4 tracks of sustainable buildings

Innovation and sustainable buildings – new Danish experiences

Jesper Ole Jensen, SBi-AAU

Program

• Past and presence in sustainable buildings: Differences in concepts

• Perspectives from ecological modernisation

• Sustainable buildings today: Challenges and perspectives

Aim

• Develop understanding of ‘what is new’ in current sustainable buildings in Denmark

Sustainable buildings as social constructions

A SCOT-perspective:

• Sustainable buildings represents different ideologies and different concepts, formed by the different actors

involved

• Sustainable buildings are responses to interpretations of local and global challenges

4 tracks of sustainable buildings

• 1970ies. The technical pioneers: Green buildings as energy-saving devices

• 1980ies. Alternatives from the Grassroots: From Freja to Friland

• 1990ies. Ecology goes Urban

• 2000’s. ‘Normalisation’ of sustainable buildings

The technical pioneers: Green buildings as

energy-saving devices

Purpose: develop and test building technologies to improve energy performance, as well as regulations for implementing these

technologies.

Examples:

• The zero-energy house (Lyngby) 1975

• Hjortekjærhusene I (Lyngby) 1978

• Hjortekjærhusene I (Lyngby) 1979

• Skivehusene I-III (Skive) 1977-1984

• Tubberup Vænge I-II (Herlev) 1986-1989

• Havrevangen (Hillerød) 1993

Alternatives from the Grassroots: From

a Freja til Friland

• Purpose and ideology: Anti-growth, anti-urbanisation,

self-sufficiency, self-building, local community, local jobs, Brundtland report

• Examples:

• Bofællesskabet Sol og vind (Beder) 1980

• Dyssekilde (Torup) 1990

• Andelssamfundet (Hjortshøj) 1992

• Munksøgård (Roskilde) 2000

• Friland (Djursland) 2002

Ecology goes Urban: Subsidised large-

scale urban projects

• Purpose: Demonstrating sustainable transformation of existing buildings and cities by urban regeneration

• Examples:

• Dannebrogsgade 19 (Vesterbro, Copenhagen)

• Eriksgade (Vesterbro, Copenhagen)

• Fredensgade (Kolding)

• Hestestaldskarreen (Vesterbro, Copenhagen)

• Hedebygade (Vesterbro, Copenhagen)

• The Blue House and the Yellow House (Ålborg)

• The Recycled House (Copenhagen)

Normalisation of sustainable buildings

Purpose: A marked-approach to sustainable buildings. Away from ‘green sectarianism’. Making sustainable buildings

attractive for ’ordinary Danes’, and developing competences for passive housing and low-energy buildings in the building sector.

Examples:

•Fremtidens parcelhuse, Køge

•Stenløse Syd

•Ullerødbyen, Hillerød

•Lystrup i Århus

•Teglmosegrunden, Albertslund

•Rønnebækhave, Næstved

•Comfort Houses, Vejle

Ecological modernisation

• Challenge ”small is beautiful”

• Growth and sustainability not in opposition

• Possible to integrate sustainability in existing institutions

• New forms of collaboration: Away from hierarchical top-down, towards networked governance, partnering, voluntary agreements, NPM etc.

• Borders between actor-roles diminishing (public-private collaboration, private-private etc.)

• Different actors gather around shared ”story lines” for sustainability

• Increasing visibility and monitoring, ’what gets measured gets managed’

• Sustainability increasingly defined by output instead of input (= freedom to choose to methods, design, technologies)

• Increasing use of voluntary standards, agreements etc.

• Internationalisation and globalisation of technologies, concepts, standards etc.

References: Hajer (2005), Mol & Sonnenfeld (2000), Spaargaren (2000)

A plurality of norms and tools

• Miljørigtig projektering (DRbyen og Stenurten)

• ABCplanner (Københavns kommune)

• BEAT (Ringgården)

• Stedsanalyse (Hvissing Vest, Teglmosegrunden)

• Optobuild (Munksøgård)

• Køge criterias (Fremtidens parcelhus)

• Passive house standard (Rønnebækhave, Lystrup, Comfort houses)

Normalisation

Fremtidens parcelhus, Køge

Stenløse Syd

Demands for the individual parcels:

•Houses should respect low energy class 1 i Building regulations

•Ventilation with energy recovery and heat pump

•Minimum 3 m2 solar panel per house, alternatively solar cells

•Intelligent control and monitoring of energy and water consumption.

•Collection and use of rainwater for toilet flushing and washing machines. Remaining rainwater locally irrigated

•No use of PVC

•No use of impregnated wood

Teglmosegrunden, Albertslund

Comfort houses, Vejle

Ringgården, Århus

Rønnebækhave II, Næstved

’Normalisation’ characteristics

• Design

• Appealing to ‘ordinary Danes’

• Environmental approach focus on energy savings

• No focus on ‘community’ / social sustainability

• Municipality plays active role as initiator

• Use of standards (locally developed, international etc)

• Focus on single-family houses

• Involvement of standard-house producers

Normalisation in design

Cooperation and organisation

Initiator:

Framing project, finding land, defining goals

Client:

Designing and constructing building

Operator:

Operating buildings,

facilitating users

User:

Using buildings

Self-builders, grassroot buildings

Social housing Future tenants

Municipalities Developers / Standard house producers

Future owners / tenants

Planning and design

• Framing project, establishing political support, establishing project relations, buying land etc.

• Balancing demands in relation to market

• Facilitating designers / developers to meet demands

• Integrated design

• Demands, negotiations, innovation

Operation and use

• ’Normal Danes’?

• Attitude and knowledge towards sustainable buildings

• Problems in use

• Facilitation of users?

• Collection of users experiences?

• Environmental performance – are goals reached?

Challenges

• Sustainability concept should be

broader, including location, access to local services, solar orientation etc.

• Energy measures defined in kWh/m2

<=> size of house and housing

consumption not included in measures

• Facilitation of users, maintaining sustainability

• Little collection of users experiences, and little feed of experiences into new design

• Knowledge & learning: Embedding learning in municipalities

• Lack of initiatives towards existing buildings: The annual amount of new built houses represents <1% of the total building stock.

Possible answers

• New standards and concepts?

Expand ’integrated design’?

• New standards needed?

• Develop better building operation concepts, clarify role of municipality

• Develop user-oriented building

design. Include users in ‘integrated design’?

• Transferring experiences from new buildings to renovation of existing buildings?

Kilde: Ole Michael Jensen, SBi-AAU

Source:

Energistatistikken 2005

Source:

Lausten, 2008