This Thursday I went made the jouney down south to London to a special little place that few people know about (but should do).
BedZed (or Beddington Zero Energy Development) in Surrey is the first of its type to be built - and its completely sustainable! It has its own means to genertate electricity through a CHP (combined heat and power) plant on site and solar panels, insulated to the extent that central heating is not needed whatsoever (yes, you heard me - none!) and also has its own water treatment plant to dispose of waste water AND is built out of reclaimed materials!
82 dwellings ocupy the site, but is rather high dencity being all terraced (reducing surface area to loose less heat) and also includes places to work and commiunity centre, recreational area and small public square. Looking across on top of one of the Gardens (which are reached by a bridge from the first floor going onto the roof of thedwelling opposite!) you realised how compact it was, and certainly were of much better quality than other surronding housing.
We even got to talk to the Architiect Bill Dunster, who designed the whole project, and others he has
planned. He certainly knew what he was talking about when it came to sustainable building, and even pointed out that there will soon be kits to convert your houses into mini ZEDs of your own! Its cerainly one way of avoiding the
energy and gas price increases that are currently occuring, and will save a fortune in the long run. Better start saving then...
This is certainly a development that should be noted for being far superior in every way compared to what is
currently being built in our cities - John Pescott, please take note while placing 1/2 million homes on flood plains in the South-East!
(for those who are wondering, those funny chimmeys on top of the houses are called wind cows, and are used to naturally ventilate the buildings, and provide circulation)
I have decided to join in a global experiment looking at the effects of climate change. The software runs in the background of other computer processes, so will not affect system performance. The pic is a shot of the climate model running on my PC, it rund from 1920 to act as a baseline for projecting onwards from 2000 to 2080 (the more interesting part of the experiment!)
