Make Part L a true instrument for change

Part L is good, but doesn’t go far enough to force the industry to rethink how we design the whole building

Having made a fuss in my June column about then upcoming Part L consultation, I cannot now let its actual publication pass without mention. I'd pictured doing something wise and analytical during August. Unfortunately if you're fifty-something, August is not a time when you can be either. With your kids out of college and pretending to be grown-up, you're expected to stay behind and 'man the fort' while everyone else in the office takes off for sunny climes with their school-age kiddies.

However, the UK construction industry refuses to recognise that most people go away in August. Continental Europe is more straightforward about it. If you phone for Hubert or Manfred you eventually get through to a reluctant temp who doesn't want to deal with phones while her third coat of nail polish is still wet. She gabbles petulantly that there's no one there who can talk sensibly about anything you'd want to know until September.

I found this summer particularly difficult. All our clients decided holidays were for wimps and August was an especially good time to crack the whip, drive things forward, etc. For me, it was a frazzling month of 16 hour working days and no weekends. Not the best moment to get to grips with over 300 pages of Part L consultation. However, I have read it and even tried it out. It is an intelligent document. As before, it promises regulations differentiated between domestic and non-domestic buildings. It is not as dramatic as the 2002 revision but is more challenging.

One issue that may have far reaching consequences on design is the demise of the elemental method for demonstrating compliance in non-domestic new buildings. Instead we are required to shown how our building's design will have a 28% lower carbon footprint than a 'notional building' founded in elemental rules – all computed using the yet to be seen national calculation methodology.

Trying to explain the impact of legislation to a leading architect was like being the messenger of doom.

Firstly, small architects may struggle to deal with such issues. I wonder if the elemental method may still have a place on smaller projects even if the factors that have to be applied in it are very tough. Secondly, many architects who have tended to step back from taking responsibility for Part L2: 2002 compliance appear now to be further 'off-the-hook' as the association between what they design and an appropriate encoded design practice is now even more abstract. My recent experience on one job destined to be captured by the 2005 revision suggests this may be true.

I found trying to explain the impact of the upcoming regulations on this project to an architect wedded to full height glass (when half height windows sufficed for daylight, views, etc; in the application) was like being the messenger of doom. Even the client, faced with serious costs to remediate an architectural style that has no part in the 21st century, thought I was offside.

True, even the stupidest building design can be made to comply – by throwing money at it. But if clients believe the consultation paper's predictions that the cost impact for commercial buildings of the proposed regulations will be about £20/m² – they need to think again. It will cost them plenty more unless the architectural paradigm changes.

A wise man defined madness as "doing what you always do, expecting a different outcome". Until building design changes in response to the revised regulations we face bedlam and the services engineer, if he rails too hard against accepted design norms, may be seen as the chief lunatic. For me, the key thing missing from the Part L consultation is a statement that it is an instrument of fundamental change that demands the way that we judge and value architecture to be rethought.