ESP at Be2Camp

Michael Kohn will be presenting the latest thinking on ESP at the the Be2Camp Brum event on Wednesday 12th.

In particular he will talk about the role of Web 2.0,  in particular the potential to harness technologies behind virtual communities and social networking to enable and empower communities as the developers of their own homes and communites. Be2camp explores Web 2.0 in the built environment and is free to join.

http://be2camp.ning.com/page/be2camp-brum.

If you want to build better new housing in your area, enable communities to develop new homes for themselves.

It’s easy to blame the economic downturn for all our woes, but if we look back to pre-credit crunch times, we should remember the housing industry was facing an insurmounting crisis anyway. Relying solely on private sector delivery was clearly a bad idea, yet the vast majority of everyone’s criticism focused on the drab failing product, rather than attempting to re-think the process that created it.

By its nature, speculative development distances the end user from the design process. In any other mass production industry, excluding real end user feedback prior to production would be considered commercial madness. But with housing, where demand outstrips supply and where securing planning permission and market value present major risks to the developer, end user feedback becomes less relevant than a conservative appraisal of ‘the market’ in abstract. Future residents of new developments therefore only engage after designs are basically fixed and planning is won. There is simply never an opportunity for the prospective householder to have a direct input on the overall design of their future home or their neighbourhood during design development stages.

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Thanks for voting!

Thanks to everyone who took the time to view theYoucanplan Pattern Books online gallery and to vote for their favorites designs.

We received votes from over 500 UrbanBuzz members. The results will be announced on 27th of February which will coincide with a featuren in the Architect’s Journal.

Code for ‘Upgradeable’ Homes

If adaptable pattern book house types is key to ESP developments, then we need to examine the relationship between the design of these and specifically approved house types as applied within the Code for Sustainable Homes. Ian Abley argues here that a variation in the Code for Sustainable Homes to better address ‘approved house types’ may be needed in order to focus more on ‘upgradability’ as an element of sustainability. MK

Ian Abley’s Summary Code for Type Approved Homes – click here to download PDF

The definition of “Dwelling Type” in the Code for Sustainable Homes appears to frustrate housing type development as house builders have sensibly understood them. Namely, that “types” are abstract but scaleable house and flat models that can be situated on any site, within obvious technical parameters. The CSH “Dwelling Type” is not sufficiently typological. This seems to frustrate a pattern book approach to planning. To make the CSH more of a Code for Type Approved Homes it is necessary to separate the 9 Code categories into sub-sets of the 34 issues that:

• can be generalised in the technical design of non-site specific house or flat types – 13 issues

• contractors will need to managerially control when the homes are to be built – 3 issues

• show how the typological designs must be formally and spatially situated on any plot of land – 7 issues

• can only be assessed when the topology of the specific site and the demands of the planning system are clear – 11 issues

The sub-set of topological issues must be minimised if designs are to be worked out and prototyped. The other three sub-sets of issues, or just over two thirds of the Code in typological, managerial, and territorial issues, may be pushed as far as commercially achievable by individual house builders before sites are developed. Out of the 104 credits to be worked with by designers that gives the following sub-sets:

• Typological issues – 45 credits, highly subject to the development of SAP 2009

• Managerial issues – 6 credits

• Territorial issues – 13 credits

• Topological issues – 40 credits, including all credits in the materials category requiring use of the Green Guide

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