At Breathing Buildings we care passionately about changing the
world and have world experts in Natural Ventilation to help us. So
we want to share our thoughts with you and would love to hear what
you think too.
A help or hindrance?
27 Apr 12
I am often asked about my opinion on thePassivHaus design principles for the UK.Where do I stand, have we got it right? It isnatural to think that a new, improvedbuilding standard is helpful, but manyprofessionals have concerns about applying itblindly. Does the PassivHaus standard reallymove us forward in our desire for improvedenergy efficiency or does it actually hurt us?Do we in fact make things worse?
Climate Change
09 Jan 12
With the UN COP17 Durban Climate Summit to commence 20 days later, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office held a Climate Change Question Time on the 8th November. I attended this as a member of Plan UK’s Youth Climate Network (YCN), alongside members representing youth groups from UNICEF, the UK Youth Climate Coalition (UKYCC) and Oxfam.
Updating BB101 to deliver the original vision
02 Jan 12
Managing Director, Dr Shaun Fitzgerald, explains how the original vision of BB101 is being realised through a revision to the standard. BB101 sets the ventilation and indoor air quality standard in most education buildings, but the impact on other services and the energy use of the building can be profound.
Commissioning on site
22 Dec 11
In the first of our series of online diaries we spend a day with one of our commissioning engineers on site. It can't be that hard can it? On a building site, nothing is easy.
Facebook leads the way
02 Nov 11
Blog about the news last week that Facebook is to build a huge datacentre in Lapland. A decision based on the opportunity offered by the icy local climate which means that the energy consumed in cooling the facility will be reduced significantly.
The challenges of natural ventilation in healthcare buildings
17 Oct 11
We’re often asked about natural ventilation of healthcare buildings and whilst many are suitable in principle, it is made more complicated by the need to separate the supply to the different spaces to minimise the risk of transferring infections. However, this isn’t a problem if it is designed into the building early on and in fact there is nothing to stop healthcare buildings being exemplars of good practice in low-energy design.
Double B supports Breakthrough Breast Cancer
19 Sep 11
I suggested to the rest of the Breathing Buildings Team that we enter and raise sponsorship money for charity in the process. Initially there were quite a few groans, however with some gentle persuasion about half of the office based staff decided to take on the challenge with me.
Google Sketchup
18 Aug 11
I still remember the first time I used Sketch-Up. I was doing my post-GCSE work experience at Broadway Malyan Architects in Manchester and I was amazed at the images they were able to create that were almost photorealistic whilst I struggled to draw something that passed as a building.
Breaking the mould
01 Jul 11
Breaking the mould - green jackets and red trousers
How do you change the world? Well, my view is that if you want to do so in anything like a reasonable timeframe, the idea of simply plodding along and conforming to the norms of business as usual isn't going to cut it. The real satisfaction of changing the world in terms of energy reduction, which is our ambition, will be if we manage to do so on our watch...
Natural Ventilation in unusual places
24 May 11
Making natural ventilation work in unusual spaces Historically all buildings were naturally ventilated. Now with the increased awareness of the environmental impact of high energy use and with global energy prices rising rapidly, natural......
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