[A reflection from an architect to the architects, on questioning our being (role) or building a platform in the construction industry.]
This post is for the architects.
I attended the Belgian Architects 51N4E lecture at the Barbican (Architecture Foundation’s On Stage Series) and was enthusiastic about their design, their structure, and message.
Their design is clearly founded on a deep knowledge of architectural culture, and in the Flemish tradition focused on design innovation, humble materials and pragmatism. What struck me and resonated with me the most was their openness and their attention to the process. Their culture is founded on complexity and the knowledge that the architect’s real skill is the ability to control, manage and eventually synthesise complexity through design. It is a very rare skill, and – in times of artificial intelligence, and social and environmental crises, it’s a fundamental skill for the future of society.
Secondly, the structure. They started off as mostly architecture-driven practice and evolved they evolved into what they call a platform for collaboration, activism and for design at every scale. (An idea I am very fond of and is at the foundation of Unagru; so listening to these words was like dreaming of a successful future). 51N4E is constantly seeking collaborations and interactions with artists, citizens, and other actors, as part of the innovative design approach.
Thirdly their attitude towards reality. 51N4E are curious about almost everything; they will investigate almost anything as part of the design process and do not shy away from any type of project. They work with developers, the public sector, and organised citizens and are successful financially. This allows them to bring real change into the built environment, both into the material world and the theoretical and procedural. So a practice that acknowledges the importance of several actors and the importance of working in knowing different sectors of society and different interest groups will inevitably redefine the role and methods of design works. In fact, according to 51N4E, design is not an agenda in itself but the space where environmental, social and financial agendas find common ground. Design is that common ground: a result rather than a goal. It was refreshing to hear that architects should meet all sectors of society and be comfortable in every environment because that’s how our agency will grow. At the same time, it was thrilling to see how they took over for more than a year an abandoned building, moved their office into it, invited people to take over other parts of the building and built extensive knowledge on the possibility of its reuse. I invite everyone to see the lecture as soon as it’s available and also buy their book, How to Not Demolish a Building. (The lecture was about this building, previously known as World Trade Center, and how they managed to recycle it and preserve a big portion of it instead of demolishing it as everybody else wanted, and the result is phenomenal).
A second we took part that ties into this topic was the finals of the AJ Small Projects Awards. We were shortlisted for a residential project. We didn’t win, and I was very happy that we didn’t because the variety, design diversity and attitudes towards work in society among the shortlisted practices were truly exciting. It was great to see small practices working for two years to deliver a temporary urban landscape project or three years to build a pavilion in the park. In other words, this diversity of approaches to our work and ultimately different forms of agency was refreshing and inspiring.
Finally, to the point: hundreds of small practices with particular talents and views are an amazing resource that is grossly underused and incredibly needed today. This resource needs to either become or find a platform to collaborate and increase its agency. And I wonder whether the RIBA and ARB should do a lot more to provide this platform and incentivise collaboration. So that smaller practices can have a wider impact, take part in it long-term, large-scale and prominent projects; to have stronger financial support when they are investing in public projects with very low returns.
What shape does this platform take? I do not know, but I would, I would probably start with template contracts and legal forms for agile, flexible collaborations. Then we need a space for networking and for the selection of topics and projects to collaborate on. These two simple steps could accelerate the growth of more resilient and diverse groups of professionals who could do much more and better for society, and infiltrate many more sectors.
During our recent reflection on ecological design and architects/urbanists’ role in society, we concluded that we should expand our agency by getting involved in issues we care about.
We also anticipated we would start with natural gas. Why gas? We care about the climate crisis and we care about peace. For several weeks now, we have been glued to the news cycle, hoping that the war would end. We have decided to at least try to do something: but what should we do?
Fossil fuels are at the intersection between climate crisis and geo-politics, therefore contributing to the transition to renewable energy will serve two purposes. After long reflection we decided to adopt a literal approach and accelerate the phasing out of natural gas from UK homes [1]. Gas boilers and hobs, gas meters and bills, risks related to carbon monoxide, gas safe certificates: the whole thing. If we manage to help one thousand homes transition away from gas, we will save thousands of tons of CO2 and at least symbolically work against the aggressor in Europe.
How?
We think the best way of getting rid of gas in homes is to provide unbiased, precise information on viable alternatives, especially for cases that are usually overlooked. A balanced investigation will not only help people who are already interested but could also help shape government policy towards embracing new opportunities. We call our research and campaign nomoregas (#nomoregas).
Now that we have a goal, we need a plan. First, we want to narrow the subject by examining the current energy technology landscape. We are looking for cases with the potential to transition that have been ignored so far for lack of technological solutions or creativity. Second, we will create an alliance with think tanks, experts and manufacturers to tap into the best knowledge and ensure accurate analysis. Third, we will test transition scenarios by checking costs and performances for the most promising technologies compared to business as usual. Finally, we will collect the data and produce a guide [2].
I. Weak points
Typically, the financial case for getting rid of gas boilers is more compelling in energy efficient buildings. For example, new-build homes will have to be gas-free from 2025. Those cases are so straightforward that we will not investigate further. The case is more difficult for existing buildings, which are complex, expensive and sometimes risky to insulate beyond a certain degree. The 7 million solid wall homes (any home built before the 1920’s) in the UK are very leaky on average [3], and there is little incentive to drive the almost revolutionary scale of retrofitting that would be necessary to significantly upgrade these buildings. Without incentives, retrofit projects are very expensive upfront and make financial sense only in the long run [4]. Pair that with a pretty much global tradition of subsidising fossil fuels, which make the advantages of retrofitting even less visible, and the outlook is grim. In conclusion, retrofitting a (solid wall) home is expensive, and existing homes are also where most of the poorest people live.
Of all the existing homes, we decided to focus on the single-family homes because they are usually overlooked compared social housing and higher-yield interventions. It’s quite clear that, unless there is a miraculous shift in policy, existing, uninsulated homes will be the last to transition to electric energy engines – as in fact it is confirmed by the current policy, which expects to phase out gas boilers in existing homes from 2035 [5]. So, the aim of the study will be to find solutions to bring forward this date with only minimal intervention on the fabric (while we lobby for more incentives, of course). In other words, our working base case will be an existing home where a boiler needs replacing. The only incentive we will rely on is the broken gas boiler.
2. Finding case studies
We are now looking for easily comparable case studies to test new solutions and assumptions in the boiler needs replacing scenario. After extensive research, we selected a report compiled by The Carbon Trust for the GLA in 2020 (The Carbon Trust, 2020) that looks precisely at the financial and environmental implications of replacing a gas boiler with electric alternatives. The report is extremely well thought and thorough, but focuses almost exclusively on heat pumps, because it was published in 2020, and its authors could not see it in the future. Therefore, it does not factor in the increased costs of gas, the moral imperative some people feel, and all the new solutions that have come to the market in the UK and Europe in the last two years.
Hence, the study finds only heat pumps as viable substitutes for boilers. Aside from this, the document is a little masterpiece in proactivity, thoroughness and clear communication. The study analyses fifteen London properties of varying sizes and energy insulation, from the tiny ground council flat to the large detached Victorian house. For each property, the report analyses the financial and environmental implications of replacing the gas boiler with a heat pump. Two reasons why it’s a masterpiece (in my view). First, the approach is very pragmatic: it avoids as much as possible factoring inexpensive fabric upgrades and focuses exclusively on the heat source. This is contrary to environmental and retrofit orthodoxy: our credo is always fabric first; or the cheapest energy is the one you don’t need in the first place (I could go on). But in this case, we are focusing on the heat source only because the situation we want to tackle is a boiler that needs replacing. We cannot realistically hope that everyone replacing their boiler will have £20-50k available to do some essential retrofitting, and we don’t want to wait for the government.
The second reason why we appreciate the report is the clarity of communication. The Carbon Trust does a great job at boiling down the comparisons to very few, easily comparable graphs, and to one final parameter: the cost per tonne or removed CO2. This parameter tells us not only whether the heat pump alternative is viable for the single user, but also for society at large. In some cases, the financial case seems not to be there: at a cost of £700 per ton of CO2, for example, it may be better to invest in a wind farm than to replace the boiler. At the same cost, even the government should probably avoid incentivising change while focusing on other solutions. Finally, the same parameter is handy because it shows exactly where we should focus our attention: cases where the cost per ton of CO2 reduction exceeds £300 need our help.
Our aim now is even clearer: to find design and technological solutions to expand the pool of cases that can viably transition away from gas when their boiler reaches end of life. The report’s conclusions confirm our intuition on single-family homes, which do not figure in the list of viable building types (page 5 of the main document and page 31 of the Options Appraisal):
The up-front cost of heat pumps is higher than traditional alternatives and many building types will require additional up-front financial support. However, the lifetime financial case for heat pump retrofit is already strong in some building types, such as electrically heated buildings, buildings with a high cooling demand and buildings that already require major renovations. These building types should be prioritised for heat pump retrofit.
[…]
There is already a compelling financial case for deploying heat pumps in some London building types.
· Homes, blocks of flats and non-domestic buildings heated by electricity.
· Buildings with a high demand for cooling such as large office buildings.
Blocks of flats where upgrades are required to the heating systems and heat distribution systems in any case.
To better understand these conclusions we have plotted in the diagram below, showing all the cases that didn’t make the list and two that have.
The coloured cells highlight the cost per ton of CO2 removed by switching away from gas boilers.
Reds are higher costs, green are lower costs.
Trends. The coloured column reflects the cost of switching from a gas boiler to heat pump, divided by the tons of CO2 reduced. This reflects the absolute cost to the world at large, not yet a business case, but it’s very useful to understand how to tailor the new investigation. Roughly speaking, the size of the property increases from top to bottom, from flat to block of flats. There seems to be a direct relationship between size and viability. Case no.5 is the only exception because it is already heated with an electric boiler, which (in 2020) is or was very expensive to run. By replacing the inefficient boiler with a very efficient heat pump the savings are so high to offset the extra cost for the heat pump in no time. In all other cases, the comparison is with a gas boiler and the relatively inexpensive gas prices in 2020. The only other factor to account for is the current EPC rating of each property. But we can say that within a relatively wide range of EPC ratings, from B to E, the size of the property holds the strongest correlation. This is because heat pumps are expensive and need at least a 150 square metres playing field to make their efficiency count.
It is clear that in the current energy market, smaller properties that do not require extensive refurbishment do not benefit from heat pumps. We need alternatives to both gas boilers and heat pumps, and this is what we are going to focus on first.
Actions Finally, we have a plan of action. First of all, we will ask The Carbon Trust to update the figures considering the latest gas prices and the recently introduced £5000 tax break from the government. Secondly, we will suggest to analyse a 20-year life span which is what we expect of an energy engine today and therefore use 2040 as the real ultimate deadline. (This will make comparisons easier – the 2030 and 2050 dates are more aligned to the carbon targets but less to the matter at hand. The 2030 deadline is also biased in favour of gas boiler which have a shorter lifespan compared to heat pumps (at least according to the report); 2050 is in my opinion too far a horizon for a single-family home; no one makes investments with 30 years return!) Third, we will offer to help with alternative test designs and mechanical solutions. Finally, we will reach out to consultants, experts and manufacturers to compile a list of all possible alternatives and combinations of alternatives to gas boilers in existing single-family homes.
Call to action Collaborating with the right people and organisations will be crucial to delivering an effective tool. So if you know anyone we should speak to in the energy, insulation, government and non-government policy experts, and consultants, please contact us or simply share this post.
Update June 21st, 2022
We have been introduced to three world-experts on the topic of residential energy. We have discussed with one, who has warned us against the risk of transitioning too quickly to electricity, given its price.
Carbon trust does not have the resources at the moment to either discuss or update their report’s data.
Things are more complicated than we thought..
[1] The energy transition from fossil fuels should transform all sectors, but we think that agriculture and existing homes will be the trickiest, followed by the energy generation. Agriculture is outside our field of expertise (for now..), so we will look into existing homes.
[2] (As you might imagine, the process is messier and more iterative: steps 1-4 happen simultaneously and are repeated several times, slowly learning and adjusting.)
[3] In the late 90’s and early 2000’s several incentives allowed to upgrade millions of homes, but since 2013 a shift in policy has caused a complete stall in retrofit projects. (TBI has a good report on this aspect, here). The lack of incentives continues to date. The regulations on energy efficiency have been greatly scaled down.
[4] And the financial incentives are often upside down: for example, today new-build homes are VAT exempt, while expenses tied to retrofitting an existing home – no matter how well designed for efficiency- pay 20%! The only discount is on the insulation material itself, but there are so many exceptions to make it almost useless.
The not-for-too-long problem Historically, directly supplied natural gas has been a lot cheaper than electricity: this is why gas boilers are still the standard energy engine in most homes. And this is why simply switching to electric boilers was considered wasteful. Instead we need something as miraculous as a heat pump or as effective and expensive as insulation to make electricity competitive. But one of the founding principles of our campaign is that the price of gas is skyrocketing while renewables are getting cheaper every second. We thought that the cheaper renewables combined with the much more expensive gas price due to the war in Ukraine would level the playing field. When electricity and gas reach a similar price (hopefully because electricity becomes cheaper), several electrical products that today are considered too wasteful or expensive suddenly become competitive. So we were amazed to see that electricity prices had increased together with gas prices and more, compared to when the Carbon Trust’s report was drafted!
The report stated: For domestic customers, we assumed a standard gas tariff of £0.032 per kWh and a standard electricity tariff of £0.152 per kWh, in line with the Treasury Green Book Central Domestic rates. I.e. our electricity standard tariff is assumed to be 4.75 times the cost of gas per kWh
The prices have more than doubled, with a gas kWh now costing about £0.075 and electricity increasing from £0.152 kWh to 0.29 kWh. The result is an even more dramatic difference between the two sources[1]
Gas and electricity prices are in effect tied in a coupling mechanism, by which the price of gas determines the cost of electricity, also the electricity produced by renewables! The reason for the coupling made sense some time ago, but the mechanism is now causing distortions and undermining the growth of renewables (as well as part of the foundations of our research). Europe has a similar energy pricing system, but also a more diverse legal landscape. For example, Being less integrated into the continental energy network and much more reliant on renewables,
The UK is in a similar condition: it is not integrated into the European energy networks, doesn’t import gas from Russia, and has a solid renewable supply. Hence, we think we should expect the gap between electricity and gas prices to drop and eventually disappear in the coming few years. The current price increases have put so many people under fuel stress that the government is considering reforming the market as soon as this year (2022); other institutionas are pushing for more complex and localised models for energy pricing. If we take advantage of the renewable energy we generate, perhaps by adjusting to a less consistent supply, the #nomoregas campaign will have a much easier life. So this is something to hope for and perhaps lobby for: a reform of the energy market that reduces energy bills by decoupling gas and electricity prices while maintaining incentives for installing and consuming renewables.
Of course, we cannot rely on government legislation to start a revolution . But we can assume that at some point, the cost of grid-scale renewables will be so low and their use so predominant that electricity will cost less than gas. In fact, as of last year, the cost of installing renewables and energy storage combined has become way less than building new gas plants. TransitionZero, among our heroes, have mapped the cost tracked and all the prices in hypnotising animated graphs (the screenshot below does no justice to their beauty in movement).
Finally, using data from the electric grid’s forecast, the Carbon Trust’s report calculates that by 2025 direct electric heating will be more carbon-efficient than gas boilers, thanks to the accelerating decarbonisation of the grid. We can only hope that TransitionZero’s data and the current energy crisis will accelerate the trends described in this post. For the moment, we are satisfied with the conclusion that within three-four years, direct electricity will be more carbon-efficient and may be cheaper than natural gas. Does this mean that direct electricity energy engines will be competitive with gas in the near future?
Carbon intensity of gas boilers [,direct heating,] and heat pumps at different efficiencies: 2010-2050 (The Carbon Trust, 2020)
For some time, we asked ourselves about our role in society as architects and educators. We decided that our mission should be to expand the agency of ecological thinking and design. We would do so by becoming better professionals, producing knowledge through our work and research, and becoming activists. The question of the agency of architects and ecological designers had partially sprung from the news of war in Europe and a frustrating feeling of impotence. Putting pen to paper to express this frustration was fruitful: it helped us decide to research the energy crisis and the war from an ecological designer’s perspective.
#nomoregas is at the crux of research and activism.
Why gas boilers? We knew that gas boilers are friends of several invasive regimes; then we discovered that they are also the next biggest obstacle to achieving net zero (combined, they are by far the biggest CO2 emitters in the UK) and among the worst sources of urban pollution. The difficulty of getting rid of gas boilers is the lack of viable alternatives. Heat pumps, albeit a magnificent work of engineering and a crucial piece of the net zero strategies, do not work for millions of flats and small houses or people with fewer means.
#nomoregas is born from our overlapping environmental and social justice passions.
We decided to investigate all the alternatives to gas boilers for heating and hot water, both in the case of properties needing refurbishment (generally easier) and when only the boiler needed replacing. We investigated, interviewed, and sometimes tested several products. We then connected products, or combinations of products, with their best application. Finally, we built an easy-to-use selector so that homeowners and designers can quickly identify the right solution for them or their project: whether it’s a flat or a house, 50 or 100 square metres and so on. Although not all are perfect, and some are expensive, we succeeded in identifying feasible solutions for every case.
#nomoregas is an information platform for people and designers who wish to find alternatives to gas boilers and a guide to the future electrified society.
We now want to work with institutions and thought leaders in the design and energy sectors to expand the website’s visibility and impact; by involving the right people, we hope to bring this particular topic to the centre of the energy transition conversation.
– City authorities may be interested in the impact on air quality and may want to help bring this topic to the attention of the central and regional governments.
– Policy-makers could recognise the opportunity of helping growing innovative companies that are tackling the energy transition’s most difficult problems.
– Designers and designer bodies can celebrate the expansion of our profession’s agency and foster the development of the website as a tool for design by providing feedback, advice, exposure and funding.
– Researchers can collaborate with and use the platform to inform more people and affect the public debate.
#nomoregas competition, call for papers, and exhibition
Our main goal is to slow climate change and reduce the use of gas, but as an architecture practice, we can’t refrain from imagining the impact of the electrified home on the physical world. In the future we want to launch a call for papers and a design competition to discuss the future of the electric city and the electric home.
– What will the heat batteries of the future look like?
– What are we going to do with all those useless flues? How will we fill millions of holes into the building fabrics where flues used to be?
– What is it like to be traversed by infrared light?
– Heat battery architectural integrations:
o The pediment
o The pad foundation
o The front pilaster
o ….
– Small changes to homes that will affect our everyday lives and urban landscapes.
Stay tuned for more.
(Above, 1925 Figini e Pollini La casa elettrica. Below, 1956, Smithsons’ Home of the Future)
Imagine being invited for dinner. You knock on the front door and hear someone shouting, “It’s open!” Upon entering, you see a sofa to your right, people ducking to avoid the draught. The whole ground floor is open to you. Someone is cooking while chatting with a friend; someone is watching TV; children are running around and away from the prospect of bedtime. The cheerful image resembles those fantastic dutch paintings of kitchen interiors: kitchens as large as churches, where the entire city life seemed to coagulate. This is the open plan: a space where the kitchen, dining, and sitting areas cohabitate without significant separation. Not a wall, or enough steps, a screen or a change in direction. Often, not a change in materials or detailing.
You are invited to a second dinner party the following night- a busy week. They greet you in the hall, which is a bit too narrow to have a conversation or take off your coats, so you move inside, but the entrance/corridor only leads to the stairs and several doors (twenty, thirty?). It’s infested with doors. The first leads into a tidy, beautifully traditional sitting room with a TV and a fireplace. The room is quiet, and you can almost see dust particles hanging in the last rays of light. You must return to the entrance to explore the rest of the house; door number two opens into a dining room with a round table lit by a pendant. You can hear noises coming from the back of the house; the set table reveals future and past use. Finally, the sixth door takes you into the kitchen, which is too small to accept the guests and several family members. You seem to remember seeing someone in the other rooms, but you can’t be sure, and there is no way to find out from the cosy corner you have conquered in the kitchen. The traditional layout was determined by construction constraints as much as social habits. The most crucial social norm was the separation of the kitchen from the rest of the house. It’s a long and fascinating story of noise, risk of fire, social status, and condition of the women that brought most people today to favour the open plan. We prefer the brightness and cheeriness of being together all the time to the lonely rooms of the traditional house.
What is commonly known as broken plan, and we will call a narrative open plan is an attempt at finding the right balance between fragmented layouts and the open plan, where the openness is tempered with architectural features to provide pockets of privacy, changes in the atmosphere, sometimes the possibility of closing a door to contain noises or kitchen smells, or heat. The difference between open and narrative open plan is sometimes very subtle and often rests on the designer’s intentions and attention; we have broken it down into three characteristics.
Firstly, the openness to movement: avoiding doors and corridors when possible. Avoiding the act of opening a door, the space occupied by the door swing, the gush of air, and the expectation and fear connected to closed doors remove tension and free up corners of the mind. Moving freely through the living areas without doors or pinch points allows us to be lost in thought, to scan different distances, to move, dance or gesticulate with others.
The second is narrative: we strive to design homes that require attention, time, and some effort to be known. There are always hidden corners, protruding volumes and twists that need us to move inside and discover. This is where the narrative plan speaks to our need for quiet and privacy. There should be some form of screening from the front door, and there should be areas where we feel protected and alone. Seats that envelop us, with a wall protecting our backs from the unknown and facing the rest of the space give us a sense of control. The ability to slide a door temporarily provides even more privacy for a phone call or to feel alone in a smaller room, again giving us a sense of control. Therefore, the experience of the narrative open space affords us the luxury of deciding what degree of privacy we are inclined to on any given day.
The third is to design what we call eventful spaces. Even though we have a minimalist aesthetic, we love to embed as many points of interest as possible: an interior window, a stone step, a bench cut into the bespoke furniture, round steel columns, a roof light, a light well, a slatted screen, a miniature greenhouse, a sequence of three huge steps, a change in materials, and so on.
The narrative surrounding narrative open spaces.
One of my teachers, Bernardo Secchi, used to say that the history of urbanism is continuous research on the proper distance between human beings. Like porcupines in winter, we get closer to one another until we start pricking each other, and then we step back and feel a little cold. Designing a house also has to do with finding the right distance. It is an evolving idea of social and psychological comfort. A combination of needs for privacy, risk of loneliness, and research for the right human scale. For example, morality and privacy have changed considerably in time: it was common to witness sex or nudity in the Middle Ages.
Another aspect of residential design research is intertwined with technological evolution. It took a long time before we could afford enough to build and heat private, large spaces exclusively to live in (no sleeping, no animals). Technological evolution also allowed the opening of the kitchen to the rest of the house because appliances became quieter and integrated into the joinery.
Charlotte Perriand and Le Corbusier’s Unitê d’Habitation open kitchen
Women’s role in society has changed rapidly in the last century, mostly accompanied by the opening of the residential layout and the progressive integration of the kitchen in the living areas. Women were at first almost segregated in their quarters, then mostly in the kitchen, and now finally, equal (ideally) members of society and the family. There are as many histories of the kitchen’s location in the house as social classes at any time. From a middle-class point of view (the widest social group that could afford private houses), the kitchen has moved from the separate servants’ quarters to become a room where mostly women spent a lot of their time, to slowly getting closer and more open onto the living areas, to now being the centre of most homes.
Today, working from home increasingly entails a home office as a place of privacy and quiet, while the living quarters want to be shared. Technology can also separate us more, keeping us attached to our devices instead of engaging with others.
How did we get to the open plan, and where are we headed?
The next chapters of this essay will investigate the relationship between the kitchen and the home, starting with the three most iconic architects of the early XXth century.
One year since the beginning of the war, here is our third post of the #nomoregas campaign, which aims to accelerate the transition away from gas boilers (posts 1 & 2 are here). In this post, we will analyse lesser-known alternatives to the gas boiler. To recap, we want to find solutions for the cases where installing a heat pump is not feasible or financially viable: typically flats and medium-to-small houses that will not be refurbished in the near future. The fourth post will introduce a new website dedicated to designers and homeowners who want to remove gas from their properties, so stay tuned!
Gas in the UK homes: a tough enemy..
There are 26 million gas boilers in the UK, producing more than double the CO2 of all gas powered stations in the country. [1]
{Each boiler produces} “3.54 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent a year, amounting to over 92 millions tonnes annually. This is over double the 41 million tonnes of emissions created by the UK’s 48 gas-fired power plants.” The plan to decarbonise relies heavily on replacing gas boilers with heat pumps, but we are installing nowhere near as many as we need. The Economist noted recently: “Of Britain’s 24.7m homes, 74% are exclusively heated by gas [2]. Home heating accounts for 14% of Britain’s total carbon emissions. The 43,000 heat-pump sales in 2021, the latest year for which full figures are available, falls far short of the rate of 600,000 per year by 2028 which the government has targeted.” And the cause might be just intrinsic to our housing stock [3]: Part of the problem is the history of Britain’s housing stock The coal burnt in Victorian-era fireplaces was replaced by “town gas”, a potentially lethal combination of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. As a result the priority was usually to build new homes that could get pollutants out rather than keep heat in. Draughts were a feature, not a bug. Heating systems were in turn designed to run hot to compensate for such poor insulation. [4]
Heat pumps have other downsides that don’t make them viable in several situations. The #nomoregas research and campaign aim at easing the transition away from gas by identifying financially and practically viable alternatives to gas boilers and heat pumps.
Some alternatives to gas boilers, explained
As we can see, heat pumps are the most popular alternative to gas boilers, but not every property can be easily converted. Heat pumps require external units and may require interventions on the building fabric or the plumbing system. They are also quite expensive; even with government incentives, a fully installed system will cost in the region of £9k.
So for flats, heat pumps are often out of the question: they are too expensive, and there is no space for external units. The main barriers for small houses and garden flats are installation and adaptation costs.
In our second #nomoregas post, we introduced the concept of grid balance and how we could use the varying price of electricity to make alternative products viable. In brief: while it is difficult to preview the future of energy, we can make some assumptions based on current trends and progress in recent years. The UK is in the privileged position to de-carbonise the power grid, thanks to the abundant wind, and the government plans to do this by 2035 (whether it achieves 90% or 100% it’s not relevant to us, what this means is that electricity will become cheaper in the coming years. Cheaper electricity means that the transition away from gas boilers will not cause energy poverty; quite the opposite. It is hard to understand why this transition is not translating into homes. As renewable energy technologies become more widespread and mature, the electricity cost will decrease, making new alternatives to gas boilers accessible to everyone. Even in this positive outlook, renewables’ intermittency causes imbalances on the grid, which must now deal with peaks and troughs in demand and production. The result is there are a few peak hours when the cost of electricity is extremely high and some hours at night when electricity costs are very low and sometimes negative!
A new range of products that works on a different principle has emerged in the last few years; we will call them heat batteries. Instead of producing renewable energy, heat batteries take advantage of the difference in electricity cost between day and night by charging with heat during the night and using the stored heat when needed. The result is not only cheaper electric heating and hot water, but also a big hand stabilising the grid (by drawing when there is peak offer and reducing peak demand). In other words, heat batteries are exactly what we were waiting for.
Here are the most promising product ranges that take advantage of this system.
I. Heat engines that can replace gas boilers.
II. Hot water cylinders have been around for a long time. These can be easily transformed into heat batteries, when combined with smart sensors and planning software.
Further down, we will explore systems that can integrate with smart heat batteries to expand their viability.
The Zero Emission Boiler (ZEB) manufactured in the UK by Tepeo is the star of our investigation. It is a heat battery with a ceramic core that can be heated up to 800 C and maintains its temperature for several hours. It is a large, heavy box, the size of a washing machine, and it weighs 350kg, but once the access and weight hurdle is solved, it can be installed anywhere quite easily by most plumbers, and it doesn’t need a flue.
Zeb has an internet connection, drawings real-time information about the grid and live weather data and combines the information with the historical use of the house to take advantage of the best electricity prices throughout the day and night. Typically, it will draw most of the energy it needs during the night when electricity is cheaper and less carbon-intensive and only top up when necessary during the day.
PROS: The ZEB is compatible with a normal boiler installation. If you are refurbishing, you can run your existing gas boiler for the last couple of years to save money (windows, floor and loft insulation), but remember to reinforce the floor and verify all other compatibility aspects (see below our setup instructions).
What do you need to check:
Weight: the ZEB weighs 350kgs, so it can’t just sit anywhere. Its ideal location is on the ground floor, or if you are refurbishing the property, you can reinforce the floor where you plan on installing the ZEB for peace of mind.
Access: the weight and size also create a few problems for the installation. Very tight stairs could prove impossible to conquer.
Cost: The ZEB is not the cheapest at £6000, including VAT. It will pay itself in the long run, but it is still an investment. The government doesn’t consider energy batteries worthy of incentives; we disagree.
The ZEB by Tepeo (Source: Tepeo)
Maximum power: at a maximum of 12000 kWh per year, the ZEB is suitable for properties up to 120-130 square metres (unless super insulated).
Electric power load: the ZEB draws 40 amps. The typical home fuse is 70Amp, giving ample load for other items. Nonetheless, if you have a lot of other electric loads you should consider upgrading the fuse to 100 Amp.
You’ll need to switch your energy provider to one that gives discounts at night. Octopus energy, for example.
II. Smart hot water cylinders: the ideal support for alternative heat engines
I.a. Mixergy is a simple hot water cylinder with a couple of twists.
Firstly, it heats the water from the top. Hot water stays on top, so it doesn’t mix with the cold water at the bottom and stays consistently warm. This means that the heater can calibrate the hot water required and only heat that much. Second, it is smart: the tank learns your habits to be as efficient as possible. It will typically build up a reserve at night when electricity is cheapest and only reheat what you need (if you still need some) during the day.
Sunamp uses a phase change material. It is a heat battery in the sense that it stores heat, but it does not have the capacity or the software capabilities to take advantage of the flexible pricing. It will draw electricity when necessary. It has a capacity of to 12kWh, which typically means it can only provide hot water, but not heating.
Unfortunately, heat and hot water batteries do not cover all our case studies. Each system has some limits, and almost every house is different. We propose to use direct electric backup systems to bridge the gaps and still avoid installing gas boilers. Direct electric heaters are less efficient than heat batteries discussed above, but if we design the systems properly, we only need them during the coldest days of the year. Here are two examples.
Infrared heating
Infra-red panels and fabrics. Infrared heating is different compared to the air heating we are used to. Radiators heat the air, and underfloor heating heats the floor, which heats the air; infrared heating is more akin to the winter pub heaters (without the light): you feel the heat on you, and the waves heat the objects around you. The outcome is potentially more efficient than ambient heating because it is less susceptible to loss from air movement (a draughty window, opening the entrance door, or just doors between different rooms).
Heat distribution from the ceiling infrared heating solutions (Source: Astectherm)
The second advantage is the quick sense of comfort, which makes infrared particularly efficient in rooms used intermittently, like guest rooms, utility rooms and bedrooms. Infrared heating comes in two formats:
Panels are usually large and white and are usually installed on the ceiling. These are perfect for installing when there are no refurbishment works in sight.
A special mesh can be plastered into the ceiling and walls to become invisible. Of course, this is our favourite option when refurbishing.
Electric radiators
Our last resort solution. Electric radiators are the least efficient tool in our toolbox. Still, it has a role in the mix of gas-free solutions: to boost the heating system during the coldest days. Heating systems are designed to have enough power for the coldest days of the year. When we can’t afford the fully specified system, for cost, space or simply because there are no suitable products, we can provide backup with electric radiators.
Their main advantage is flexibility and low installation cost: they only need a socket. They can be switched on and off at will.
Their response is relatively quick.
Cons:
Inefficient and tasking for the electric fuse: each radiator draws about 4Amps, so they cannot be a complete replacement for the heating system, nor an extensive solution. But four or five radiators can go a long way on cold days.
Direct electric radiators and infrared heating are a risky bet: their success depends on the price of electricity going down. From a carbon balance point of view, we risk drawing electricity at peak time, which may be more carbon-intensive than gas. As discussed, our take on this point is that the grid will be less and less carbon intensive, and the cost of electricity will drop in the coming years. Nevertheless, should the short-term consequences of using direct electric heating be a concern, electric batteries (e.g. the Tesla Powerwall) can help us take advantage of the lower price and carbon intensity of off-peak electricity that can be deployed on demand to the electric heaters.
Conclusions: what is the best solution?
Current trends in energy supply and new products are making the transition away from gas boilers viable for almost everyone. Combined, heat pumps, heat batteries and direct electric heating systems provide a mix of solutions to cover almost any case. Navigating the myriad of cases and products can be daunting, because there is no single answer. So we have decided to create a website that helps designers and homeowners choose the right alternative to gas for their case. The website is in beta version but will be online by the end of March.
Davide was invited by Built It Magazine to discuss on the topic of broken plan in our residential projects. This article was written by Built It Magazine, and published in the issue December 2022.
Peckham Courtyard, photo by Sara Moiola
A broken-plan layout seeks the balance between a traditional, fragmented floorplan and one that’s completely open. The entire space is tempered with architectural features that provide pockets of privacy, changes in the atmosphere and – in the right scenario – the option to close a door to contain noise, kitchen smells or heat.
The difference between open- and broken-plan can be subtle and often rests on the designer’s intentions. To help clients craft their own broken-plan concepts, we pinpoint three characteristics typical of this kind of layout. Firstly, we aim to facilitate openness when moving from one area to the next, which is why we tend to avoid doors and corridors. Where absolutely necessary, partitions or entrances are either sliding or lead directly into cupboards.
The second factor is about creating a design narrative. We strive to produce homes that require attention to detail, where the character and design unravel the longer you spend inside. A successful floorplan might reveal hidden corners, protruding volumes and unexpected layout twists that require you to move further into the house to discover what’s there.
The third element of a successful broken-plan layout hinges on how interesting the space feels. As a practice, we err towards a minimalist aesthetic, though we love to embed as many points of interest as possible. Design features might include interior windows, steps, bench seating cut into bespoke furniture, steel columns, rooflights, lightwells, slatted screens etc.
What are your tricks for zoning the space effectively?
I follow a three-step process. First, I imagine the room as a series of distinct uses separated by filtering or threshold elements. The areas are interconnected, but do not merge into one. Secondly, I identify strong and weak zones. The former are noisier and more rigid in terms of function – kitchens are a good example. Weak uses are ideal threshold zones for creating distance between the strong areas. For instance, the dining and entrance spaces form distinct, transitional zones. Finally, I separate each section within the whole sequence by incorporating architectural features, some of which are mentioned above.
What are the key design pitfalls to avoid when planning a broken-plan layout?
I would generally advise against incorporating a kitchen or a central island that’s too dominant. It works well to have the culinary zone slightly peripheral to the rest of the space, positioning it so it’s not always the main focal point. Careful planning is required if you want the kitchen, dining and sitting areas near one another. In several ways, employing the broken-plan technique helps avoid the risk of over cramming the space. At the opposite end of the scale, too much separation between zones can be detrimental.If there are too many fixed obstacles and architectural features, you run the risk of recreating the boxy Victorian interior but with the accompanying noise of an open-plan layout.
What’s the best way to achieve this type of layout on a tight budget?
A lot depends on the condition of the house. In some cases, you can’t avoid structural work if you need to remove walls. If you already have an open-plan layout, you might be able to use furniture to create distinct zones. Bespoke joinery also goes a long way to establish areas that can be flexibly separated.
What structural work is required?
Most of the time, you’ll need to join several rooms by (at least partially) demolishing the existing dividing walls. This often entails knocking down a structural partition, which requires the insertion of a steel or glulam supporting beam. The new support may provide an opportunity to incorporate a striking aesthetic feature, for instance, if you paint overhead steel beams in a bold colour.
Do you have any further advice on how to craft a broken-plan layout?
At the outset of the design process, always imagine several different layout options and iterations – even when the principal solution seems evident, you’ll find that new ideas spark when you’re open to fresh concepts. Another useful exercise is to format the spaces you’d like to include into a list. Assign each area with its own name and try to get a feel for what its character might be once the project is complete. For instance, some zones perhaps receive a cold, northern light while others will be brighter. Some will be loud and others will be quiet. You can use this process to hone your vision for how the entire space will be.
London Open House is our favourite Architecture festival: zero special effects, zero narratives, symbols, concepts, metaphors, sarcasm and very little postmodernism. Instead, it shows buildings, which should be what almost all architecture is about. We showed our House for a Cellist, Peckham Courtyard House, and the Bau House, also in Peckham. We met more than a thousand architecture enthusiasts and went back to projects and clients we love. A great couple of very full weekends coronated with my son’s birthday party. Best month of the year.
We couldn’t visit others because I was busy managing the crowds invading our projects. I was intrigued by a project by nimtim architects, also in Peckham (I was there on the wrong weekend), and would like to hear other impressions. Has anyone taken part or visited a building during the Open House? Are there any buildings people would like to see open for once?
During the second weekend, Thomas and Jamie took over the role of hosts with great success.
A drought caused the Great Stink in London in 1858: the hot spell caused an awful smell and coincided with several cholera outbreaks. This episode is considered a turning point in the history of urban waters. Until that day, water had been the richness of the cities, a resource to be celebrated with beautiful fountains. After the Great Stink, water needed to be hidden from the site, insulated from urban noses and longs. A triumph of civil engineering, commanded by Joseph Bazalgette, ensued and dominated the practice of city building and urban expansion. Water is piped as soon as possible – if we could, we would erect funnel towers to grab it closer to the sky – brought to a purification plant and then released, clean, in water bodies. We became so efficient at managing water that we started overdoing it: all rainwater was piped away too, to avoid the risk of flooding and keep the streets clean. The water disappeared from the city and even from the manuals of urban planners and designers. The result is that less and less water stays in the ground, replenishes the water tables and feeds rivers.
Exponential urban expansion has exacerbated the issue with more impermeable surfaces: the water falling on them is again collected in pipes and directed to the closest water body. Intensive and extensive agriculture has reduced tree coverage and made the existing water bodies more vulnerable. Climate change is making things worse: shorter rain events (with the associated risk of flooding) are spreading apart more. Combining these three processes explains the images of the river Po, the longest and most extensive in Italy, reduced to a streamlet.
The disappearance of water is a massive loss and risk for us all, from an environmental perspective and the quality of the space we live in. Water could play a central role in harmonising the relationship between built and unbuilt, reminding us of the shape of the landscape and structuring different parts of the city as it had done traditionally. Fortunately, water’s importance is returning to the centre of the design debate. It was a central theme in my PhD and is the core of the Design Unit I co-lead at Cardiff University’s MAAD . Our ability to act at even the tiniest scale, to affect significant and complex systems, often escapes most designers. And given that my mission is to expand the agency of ecological design and designers, I want to dedicate some time to tools that can help us create beautiful ecological designs at every scale.
There are several ways to adapt and improve the water cycle in our urban age. From replacing a tap to wonderful and complex urban ecology projects, we love to be involved. I like to start with simple things, so I’m going to dedicate a new post every month to systems that help manage water sustainably, often called SUDS: sustainable urban drainage systems. They are meant to collect, purify, store, and slowly release water into the ground.
The SUDS principle is simple: we should safely retain as much clean water as possible into the ground. This strategy’s advantages are reducing pressure on the sewage system and the risk of flooding.
Reduce stress on the purification plants. These have a maximum operating capacity, beyond which they release whatever is coming into our water bodies.
Improve the health of the ground and the whole water system: groundwater, rivers etc.
In many cases, by providing open spaces to collect water, SUDS give the grounds for new ecosystems and an increase in biodiversity.
No solution is too small, and the smallest of all, the leaky water butt – is so bright and efficient that it should be free and mandatory for every building. In this post, we will discuss an alternative water harvesting design: the rain garden. Or better, the hybrid rain-harvest garden we designed for our dear friends Amell and Antony.
Water harvesting means simply storing (usually) rainwater in tanks of different shapes and forms and then re-using the water (usually) for irrigation. Water gardens, instead, are shallow landscape systems or depressions in a garden, built by cleverly layering different soil types to allow the right degree of permeability and planted with species that like wet environments. They are the equivalent of a massive tank spread in a garden and teaming with beauty and life.
In our Bromley project, we combined the two principles to design a compact rain garden and harvesting system. We were approached to re-design the rear patio of a previously remodelled house, The Spider. We had a tight budget and high ambitions. We designed a new deck with recycled railway sleepers embedded in a concrete base – inspired by Enric Miralles’ Barcelona Cemetery. We then re-used the paving stones of the side alley to build a rain garden. The garden looks like a swimming pool, half encroaching the central concrete patio and extending onto the lower garden to form a bench and a flower bed. Rainwater from the house is collected into pipes that run under the concrete floor and into the rain garden. A small overflow re-connects back to the sewer to avoid the risk of flooding. The result is a compact but very deep, capacious rain garden filled with diverse plants and flowers. Hundreds of litres of the dirtiest and riskiest rainfall are not passing through the sewer system, reducing flood risk. Hundreds of litres of rainwater slowly seep into the ground and will help replenish the water table.
With some attention, anyone can build their rain garden. Hundreds of thousands of refuges for birds and insects, billions of litres returned to the water cycle and a healthier, happier ecosystem. What are we waiting for?
We are working on the design for a new-build house in Hackney.
The video shows a few design iterations – guess which one won! 😀
In the background, we are discussing the pros and cons of demolition versus very significant extensions. Generally speaking (in ecology study), retrofitting is always preferable to demolition, but is there a threshold after which it doesn’t make sense. More specifically, there is a point when a very efficient new build will compensate for the extra cost and carbon emissions from the construction with much lower operational emissions (the building will use very little energy throughout its life).
What tools do designers, developers and councils have to quickly and pragmatically evaluate the carbon footprint of their proposals?
We need a simple, recognised, ideally accredited software that everyone can refer to, and I think it should be free to increase transparency. ✊
I’d like to hear other designers’ experiences, but also developers, councils and consultants’ point of view.
If you have read our first post on the #nomoregas campaign, you will know we are trying to establish (and possibly expand) the opportunities to disconnect homes and flats from the gas supply. we are investing in this research-campaign for environmental and geopolitical reasons. The final product will be a free guide that should help interested homeowners and designers make informed decisions: will switching away from gas make sense environmentally and financially? What are the best solutions out there?
For those who are too busy to read the entire 5-minute-long first post, here is a recap:
1. It already makes sense to transition to fully electric heating and hot water engines in every new building. the best solution in most cases will be heat pumps.
2. We will look at the most challenging case studies: single-family houses or flats built before the 1920s, with solid external walls (as opposed to cavity walls).
3. Using comparative data from The Carbon Trust (the Carbon Trust 2020), we have identified the costs of retrofitting heat pumps in several case studies. Based on the first survey of the data, and in light of changes in the cost of gas, our intuition is
a. In large refurbishment projects, once a small portion of the retrofit cost is absorbed in the general scope works, heat pumps always make financial sense. For these cases, we want to establish the minimum requirements for efficiently installing a heat pump. We also want to establish best practices. For example, where should we invest in retrofitting? What are the best methods? Etc
b. Heat pumps will be too impractical and expensive to retrofit in small properties. For three cases we hope to find technological and design solutions that might ease the transition to gas-free homes.
3a and especially 3b above are the two hypotheses we’d like to test. In the conclusions to the first post, we also laid out our plan of action:
1 get in touch with Carbon Trust to request data and offer our collaboration. We have reached out to the Carbon Trust, which cannot help us at the moment. So we will just need to crunch the numbers ourselves.
Second, we asked people to introduce us to experts who can help, which provided us with three precious contacts.
We have had one conversation, which has outlined how things are more complicated than we thought, and therefore enriched and stirred our research. Once we complete the first round of conversations, we will summarise our conclusions in another post.
This post will be instead dedicated to a potentially fatal flaw of our research and campaign – and to why we think it is not a problem.
The not-for-too-long problem
Historically, directly supplied natural gas has been a lot cheaper than electricity: this is why gas boilers are still the standard energy engine in most homes. And this is why simply switching to electric boilers was considered wasteful. Instead we need something as miraculous as a heat pump or as effective and expensive as insulation to make electricity competitive.
But. One of the founding principles of our campaign is that the price of gas is skyrocketing while renewables are getting cheaper every second. We thought that the cheaper renewables combined with the much more expensive gas price due to the war in Ukraine would level the playing field. When electricity and gas reach a similar price (hopefully because electricity becomes cheaper), several electrical products that today are considered too wasteful or expensive suddenly become competitive.
So we were amazed to see that electricity prices had increased together with gas prices and more, compared to when the Carbon Trust’s report was drafted!
The report stated:
For domestic customers, we assumed a standard gas tariff of £0.032 per kWh and a standard electricity tariff of £0.152 per kWh, in line with the Treasury Green Book Central Domestic rates. I.e. our electricity standard tariff is assumed to be 4.75 times the cost of gas per kWh
The prices have more than doubled, with a gas kWh now costing about £0.075 and electricity increasing from £0.152 kWh to 0.29 kWh. The result is an even more dramatic difference between the two sources[1]
Gas and electricity prices are in effect tied in a coupling mechanism, by which the price of gas determines the cost of electricity, also the electricity produced by renewables! The reason for the coupling made sense some time ago, but the mechanism is now causing distortions and undermining the growth of renewables (as well as part of the foundations of our research).
Europe has a similar energy pricing system, but also a more diverse legal landscape. For example, Being less integrated into the continental energy network and much more reliant on renewables,
The UK is in a similar condition: it is not integrated into the European energy networks, doesn’t import gas from Russia, and has a solid renewable supply. Hence, we think we should expect the gap between electricity and gas prices to drop and eventually disappear in the coming few years.
The current price increases have put so many people under fuel stress that the government is considering reforming the market as soon as this year (2022); other institutionas are pushing for more complex and localised models for energy pricing. If we take advantage of the renewable energy we generate, perhaps by adjusting to a less consistent supply, the #nomoregas campaign will have a much easier life.
So this is something to hope for and perhaps lobby for: a reform of the energy market that reduces energy bills by decoupling gas and electricity prices while maintaining incentives for installing and consuming renewables.
Of course, we cannot rely on government legislation to start a revolution . But we can assume that at some point, the cost of grid-scale renewables will be so low and their use so predominant that electricity will cost less than gas. In fact, as of last year, the cost of installing renewables and energy storage combined has become way less than building new gas plants. TransitionZero, among our heroes, have mapped the cost tracked and all the prices in hypnotising animated graphs (the screenshot below does no justice to their beauty in movement).
Finally, using data from the electric grid’s forecast, the Carbon Trust’s report calculates that by 2025 direct electric heating will be more carbon-efficient than gas boilers, thanks to the accelerating decarbonisation of the grid. We can only hope that TransitionZero’s data and the current energy crisis will accelerate the trends described in this post. For the moment, we are satisfied with the conclusion that within three-four years, direct electricity will be more carbon-efficient and may be cheaper than natural gas. Does this mean that direct electricity energy engines will be competitive with gas in the near future?
Carbon intensity of gas boilers [,direct heating,] and heat pumps at different efficiencies: 2010-2050 (The Carbon Trust, 2020)
