AJ Climate Champions – Details, episodes & analysis

Episode 52. AJ Climate Champions with Hattie Hartman and Joe Jack Williams. 

To achieve replication at scale, Nicolas Coeckelberghs of Brussels-based BC Materials favours compressed earth blocks over rammed earth.

‘Our goal is to bring earthen construction from a niche to a growing market,’ says  Coeckelberghs. He likens this challenge to playing chess on multiple fronts, creating demand while simultaneously supplying the market. While acknowledging the aesthetic appeal of rammed earth,  Coeckelberghs cautions that it is technically complex and unaffordable at scale.

In this episode, Coeckelberghs describes BC Architects’ 15-year trajectory from its first earth building in Burundi, to the proliferation of collaborative workshops which led to a strand of consultancy work, to the creation of cooperative BC Materials in 2018. This led in turn to the recent launch of Léém, a manufacturing company that produces circular materials: unfired bricks, and clay plasters and paints.

While  Coeckelberghs is an innovator, he is also pragmatic and advocates focusing on easy wins. ‘Don’t use earth to make facades, just use it to make structures inside,’ he says. He sees enormous scope for application of earth blocks internally where they are protected from the weather and hence more durable.

In search of a way to scale the earth blocks production, BC Materials visited concrete and brick manufacturers across Belgium to understand their manufacturing techniques and explore possibilities for collaboration. Partnerships with large manufacturers are now underway, and BC Materials produces its blocks through  ‘industrial co-working’,  using the larger plants’ production line during their ‘off’ hours.

For show notes and to catch up on all AJ Climate Champions episodes, click here.

Episode 51. AJ Climate Champions with Hattie Hartman and Joe Jack Williams. 

Daniel views mud and waste as opportunities, not obstacles. He advocates an approach of ‘maximum optimism’, explaining that mud and waste enhance his designs. ‘I follow the materials; they do not follow me,’ he says.

Sourcing materials primarily from within five miles of a site, Daniel describes how mud and waste can be transformed into beautiful buildings. But this was not the case from the outset.  Daniel first incorporated waste bottles into an early project because the budget ran out before the windows had been purchased. He then realised that a new aesthetic had emerged from this approach.

Daniel argues that architects need to be on site, not in the office, in order to observe their surroundings. ‘Open your eyes. Be out there!’ he advises. Architecture is not a white collar job; it’s about going to site, according to Daniel. ‘Today architects are not able to see because we are simply oblivious to what is happening around us. This way of practice has to change,’ he insists.

Daniel’s ambition is to bring earth construction to the mainstream and he is not opposed to adding small amounts of cement to his earth mixes to increase structural strength. ‘We need to enter commercial construction. If that means using a bit more steel or cement than the purest form of mud architecture, I’m open to it,’ he says.

For show notes and to catch up on all AJ Climate Champions episodes, click here.

Episode 42. AJ Climate Champions with Hattie Hartman and George Morgan. Montreal-based architect and systems thinker Scott Francisco explains why architects must educate themselves to understand the nuances of timber sourcing.

Francisco believes that greater use of timber in construction in coming decades will be essential to meet our climate targets. This in turn means an increase in plantation forestry, but this can be achieved without compromising biodiversity. 

He also explains why it’s crucial for designers to have a holistic understanding of the timber supply chain. While timber certification is important, relying on certification alone is not enough. He outlines the range of factors that impact the carbon footprint of timber and how to understand different sourcing strategies.

Architects can play an important role in specifying ecological timber by asking the right questions and educating themselves to understand that specifying a species and a grade is not enough. In some instances, particularly on smaller projects, architects can construct a timber value chain for a particular building.

For show notes and to catch up on all AJ Climate Champions episodes, click here.

Episode 41. AJ Climate Champions with Hattie Hartman and George Morgan. In this episode, AJ100 Sustainability Champion and Architype associate director Ann-Marie Fallon discusses her belief that delivering net zero is not just technical – understanding how people use buildings and their role in the community is crucial.

We also hear about Architype’s success in influencing policy changes in Scotland, including a Passivhaus equivalence standard for all new housing. Fallon describes the growing community of architectural practices in Scotland pushing for more sustainable outcomes.

Fallon has been instrumental in developing a ‘blended’ approach to retrofit through a nuanced study of the city of Edinburgh’s estate of 300 buildings with a wide variety of building typologies from different eras. This holistic approach involves everything from exploring whether the activities in a particular building can be consolidated and intensified to the nitty gritty of updating mechanical plant. 

For full show notes to this episode, go to www.architectsjournal.co.uk/podcasts

Bonus episode. AJ Climate Champions with Hattie Hartman. During an Obel Award panel at the UIA conference in Copenhagen, Heringer seized the opportunity to ask the global audience for ‘forgiveness’ on behalf of architects of the global north.

‘I'm sorry for creating this … ideal of an architecture that was supposed to bring us a comfortable, safe and happy and healthy life, when in fact, it was just exploiting the planet and adding to social injustice,’ she said.

Winner of four important awards since our last interview in episode 6, Anna explains how earthen architecture is gaining traction and describes her ongoing work in Ghana and at the St Michael Campus for Sustainability in Traunstein, Germany.

For show notes to this episode, go to www.architectsjournal.co.uk/podcasts

Episode 40. AJ Climate Champions with Hattie Hartman. In this episode, we explore the global phenomenon of shrinking villages in the countryside, hearing about a remarkable series of interventions in southeastern China by DnA_Design, a small Beijing practice. 

Xu advocates a role change for architects in both rural and urban contexts. Architects should no longer accept a commission as given, but take the initiative and evaluate a project’s regional context to make a proposal that is unique and rooted in its place.

In less than a decade, Xu and her team have built more than 20 projects that vary widely in programme and materiality: a tofu factory, a museum, performance spaces and a sugar factory. These projects have attracted new residents back to formerly dilapidated villages by creating jobs and a sense of purpose in these forgotten places.

CHRISTMAS GIVEAWAY Win a copy of Greta Thunberg’s The Climate Book (Penguin 2022). We have two copies to give away. To enter the prize draw,  email hattie.hartman@emap.com with your name, address, affiliation and a testimonial about the podcast before 15 January 2023. We will choose the winners in the new year.

For show notes to this episode, go to www.architectsjournal.co.uk/podcasts

Episode 38. AJ Climate Champions with Hattie Hartman. Slade, head of historic building climate change adaptation at Historic England, explains why insulation is the area of highest risk.

As a conservation-accredited building surveyor with deep interests in both the natural and built environment, Slade explains the role of Historic England as a statutory consultee in planning, in provision of technical guidance and training, and in research to confront upcoming climate challenges. In this episode, she argues that sustainability and conservation are ‘well-matched’ to deliver change on the ground.

Slade also details the range of guidance and webinars available from Historic England, as well as the current research agenda which includes ‘hazard mapping’ of regional risks. This involves granular mapping of overheating, flooding, slope collapse, shrink-swell capacity and storm exposure under different emissions scenarios and their implications for the built environment.

For show notes to this episode, go to www.architectsjournal.co.uk/podcasts

Episode 38. AJ Climate Champions with Hattie Hartman.In our second episode exploring how sustainability impacts heritage buildings, we speak to Procter-Rihl Architects’ Chris Procter, lead author of ACAN’s Climate Emergency Conservation Area Toolkit – England. Chris explains how conservation areas can streamline the consent process by developing a pattern book approach to building elements.

Chris’ detailed audit of Islington’s Cross Street Conservation Area found that two-thirds of existing single-glazed windows could be suitable for double or triple-glazing, 44% of solid external walls could be wrapped in external wall insulation and over 30% of roofs could be fitted with solar panels.

Chris also delves into the sensitive topic of window replacement, arguing that if existing windows do not conform to the original window pattern of a building, they should qualify for upgrading. He advocates development of a pattern book of details, complete with approved manufacturers, to simplify the consent process for building owners, relieve planners’ workloads, and speed up retrofit. Chris argues that this should be done locally based on specific building types.

For show notes to this episode, go to www.architectsjournal.co.uk/podcasts

Episode 37. AJ Climate Champions with Hattie Hartman. 5th Studio co-founder Oliver Smith shares his radical approach to upgrading listed buildings. He talks about the practice’s radical retrofit of New Court at Trinity College, Cambridge. Completed in 2016, New Court remains a trailblazing project because it pioneered an ambitious sustainability agenda in a Grade I-listed building using a nuanced approach that balanced heritage concerns with upgrading thermal and energy performance and internal comfort. 

For show notes to this episode, go to www.architectsjournal.co.uk/podcasts

Episode 36. AJ Climate Champions with Hattie Hartman. In this episode, Pelsmakers argues that teaching values must be at the heart of architectural education. She believes students are bombarded with too much technical information on sustainability and that a strong grounding in architectural ethics is essential in order to apply technical knowledge for the best possible built environment and social equity outcomes. This approach requires not only new curriculum content, but a shift from master-apprentice to more democratic and inclusive peer-to-peer learning.

Sharing insights from having taught recently in seven different schools of architecture, structural engineer and educator Cíaran Malik notes that curriculum reform has not kept pace with students’ demands for change and that retrofit remains a minority topic. Malik argues that once students develop an intuitive understanding, grounded in evidence, they can begin to experiment with results that are both ‘beautiful and exciting.’

For show notes to this episode, go to www.architectsjournal.co.uk/podcasts