Author Archives: jorclarke

This week I’ve been looking into the whole life carbon of buildings, what’s involved in assessing whole life carbon and the different tools available to assist with this.  Reducing the carbon emissions from the UK built environment is critical in the fight to prevent global warming and combat the climate emergency.  Earlier this year, theContinue reading “Achieving Zero Carbon in Active Buildings”

As I develop my Design Guide, I am reviewing other guidance documents used by Architects, such as Approved Documents used to aid compliance with the Building Regulations, British Standards, documents produced by the RIBA, etc; as well as books on design.  Here are some quick reviews of just some of the documents I have consulted:Continue reading “Design Guide Development”

The context for my work to develop design guidance for low energy, climate resilient, Active Buildings has never been more relevant.  While I continue to develop my guidance document and support partners in the design of Active Buildings, it’s been another busy week for climate change news. Here are my highlights: In a Wales OnlineContinue reading “Climate Change and Active Buildings”

This week I spent two days at #UKCW2019 and #GDLive in Birmingham NEC. Highlights for me included a few interesting seminars on the Main Stage – firstly, a talk by Mark Farmer where he spoke about the need for the construction industry to improve.  One example he discussed was his view that public procurement shouldContinue reading “UK Construction Week and Grand Designs Live 2019”

I started my doctoral research project back in April 2017, while working at SPECIFIC, based on the work I had been involved with so far to develop the Active Building concept.  My main aim at this time was to develop a piece of work that linked up my architectural experience with the experience I hadContinue reading “An Architect in Research”

Before the Active Building Centre was established, I spent 5 years working for SPECIFIC Innovation and Knowledge Centre, also led by Swansea University.  Here, my role was to find ways to enable the technologies being developed at SPECIFIC and their industrial partners to be adopted on building projects. Being an Architect, it was obvious toContinue reading “From SPECIFIC to Active Building Centre”

You can read more about my work on designing Active Buildings in this article, https://www.innovationcw.co.uk/index, published earlier this year. See pages 20 – 23. I even featured on the front cover!

This is the first post on my new blog, which will detail my research journey, as I continue my Doctorate in the Sustainable Built Environment, which is based on the design of Active Buildings. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post newContinue reading “Designing Active Buildings”