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  Channel NewsAsia 22 Jul 07
UK university builds model for environmentally-friendly house

NOTTINGHAM - The University of Nottingham in the UK is aiming to promote the reduction of carbon emissions in Britain. It is building an experimental research house, which it hopes will be a future guide for environmentally friendly house building.

The university also hopes the house will encourage new building programmes to meet the British government's target of reducing carbon emissions by 60% by 2050.

By 2050 all new houses could be built like this - no bricks, no mortar but instead sheet steel, environmentally-friendly concrete, and polystyrene. It is part of a plan by the British government to make all new homes 'carbon neutral' - which means, homes that don't have an impact on the environment.

A house called 'C60' has been designed and built by students and staff at the University of Nottingham. It is hoped the new construction will act as a future guide for environmentally-friendly house-building.

After it is completed, staff and students will live in the three-storey house, and monitor as well as control every aspect of day-to-day life, such as heating, lighting, ventilation, energy and water.

"There are very few cases in which data of monitoring is used to really make an impact on design. We are using new technologies in terms of the use of material and distribution of the house. So we expect that this research will allow us to disseminate this to all practicing architects around the country," says Guillermo Guzman Dumont, Architecture Department, University of Nottingham.

Not only will the C60 house be built from unconventional eco-friendly materials, it will also be packed with cutting edge technology - all designed to make the house carbon-neutral through it's energy efficiency.

Using a rainwater tank on the roof, bathwater will be re-used in the toilet, cutting water use by 70%. All appliances and lighting will be low energy, cutting electricity use by 60%. The house has extra insulation as well to keep air heated deep under the basement from escaping. It's expected to cut heating bills by 70%

More than 30 private sector companies are contributing expertise and materials to the project. Steel makers use a lot of energy and their smokestacks look is if they spew a lot of carbon into the air.

But managing director Mike Hinman says compared to other building materials like concrete, and even wood, steel has less of an overall impact. "It's carbon-friendly because you are using a very small amount of natural resources, or even manufactured materials. All those things you use to manufacture something uses carbons. So if you look at any other type of building, there would be treble or quadruple the amount of material within the structure," says Stoneguard's MD Mike Hinman.

But it's not just private companies involved in the C60 project. Architecture students at the University of Nottingham are fully involved in every aspect of construction and development of the house.

Lucelia Rodrigues is one of them. "A lot of students have been working here and we've been actually building everything. That includes digging the holes, in my case, because of building the pipe system around the house, and placing the panels together and measuring things. It's really hands-on work," says student Rodrigues.

It may have started as a teaching project, but the technology that's coming together under the roof of the C60 house will form the basis for the future of energy efficient homes in the UK. - CNA /ls
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