What progress is Greenwich Millennium Village making towards the 10 environmental and efficiency targets it set itself? Josephine Smit finds out in the first of several visits to the project which will feature in the Built Environment 2001 conference and exhibition in London in October.
When Prince Charles began creating Poundbury in Dorset, the vision was largely derided. Now homes are built and being lived in the end result is being praised as a model of modern residential development. The time could be right for the same revisionist thinking to be applied to the much criticised Greenwich Millennium Village.

As homes are being built, sold and occupied there is growing evidence of how successfully GMV is delivering its objectives. Commercially, it is marketing a product the London homebuyer wants to buy. All phase 2 homes released are sold, apart from a batch of just-released two and three bed live/work houses priced at around £300 000. Buyers are being won over to what conventional housebuilder thinking would consider a hard-to-sell package: modern architecture, a designed community and unfamiliar technology like combined heat and power (see box on page 37).

Homes are being built using a variety of build techniques and components, including concrete, steel and timber frame, and bathroom pods. Build costs are steadily being brought down. The 10 targets encompassing the Egan agenda for build efficiency, environmentalism and all-round sustainability that developers Countryside Residential and Taylor Woodrow Capital Developments took on in the heady enthusiasm of bidding for the Greenwich site four years ago are now homing into view. Today 15 months into the build programme and with 300 units under construction the team can assess the progress it is making (see chart), identify some successes and failures, and square up to challenges that lie ahead.

"Most of the initial legal and political obstacles are out of the way. The learning curve has been steep, but it is starting to shallow. Lessons are being applied," says Ross Hammond, project director with GMV. " We've been very successful in our achievement of our legal objectives. We're becoming more profitable, better environmentally, more sustainable." What goes into the village is driven by those all-important targets, which the project team is committed to hitting by the end of the six-and-a-half-year, 1377-unit scheme. As the project progresses it is amassing a research and knowledge base that is unparallelled within housebuilding and that stands to benefit the industry. Last year GMV invested £338 000 in innovation studies, into subjects as diverse as tenure and procurement. Manufacturers and methods are being put to the test, and successes or failures measured.

"We're using bathroom pods because they are a constituent of our target of zero defects, and of our target for waste reduction," says Hammond. "They have gone a long way to help reduce defects, but we have paid a premium for that. We are making some of that premium back, but we still have some way to go. Innovation has to go through testing. This is about continuous improvement." Multiply that by all the components of GMV and all its targets and you have a testbed for UK Housebuilding plc. "We have a huge challenge in getting the UK construction industry's supply chain to respond, and in getting the Government to give it the encouragement that is needed. The UK's prefabrication sector does not have the capacity to meet the Egan agenda. Wind turbines and photovoltaics are not viable in the UK. There is a need for a water quality standard for grey water recycling." GMV puts Hammond within earshot of the people in Westminster who could make a difference on these issues. "I've got the opportunity to ask, tell and demonstrate to Government," he says.

Continuous improvement, by definition, means that the project never stands still. "We've identified 22 ways of reducing build waste on site," explains innovation consultant Richard Hodkinson of Richard Hodkinson Consultancy. "We're currently trialling 11. We've found five to be unviable and we have six to evaluate. That typifies where we are on the project." The first and second phases of site activity at GMV represent two entirely different construction approaches. Phase one applies commercial build techniques to apartment building in a contracting exercise (see box), phase two is, operationally, pure housebuilding, albeit using off-site manufactured components (see box). "They are different culturally," says Hammond. "There is much that both can learn from that and we are encouraging that through forums and workshops." Areas such as inspections and procurement strategy are closely watched, with the latter the subject of a comparative study.

One upcoming addition to the GMV build process is partnering. "An important element of that will be working with key suppliers to help meet our innovation, project and development targets and maybe share successes with them. It is not about bulk buying," says Hammond. "We are having to look at how we are going to motivate people and share profit, and how we are going to manage the risk." Build techniques are evolving. The team has recently decided to return to in-situ applied render, having tested it against factory-finished rendered cladding panels. "In situ gives a much sharper finish. Panels get chipped and knocked on site, and require jointing to very tight tolerances," says Hammond.

Evolving data and evaluation on embodied energy content of build materials are having a continuing impact on the spec; brick and tile were considered poor performers when the first phases were designed, hence their absence on phase 2a houses, but are now considered more acceptable.

"The three aspects of sustainability - economic, community and environmental - all have to work together," says Hodkinson. Compromises have to be found between the targets - for example the requirement to save cost conflicts with the high price of water-saving devices and their lengthy payback periods. "It was never our intention or our legal obligation to hit all of the targets right from the start," says Hodkinson. "Although we're only 15 months onto site, we are two thirds of the way towards our technological and social targets. This is a huge success in terms of putting innovation into practice. The areas we have to focus on now are cost and time reduction." In 1998 when GMV was in its initial design stages, Colin Parsons, then chairman of Taylor Woodrow said: "This is not a testing ground for unknown ideas. There is a need for this village to be a commercial success." Parsons' words remain pertinent. "If what we do is not cost-efficient, it won't be taken up by others in the industry," says Matt Willcock, senior development manager.

Value engineering is being applied widely. The team is also carrying out an exercise with its cost consultant, WT Partnership, to strip out exceptional items and produce the underlying costs of the scheme. "We are above the cost benchmark because that is for normal construction," says Hammond. "On phase 2a innovations added around 30-40% to costs. My feeling is that costs have effectively been reduced already." Innovations also have to be sellable to buyers and tenants. "When selling environmental technology we have to be able to show buyers it is better than the conventional solution," says Willcock.

Crucially, it is the public that is giving a thumbs up to GMV, not only in buyer numbers but from the Moat HA tenants that have already moved in. "The people who have moved in really like the houses, and by this time next year there will be 400 people and it will be a community," Willcock says. "We've still got a mountain to climb, but we've conquered the foothills."

Commercial build for apartments

Designed by Ralph Erskine, in association with EPR Architects phase 1a’s two blocks of 100 apartments make a big, bold statement on the site with their staggered, barrel vaulted roofscape. The apartment blocks have an insitu concrete frame - chosen for economy and speed. Steel frame does feature, being used for mezzanines and penthouses, as well as the barrel-vaulted roof. The exterior has brick at ground level, but then render on backing panels and western red cedar. Composite windows are from Velfac. Pod bathrooms are from Gateway Fabrications. The combined heat and power is by WSP Consultants, installed as part of the mechanical and electrical contract. The interior of the apartments is fairly traditional in finish and layout.

Innovations that have been incorporated into GMV so far

Energy saving
  • first large scale use of combined heat and power on a private residential scheme
  • increased insulation to new Part L
  • improved controls
  • passive ventilation
Embodied energy
  • BRE Green Guide is used to select materials
  • long-lasting products specified to reduce replacement energy
  • materials should not pollute environment
Reducing water consumption
  • water efficient devices, including taps, cisterns and showers
  • water harvesting for irrigation
  • grey water systems evaluated, but awaiting improved viability
Reducing construction waste
  • BRE Waste Measurements supported by Landfill Tax Rebates
  • 22 recommended actions: 11 implemented, five not viable, six awaiting evaluation
  • Panel prefabrication - reduces waste by 65%
  • waste segregation
Reducing defects at completion
  • staged inspections implemented - initial completions show 45% reduction in defects
  • bathroom pods
  • Electronic Document Management System implemented Integration of tenures and uses
  • affordable and private homes integrated
  • village management for community
  • commercial space within residential masterplan
  • live/work units
  • home working facilities
  • facilities to support local enterprise
Sustainable masterplan
  • partnership with BT to bring advanced IT to residents, VDSL trialled
  • strategy to reduce car use
  • preference for people rather than cars
  • community development manager appointed
  • community website
  • links to local school and health centre

Downloads