also be penalised for being too small. I've lived in a really tiny flat in the past with my husband and hated it. It felt like living in a hallway and understair cupboard it was that small.
    • CommentAuthorAds
    • CommentTimeMay 14th 2007
     
    If there were to be a minimum/maximum area per occupant, who decides how many people actually occupy a house? Genarally speaking we don't just buy houses for us and our immediate family to live in - we often have 'spare' rooms for visitors (or offices, or junk rooms, or...). And would gardens or other outdoor space have to come into the calculation?

    Many (most?) "3 bedroom" houses are more like 2 bedroom houses with a small additional room which may be "ideal for use as an office". Inevitably, therefore, people buy houses that are theoretically bigger than they need, but actually meet their requirements.
    • CommentAuthorGuest
    • CommentTimeMay 14th 2007
     
    Having a minimum and maximum floor space per occupant sounds like a good idea, allowing for a guest too though since sustainability also includes that all important social strand.
    What interests me is where do people building interesting houses like this get buildings insurance?
    • CommentAuthorGuest
    • CommentTimeMay 14th 2007
     
    From Paul T

    For a more stringent definition of an 'eco-home' we need to move away from performance based targets to impact based assessments.

    My view would be that new homes should have a design allowance of CO2, e.g. ? Kg per person. this would mean that a large home has to be more efficient (performance) than a small home; the council deciding on the total allowance and also rate-able value (linking the two, the latter being almost invevitable as it is an easy tax to justify). There could be some tweaking with upper limits; but fundamentaly the principle should be equality. If somebody wants a larger home then theuy can pay to reduce its impact...

    This should also include the impact of the building itself - The average UK home is responsible for 50 tonnes of CO2 in its construction; So we have the situation now where Bedzed type constructions (700Kg Co2/m2 construction cost) will be favoured over straw bale homes (carbon storage walls!).

    So, if you want a mansion build it out of straw bales and fill the estate with biomass and wind turbines.
  10.  
    Posted By: ecoworrier
    For a home to be sustainable there should be a maximum floor area - number of people in the household ratio.


    What happens when someone is born or dies ... do the residents extend or move?
    •  
      CommentAuthorecoworrier
    • CommentTimeMay 23rd 2007
     
    Move.:cool:
  12.  
    Kieth
    While we all meander our way towards the concensus of the best way of benchmarking developments sustainably
    I think....
    All developments should include impact and contribution to area factors not just carbon footprints and areas. After all it is the community of the development area and the various parts played by its occupants aswell as the building and its occupants in the sustainable jigsaw that should take precedence.
    If the various skill sets and sustainable services are not in the area it is a bit hard trying to achieve much.

    In fact volumes rather than areas and materials and appliances rather then occupants are building performance sensitives.

    Permitted development (and even temporary planning) rights should of been the way forward but most authorities are well out of synch.
    must resist getting that subject going (again) oops sorry.

    I think variety is a human requirement when it comes to prescriptive rules regarding buildings and their performance claims.

    This building is not my sort of thing but worthy nevertheless and it does tackle a resource problem.
    thamesrenewables.com

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