Zero Ambitions Podcast

We are delighted to bring you a conversation with Professor Emeritus Susan Roaf, of Heriot-Watt University this week to talk about a bunch of fundamental problems in building design and the management of thermal comfort. She is a wonderful guest and we're looking forward to having her back.Originally, we planned to talk about her article COP 28: Net zero buildings by 2050? You have got to be joking! a well-judged critique of the outcomes at the most recent COP but we meandered a bit more than expected, but we still managed to cover most of the issues she raises.In the end, we took in a shared colonial history and its influence on the way we approach managing thermal comfort, problems with architectural education, the flaws in solely thinking about decarbonisation of the grid as a panacea, problems with designing buildings have an over-reliance on technology, as well as her colourful and storied background. In some ways with could be considered a counterpart to last year's episode about thermal comfort with Huda Elsherfif and Andy Simmonds, so check that too if you haven't heard it already.Notes from the showSusan on LinkedInHer article COP 28: Net zero buildings by 2050? You have got to be joking!Her book, Energy Efficient Building: A Design Guide**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn pageJeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User ExperienceSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

This week we're joined by Nigel Banks, Technical Director - Zero Bills & Low Carbon Homes at Octopus Energy.Nigel joined us to discuss his recent article: Fabric Fifth, a slightly polemical riposte to fabric-first dogma, and an interesting philosophy for retrofit. As it turned out, it’s an apposite follow-up to last week's episode with Fionn Stevenson.Fabric Fifth - Nigel BanksASHPs ASAPGet SmartMeasure & get comfySolar & StorageFabric FifthWe also touch on Octopus's zero-bills proposition, but we'll do a full episode about that soon.Notes from the showNigel on LinkedInThe Fabric Fifth article itselfAn article about Chris Warboys' SAP conversion toolThe academic paper Jeff mentions: UK Passivhaus and the energy performance gapNigel in the pages of Passive House Plus**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn pageJeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User ExperienceSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

We were blessed to enjoy a great conversation about retrofit and what we should consider our priorities, with the vastly experienced retrofit firebrand Fionn Stevenson.It was a challenging, surprising, and free-wheeling conversation spurred by a call to action she made on LinkedIn some time ago, in which she decried fabric-first approaches and declared: "We need to tackle low hanging fruit first".That post we're referring to:"This is why " fabric first" as a blanket approach to retrofit is not always the best solution. Some properties will do better with cheaper renewable energy heating options without the expensive faff of additional external wall insulation, lack of construction skills and building physics understanding - which is massive in the industry. Just massive. We need to tackle low-hanging fruit first."Now, we don't expect you to agree with everything she has to say, but you're only doing yourself a disservice if you don't listen.Notes from the showFionn on LinkedInThe Know Your Home logbook for homes platform, and its Seedrs capital raising page**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn pageJeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User ExperienceSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

We enjoyed the company of Ecomerchant’s Will Kirkman a business that's specialised in sustainable and natural building materials for the building trade and consumers.We mainly rambled our way around the culture of building in the UK, how embodied carbon has always been on the Ecomerchant agenda and the impact that sustainable and natural building materials have on the buildings they make and the people who occupy them.Notes from the showWill on LinkedInThe Ecomerchant websiteThe We Build Eco websiteStewart Lee's taxi driver argumentUBS white paper: Rethink, rebuild, reimagine (on laying the foundation for better buildings)UBS  report: Retrofit revolutionUBS report: Under one roof (opportunities for public and private stakeholders to decarbonize the global building sector)UBS report: Building society (looking at the social opportunity of retrofitting and the relationship between retrofitting and area regeneration)**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn pageJeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User ExperienceSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

This week is all about the challenges of low-impact building in the sphere of self build with Tara Fraser, a chartered civil and structural engineer, and a director of Build Collective in Bristol. On the recommendation of former guest (and Tara's colleague) Beth Williams, we recently had a chat with her about a self-build project she worked on that should find itself into the pages of Passive House Plus magazine, and we thought it’d be interesting to explore it, and a few broader themes, for the podcast too.This is because in green building it's the self-builders who have been the pioneers, which intrigued us to wonder what lessons might be taken from the self-build experience that can be used by other builders.It’s pretty nerdy this one, but don't worry if you get lost on some of the detail, that's fine, it'll pass, and we return to the common ZAP themes pretty quickly.Notes from the showTara on LinkedInThe Build Collective websiteTara's colleague, Beth Williams, on the podcast last year**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn pageJeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User ExperienceSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Part two of our series on shading, this time with a return appearance from Tom Dollard of Pollard Thomas Edwards who joined us in January 2023 to talk about lazy thinking. Ostensibly, this time we met to talk about the Good Homes Alliance design guide for shading, as a follow-up to December's episode with Zoe De Grussa.  On reflection we realised that the guide does a good enough job without us disecting it, so we spent more time discussing why such a guide is necessary, how the industry needs to change, and why it’s struggling to do so (culture, economics, and politics…the usual).Content warning: it is a very rambling episode but in spite of its very loose sense of direction the conversation does cover a lot.  The warning is just because we only really talk about shading 20 minutes in, so heads-up if you read this before you start listening.Also, it’s a very UK-heavy discussion because those were the conditions in which the research was created, but they’re pretty-much analogous for a great deal of Ireland, North America, and probably great swathes of Europe too. Please check the link below, download the PDF, read it, and share it - it’s a brilliant piece of work.Notes from the showTom on LinkedInThe Pollard Thomas Edwards websiteShading for housing: Design guide for a changing climate, published by the Good Homes Alliance in collaboration with the BBSA**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn pageJeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User ExperienceSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

With us this week is new friend, Kelly Alvarez Doran, via an introduction from Lloyd to talk about his experiences at COP28 and his carbon reduction consultancy Ha/f Climate Design that's challenged itself to reduce Canadian construction's emissions by half.We get sidetracked almost immediately while we talk about Kelly's background as an architect, working in mining, and the big changes to philosophy on building after working in Rwanda. In spite of the early diversion, we spent the whole conversation consistently hitting the same key themes themes:Embodied carbon and life cycle analysis Designing for the end of Oil-Age architectureRethinking the role of building design in the age of embodied carbon Kelly's great. He'll be back. Hopefully without any sound issues next time (it gets better after a bit).Also, XPS = Extruded polystyrene insulation.Notes from the showKelly on LinkedinConversations on the phasing out of oil felt paradoxical amidst the Dubai backdrop (The Architect's Newspaper, January 2024), Kelly's original view from COP28Embodied Embodied carbon values of common insulation materials (Canadian Architect, April 2021) i.e. the article with the chart that names brand names alongside embodied carbon values and egregious payback lead times for common insulation materialsThe YouTube video of the Straw Panel vs. Conventional Construction Burn Test that Kelly refers toThe Ha/f Climate Design websiteBuilding LCA for Architects Online Course (OneClick) a free primer course for architects by KellyThe UK Government Flood Risk Tool **SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn pageJeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User ExperienceSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

This one is about conservation-led retrofit and the retrofit of commercial (or institutional) building stock. We were invited to see a recent Iarnród Éireann (Irish Railway) retrofit project and meet with Heidi Hopper-Duffy (Environmental & Sustainability Manager) and its architect David Hughes (Senior Conservation Architect & Energy Specialist).Ostensibly, we're talking about energy efficiency and conservation of built heritage. The project was led by David, a retrofit of a historic building shared between Iarnród Éireann and the Chief Medical Officer's (CMO) office. We talk about it but you'll get to see the works in much more detail when Jeff features it in the pages of Passive House Plus. In this case, the railway, guided by David and Heidi's experience, can be lauded as a leader in its field and these sorts of projects are illustrative of the challenges and opportunities that come with working in a large company or institution.We also cover broader bits: design for deconstruction, BERs, what should we be quantifying i.e. carbon or energy, or what?Mind the background noise - we had a few unexpected background interruptions from an occasionally boisterous meeting room next door. Notes from the showIarnród Éireann and sustainabilityDavid Hughes on LinkedinHeidi Hopper-Duffy on LinkedInThe Train Drivers' building, as it appears in Passive House PlusThe National Inventory of Architectural Heritage (NIAH) for Ireland websiteThat awful retrofit cut out that Fionn Stevenson posted aboutThe Passive House Association of IrelandICOMOS Ireland (the International Council on Monuments and Sites) **SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn pageJeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User ExperienceSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

The first of our Dublin field recordings is with Archie O'Donnell a long-time face green building in Ireland, a fella who Jeff has a lot of time for, and someone Alex and I hadn't met yet. It was a good call. Originally trained as an architect, Archie has worked his way through the industry, recently joining Danish/Irish consultancy KOSMOS, so there was plenty of scope for the conversation to meander from observations on how the green building industry has changed and is changing, to costing sustainability, accounting for language, the impact of the EU taxonomy and imminent evolutions in energy rating.Interestingly, we didn't recognise the significance of Jeff's Calvinball analogy though, so listen out for that. In Calvinball nature of the game was to make the rules up as you go along, so you're never really held accountable, you can't lose, and the game you're playing can't be brought to an end. This definitely echoes the nature of our fossil fuel, ESG, and sustainability accounting systems. Notes from the showArchie on LinkedInThe KOSMOS websiteCalvinball - check it, Jeff may have stumbled onto something there**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn pageJeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User ExperienceSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

This week we have Lloyd's latest Passive House Plus Revisited, a conversation with passive house heads Alan Clarke and Nick Grant about the passive house archive project that left Lloyd so smitten when he visited it last summer.That we’re discussing archive systems shouldn’t put folk off - the point is about thinking differently, about what the challenge really is, recognising the reality of systems, the elevation of simplicity, and reclaiming the phrase “value engineering”.Notes from the showFollow Nick Grant on Twitter and Bluesky Follow Alan Clarke on Twitter and BlueskyThe Passive House Plus article that inspired the episode: Hereford archive chooses passive preservation, by Kate de SelincourtElemental Solutions, their practiceThe Conservation Physics website that we mention**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn pageJeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User ExperienceSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**