Sustainability…

A couple of days ago I attended a meeting at the IStructE HQ to discuss how sustainability is and should be taught to undergraduate students at Universities and found the whole process really quite invigorating.

One of the most positive parts that I came away with was that a lot of the engineering staff genuinely felt ill equipped to teach a subject which isn’t based purely around some strand of physics or materials, with one quote coming from an academic that they weren’t happy about having to teach sustainability as it was like “knitting fog”.  I could relate in part to some of their reservations and I felt quite encouraged that there were lots of peers with similar reservations about teaching a subject that is continuing to evolve on a daily basis, however, I see it as a real opportunity and a fun challenge to develop a method of delivery that is able to convey the ever expanding nature of sustainable development and design.

Whilst I don’t think I came away with any new toys and techniques to necessarily teach sustainability, I think I’ve consolidated my approach to teaching sustainability and crystallised my thought process, bringing it back into line with the way that I design buildings myself.  I’m hoping that the PGCAP course that I’m enrolled on will give me some new tools to develop my teaching approach to the topic as I intend to base the module around value driven design and ensure that the students focus on outcomes rather than outputs.  The outcomes rather than outputs was a phrase I heard from Dan Epstein at the conference that suddenly gave me a real moment of clarity as I feel it reflects my approach to design and engineering, but I’d just never been able to articulate as clearly as Dan described it.  Course delivery on a non-technical aspect is really outside of my typical comfort zone, but I think if I can relate it appropriately to an engineering mindset then the opportunity for the students to ‘get’ sustainability is huge… fingers crossed I can master the art of reflection at lightning speed to get it embedded into my sustainability module.

My intention is not to teach sustainability from a numbers perspective or in a prescriptive format so that students are encouraged to blindly fill in the boxes to arrive at a ‘solution’ only to find out the principles of the design are fundamentally flawed which appears to be a common criticism of some of the other sustainability modules I’ve heard talk of…

Instead I’m going to try and stick to my underlying beliefs that if you promote understanding then the application of these values and the associated technical knowledge happens much more intuitively for the students.  I intend to deliver the module based upon a values approach, encouraging the students to reflect on how their design affects the environment from a variety of perspectives and for them to identify strategies for reducing the environmental impact for the area of design that they’re responsible for.

Critically though I want them to embark on identifying ways of aligning themselves with the other professional disciplines to deliver a truly holistic design approach as in my experience this is how quality design truly evolves when all the team members are fully bought into the overall design concept.  For example, what is the point of the Structural Engineer showing that they can shave £10k off a design, only to inflict a £30k increase on the M&E? No-one benefits from these petty shows of one upmanship or selfish design approaches but frequently I’ve seen all of the professional construction disciplines carry on regardless of their team members to produce an uncoordinated mess of a design, but I genuinely feel that this approach will be their downfall as clients become more and more familiar with a collaborative approach.

Dalby Forest Visitors Centre – Near Scarborough.

The voluntary work that I do with the British Red Cross is highly driven by a set of 7 fundament principles (listed below) which dictates how every volunteer and member of staff should conduct themselves and indeed these fundamental principles filter through to every aspect of behaviour within the British Red Cross.  I’m very familiar with these and when my brain is in Red Cross mode I intuitively assess my actions against this list to ensure that I’m adhering to their core behavioural traits.

British Red Cross’ 7 Fundamental Principles…

Humanity

The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, born of a desire to bring assistance without discrimination to the wounded on the battlefield, endeavours, in its international and national capacity, to prevent and alleviate human suffering wherever it may be found. It promotes mutual understanding, friendship, co-operation and lasting peace amongst all peoples.

Impartiality

It makes no discrimination as to nationality, race, religious beliefs, class or political opinions. It endeavours to relieve the suffering of individuals, being guided solely by their needs, and to give priority to the most urgent cases of distress.

Neutrality

In order to continue to enjoy the confidence of all, the Movement may not take sides in hostilities or engage at any time in controversies of a political, racial, religious or ideological nature.

Independence

The Movement is independent. The National Societies, whilst auxiliaries in the humanitarian services of their governments and subject to laws of their respective countries, must always maintain their autonomy so that they may be able at all times to act in accordance with the principles of the Movement.

Voluntary service

It is a voluntary relief movement not prompted in any manner by desire for gain.

Unity

There can only be one Red Cross or Red Crescent Society in any one country. It must be open to all. It must carry on its humanitarian work throughout its territory.

Universality

The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, in which all Societies have equal status and share equal responsibilities and duties in helping each other, is worldwide.

If I can devise a similar set of guiding principles for sustainable design for the students then I think that they can take those away with them for the rest of their careers regardless of whatever new technology develops or what measurement system is conjured up in the future… their relationship with design will still be driven by a universal set of values which hopefully will allow them to design beautiful, well crafted, sustainable, co-ordinated and well considered buildings…

By adopting a value driven approach on various sustainable projects that I’ve worked on over the years, we’ve been able to unshackle the project from the burden the a rigid measurement system can impart and as a result we’ve managed to deliver some excellent and sustainable buildings including Dalby Forest Visitors Centre which is shown in the above photograph.

Fingers crossed I’m able to develop a module that’s engaging and rewarding for the students…  I feel confident though that I just might be able to knit something out of the fog…