Energy Transition in Europe | www.energy-cities.eu

It is about time the UK government got to grips with retrofitting existing housing to scale up home energy efficiency across the country. One way to do this would be to establish a one-stop shop on every high street; offering trusted advice, recommendations for trained suppliers, and help with grants and other incentives. Our struggling town centres could do with the community buzz of a genuinely useful venue and there are plenty of empty commercial properties to choose from. It could provide employment, generate training locally, encourage re-skilling of workforces, and help us reach our climate goals. Plus our houses might actually get warmer.

Is it enough just going passive?
What is an energy sufficient building? How far from this are the buildings we currently live and work in? How can we encourage more sufficient buildings that enable us to live better? Our report explores these questions and offers suggestions for the way forward.
There are many ways to move towards greater energy sufficiency in our buildings.  We can choose to use less space.  We can also choose to use our space more effectively, constructing more flexible buildings that can be used differently as our needs change.  This Concept Paper examines the types of building we need to build, and also the way we build them, the equipment we use to heat them and our behaviour as we use them.

Serie Architects and Multiply Architects designed the University of Singapore's SDE4 building to be sustainable, with breezy open-air learning spaces.

Buildings contribute nearly 40% of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, so the push is on to “get to zero” on many fronts. What happens when ambitious goals like zero energy meet a conventional building industry that’s structured on repetition and cost, in a market that struggles to keep up with massive demand? This is often—too often—our challenge.