Connecting buildings and landscapes
Talks by designers, practitioners and professionals.
For information about the upcoming Green architecture day, -:- click here.
Saturday 26 March 2010
Ben Law’s woodland house and other buildings
Ben Law
Ben’s house was featured on Channel 4’s ‘Grand Designs’. He lives and works at Prickly Nut Woods in West Sussex, where apart from making a living from coppicing he trains apprentices and runs courses on sustainable woodland management, ecobuilding and permaculture design. He runs a specialist ecobuilding company The Roundwood Timber Framing Company Limited. This specialises in the supply of roundwood construction timber and a building and project management service.
Innovative use of timber in two Sussex projects
Steven Johnson, The Architecture Ensemble
Steven worked on the innovative Downland Gridshell building at Edward Cullinan Architects, leaving in 2003 to establish The Architecture Ensemble to pursue timber architecture. This talk will be a double case study focusing on the Downland Gridshell at Weald & Downland Open Air Museum and his work at the Woodland Enterprise Centre at Flimwell. Steven will describe how these projects are direct architectural responses to the conditions found on these particular sites and across the region within which they were and are being built. Both projects make innovative use of locally and regionally grown timber.
Ecourbanism – whole system thinking
Luke Engleback, Studio Engleback
Luke has 27 years experience working at all scales of planning and design. He founded Studio Engleback in 1996 and has been involved in many projects that deal with the interface between urbanism, ecology, and sustainable city living. Ongoing study includes energy saving planning, urban thermal dynamics, human epidemiology, integrated urban food production, renewable energy, plant physiology and climate change, and their economic consequences that need to be considered in planning and design. He advocates multifunctional environmental infrastructure that delivers a series of environmental services. Luke’s talk will refer to a project he is working on with Kevin McCloud in Swindon
Living walls
Tim Wraight, BioTecture Ltd
Tim is operations manager for BioTecture, installing plants grown vertically in a hydroponic system for clients. Benefits of green walling include reduced thermal loading on buildings, natural air filtration, reduced heat island effect, sound attenuation, creation of urban ecological habitat, urban food walls and of course, exciting and uplifting human urban environments.
An overview of green architecture – issues and approaches
Duncan Baker-Brown, BBM Sustainable Design
A look at the issues that need to be addressed by design aiming towards achieving sustainability in the built environment. Duncan will introduce the issues illustrating them with case studies from the current work of his award winning practice, BBM Sustainable Design, as it pursues an ethos of environmentally benign design in housing, commercial, as well as community and school buildings.