I took part in my third energy brunch seminars yesterday morning. The event, organised by Atkins at its Leeds office, was a comprehensive run through of the latest energy performance legislation that is coming out. Part of it included a session on design, which focused on some of the sexy global projects that the engineering consultancy is working on. These include the quarry hotel in China and the Bahrain World Trade centre, which has two massive 29 meter high wind turbines between two skyscrapers. Justin Lunn, a sustainability architect at Atkins, made an interesting point in relation to the latter scheme.
He argued that the sheer scale and visibility of the turbines were powerful, not just as a symbol of sustainability but in actually changing the behaviours of the building’s occupants. I’m sure some would argue that this argument may be somewhat misguided – does one decide on technologies or solutions based on their visual impact or their carbon impact? But it would make for some interesting research – does the presence of sustainable features lead to you switching off computers/lights or recycling more?
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on Oct 3rd, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Or conversely is invisible less good?
Many of the most sustainable things we can do are invisible or at least less visible – like just orientating the building properly or making sure it is insulated properly.
I’m not sure you can answer this question, because for example wind turbines may be appropriate in some circumstances but not others. It wouldn’t be sustainable to place them where there is insufficient or no wind would it, but they might make perfect sense elsewhere.