Overall in the office, it’s still probably more men, especially when you look at all the disciplines, but when you look at the architectural team we are completely balanced....

Do we really want to walk away from all that learning, and start moving as much of the construction process as possible into distant sheds?.Is on-site construction really all that bad?.

Construction sites could be defined as locations where finished assets are built.They can be messy, congested, dirty and chaotic places.But they don’t have to be.

If the construction process can be transformed into the streamlined and predictable assembly of pre-manufactured parts, combined with on-site construction processes that are carefully managed to add the maximum value, much greater productivity can result.. To give a slightly left-field example, consider a circus tent.Typically, these large structures are put up overnight by a small team of trained operatives.

In a budget-conscious industry, every hour counts, so assembly is planned to be as quick as possible, and disassembly is just as quick.

It would be even quicker if the tent was pre-erected, of course, but this doesn’t make sense from a transportation and logistics perspective.Operational carbon in sustainable building design.

From an operational carbon perspective, Passivhaus’ low energy targets mean the dwellings are likely to achieve very low carbon emissions.As a result, it becomes technically and financially feasible to offset any carbon emission through the use of building mounted, renewable technologies.

This means that for certain types of residential buildings, it is possible to achieve net zero operational carbon without the need for a PPA.For non-residential buildings however a PPA is still necessary.