Home-grown greens

Sustainability is a key consideration in all PRP Architects' work for registered social landlords and councils. This generally means working on a large scale to provide social, economic and environmental sustainability for major new developments through masterplanning and regeneration. It is easy, then, to lose sight of the needs of the individual residents whose homes we are creating in the process. However, addressing environmental concerns in an intelligent way can directly affect residents' social and economic survival.

When we think sustainability in relation to housing, it is common for RSLs and their consultants to focus on the definitions, checklists and quality indicators that shape the levels of sustainability required for funding, grants, and benchmarking. We are familiar with a variety of responses: the showcase development, minimisation of energy consumption, an "excellent" EcoHomes rating, and others. And as the government pushes for greater energy conservation through the building regulations, future homes will need to meet higher and higher standards of insulation, reduced carbon dioxide emissions, improved thermal performance and so on, most of which will directly benefit RSL tenants.

However, capital costs are inevitably the driver for decision-making on sustainability matters rather than cost in use. How many developments begin with good intentions, but are subsequently reduced to a tokenistic supply of water-butts as a demonstration of "green-ness"? How many have gone down the EcoHomes route by picking out the cheapest way of achieving a "very good" or "excellent" rating with no consideration of the effect on residents? How often have PVCu windows been dismissed on environmental grounds, only to be reinstated later for financial reasons? The effect is one of cynicism – a calculated attempt to tick the right boxes on the Housing Corporation's housing quality indicators. How deep is the commitment to sustainability in reality?

For sustainable interventions to be truly meaningful to residents, they need to be robust and simple. Controls should be simple to use and easy to maintain. The sophisticated systems inevitably create extra maintenance work when residents find them difficult to use or understand, or are expensive if parts need to be replaced. The simplest solutions will always be the best.

Secondary heating has been provided in some super-insulated developments because no one could believe it would not be needed, but it has never been turned on

Super-insulated homes can be built that eliminate the need for traditional wet central heating systems. Orientated to be heated by the sun as well, these homes can perform so well that no heating installation is required at all. The RSL's budget for maintenance of the heating system can then be diverted into capital expenditure to cover the cost of the super-insulation. However, we have found that secondary heating has been provided in some super-insulated developments because no one could believe it would not be needed, but it has never been turned on.

Other measures that are simple and robust responses to the sustainability debate are passive stack ventilation and water conserving fittings such as dual-flush WCs, spray taps and showers. These will help to keep residents' electricity and water bills low. Combined heat and power is an important consideration, but will not be truly viable until the sale of generated energy is matched by its costs to the consumer.

PRP has been involved in a number of Housing Forum demonstration projects, generally of a small-scale development where there has been an opportunity to build the same house types using two or three different construction methods. This provides RSLs with an opportunity to monitor performance, running costs, maintenance and so on, and to feed that information into subsequent developments. Feedback from tenants is not always one of the monitoring criteria but should be, as their subjective assessment of comfort, use of controls and comparison of running costs can be useful.