Hello, Christian. How are you?

 

I'm very well, thanks. How are you? 

 

I'm very good. Congratulations on your new job as UK head of sustainability at White Arkitekter.  The first thing that goes into my mind is that my impression of that practice is that it's a pretty progressive one in terms of environmental design. So, is yours an 'easier' job, given the practice's generally green outlook anyway?

 

White is really at the cutting edge of pushing sustainability standards in the UK. They are one of the few, or only, design practices to have committed to sustainable SBTi (Science Based Targets Initiative) goals and are achieving them already, well in advance of 2030. And all of their buildings will be carbon neutral or regenerative by 2030, so it's really great to work alongside people with that vision – but it's still a big challenge. You know, achieving those targets is no mean feat. So, projects need to be reviewed, we need to continue to check each design and make sure that even with the complications of different briefs and different functions, that we're hitting low energy performance targets, that we're hitting bio-based materials as much as possible, that we're reusing the circular economy, because otherwise we don't really stand the chance of hitting those targets. But there's a great wealth of knowledge across the practice, and it's great that they're thinking in broad strokes. So: master planning, regenerative landscaping, positive energy districts, as well as making great design for buildings. 

 

What's the general atmosphere ‘out there’ in terms of the developer and investor community to this aspect of design? Is it embraced now, fully?

 

I think there's still a mix. I think there are certain clients, certain developers, certain individuals who are very much wanting to do the best in terms of sustainability and regenerative design. And they'll probably be attracted to people like ourselves and others. But I think, as Donald Trump has shown, there's a big pushback at the moment, with a lot of people rescinding on, perhaps previous commitments and saying, "Oh, it's getting financially very tricky". So, it's really trying to work with those clients to encourage them, to show them the benefits of what truly sustainable design can have on their on their projects, not least resilience to the future and costs and other things. So, it's really important to try and bring those alongside.

 

Your role is inn the UK, as opposed to Sweden and the rest of Scandinavia. Do you immediately see comparisons between those countries?

 

I think there is probably a lot more progressive uptake in Sweden of sustainable culture, and certainly on their social development. They've been able to help set up a vision for Stockholm to develop a whole district to be a Wood City, a vibrant, 15-minute city, which is green. All these things are included, whereas in the UK, it's much more challenging. But I think that's the great thing about having a practice which is international, that you can learn and encourage others. Perhaps we can take some of the UK clients, perhaps some cities, to see these projects and show them how it can be done and the benefits, and then that will encourage them back here in the UK.

 

Yes, this stock Stockholm Wood City is pretty amazing, isn't it? It was featured earlier this year in The Guardian. Could you ever envisage something akin to that in the UK?

 

I think definitely so! I think it just needs, as I said, taking people along, showing them the vision.  A few years ago, perhaps if you had said that they were going to want to produce 250,000 square metres in central Stockholm from wood, people wouldn't necessarily have agreed with that; wouldn't have been on board. And I think the same will happen in the UK. But, if you show the benefits, if you show savings, as people want to live in a more sustainable society, I think the UK will hopefully develop something similar, perhaps in London, perhaps in another major city across the UK.

 

So, your own background - I think it's fairly unusual to be both a qualified architect and engineer. Talk me through how that all happened?

 

Yes, certainly. I had the pleasure of going to university at the University of Nottingham, and I joined a combined architecture and building services – but mostly focused on sustainability engineering – course, and it was actually only the second year that it had run. And so, our year helped to get that course accredited. And then 10 years later, I helped to be an external examiner, reviewing the progress and helping shape it in the next few years. But the great thing about the course, which follows on from traditions from the University of Bath and other places where they have these combined courses, is it really gives a real breadth and understanding of construction from different backgrounds. So, you're much more able to solve problems holistically. And sustainability is just one of these problems where you can't be bottled down into thinking just very linear, and need to think about all of the aspects. And so, I can come on board, and I can challenge engineers, and I can do some calculations back of a fag packet calculations, and say, "No, I think your assessment is wrong. We need need to be more ambitious. We need to do something in a different way".  And so, it really helps with those. So, I took that course through: I did that as Part One, and then I did Part Two at London Metropolitan University, and then I worked in architecture; I became a qualified architect. And then, because I’d done this engineering background course, I could then work on some of the projects, showing post occupancy evaluation, doing design research, doing the engineering, lighting, ventilation and various other things. And so, I could then apply and say, look, I've got all these qualifications. I'm doing all this. And actually, the CIBSE chartered engineers were very encouraging - the person who interviewed me for professional practice said, we're not doing some of these. We're not delivering these low energy buildings. We're not doing post occupancy evaluation. We'd love you to show that more and more and encourage others to do that. So that's how I got into both of those. I did more architecture and engineering, but it's really great to have that holistic understanding.

 

Sure. So just finally, it'd be great to get your view on the key learnings from an interesting project you’re involved with: the Velindre Cancer Centre in Wales?

 

Sure. Velindre is hopefully going to be the most sustainable hospital in the UK when it's completed in a year or two's time. And it's really great. It thinks about making a healthy space. Thinks about using low carbon materials, ones with low VOCs. So actually, making naturally healthy buildings. It's so critical for healthcare design, and yet many spaces don't think about that. But this can really help in the recovery. So, it's been really considering materials and chemicals and new super clean use materials, and it's got a huge timber area to all the non-medical spaces. That's as big as one of the huge secondary schools that I delivered out of cross laminated timber. So, it's a huge amount of timber, and it's going to be a really amazing space. It's also fully electric, so it's going to be low carbon in running and generates 10% of its electricity from solar panels on its roof. So that is the sort of standard that we want from new buildings. We want these buildings to consider materials, energy, and the benefits to the occupants. 

 

And presumably there's a metric there - a sort of provable metric on recovery rates? I mean, not necessarily with a Cancer Centre, obviously, but with healthcare in general. Can you prove some sort of metric with some of the other health buildings that you've been working on?

 

I mean, that's one of the tricky things. I've done a lot of post occupancy research, trying to prove in schools, the benefits of the better building, that it improves their learning. But it's always very difficult to get a rounded set of things, because you need a comparator - no two buildings are ever the same. So, you can give generic evidence, and you can say, lots of people wanted to come here, there were lots of improvements, but you can't ever give that sort of rounded research. But it's something which I think we'll definitely be looking into, we will be wanting to monitor. White do lots of research and do research papers. And so we've got a large range of hospitals, and so we'll be trying to analyse all of those to show where these natural materials and healthy materials are actually making an improvement. But to give a definite, “it's given a 10% improvement on rates”; you can't give an exact figure, unfortunately.

 

Well, thank you for talking to me. Can you encapsulate a mission, a sort of statement for what, where you hope to be in sort of five, five years’ time, as a practice, or you personally, in terms of the work you do? 

 

Yes. Well, as I say, I think we're hoping that all of our projects will be carbon neutral; will be regenerative in design. So, I hope to have laid the groundwork to do like you're asking about post Occupancy Evaluation – proving evidence that all of our buildings are delivering that on all types of building types, whether that's housing, whether that be hospitals or many of the other types of projects - that we can actually deliver and prove that these buildings are regenerative, that they are helping society positively, rather than the current way of building buildings which actually detract and damage the environment.

 

Sure. Thank you very much for speaking to me, and good luck with all of that, which sounds very worthy! 

 

Thank you very much for your time! It's been a pleasure speaking with you. 

 

Thanks, Christian.