How to create a Net Zero Neighbourhood
A zero carbon masterplan using circular economy principles
Arriving at the Net Zero Neighbourhood
Here we write about our masterplan for the Net Zero Neighbourhood, which was the winner of the Max Fordham Archiboo Architect’ Pitch, itself inspired by the Max Fordham House - UK’s first-ever verified net zero carbon home.
The Net Zero Neighbourhood is sited on a southern plot of the Convoys Wharf masterplan - and connects to the existing neighbourhood of Grove Street, which is a collection of 3-6 storey 1960’s brick terraces and blocks and an existing park.
Variety & choice
Our plan has an array of housing types: stacked and row houses, customisable apartments, self build houses, assisted living, self commissioned (inspired by the German Barguppen model) and more conventional homes - but the key is variety and choice: ‘a place to start and a place to stay’.
At the centre of the Net Zero Neighbourhood masterplan is the ‘Material Store’: a pre-fabrication warehouse, material bank and maintenance and repair workshop. This building is housed in an existing brick warehouse and will change its function as the place develops: starting as a place of fabrication, and then becoming a place for repairs and alterations and eventually fulfilling other functions such as workspace, an arts venue and second life shops.
Other functions coalesce around the main market square: a community kitchen (food is very important), a children’s nursery, a repair centre and a library of things.
Buildings are made from prefabricated timber SIPs and sheepwool insulation.
Max Fordham House & UK Green Building Council principles
We developed the Net Zero Neighbourhood masterplan through extrapolation of the principles of the Max Fordham House - where through intelligent design the carbon from energy-use and embodied carbon are carefully conserved, reduced and/or totally eliminated.
We have taken these principles and then gone beyond the buildings. Where productive rooftop gardens, greenhouses, naturalistic landscape, allotments, wild play spaces and nature trails create a place where people want to dwell, socialise and be healthy. Tight streets and compact building forms make for efficiencies in infrastructure and the movement network makes it easy to walk and cycle and near impossible to drive, ensuring air quality and an invitation to nature.
Our place principles also take the UK Green Building Council’s net zero building framework as inspiration, and include food production, emissions and waste management; design that encourages social interactions, a place where healthy behaviours are embedded and one where building using low carbon materials, reuse, repair and recycling are celebrated and easier than ‘business as usual’.
Zero carbon buildings
At the individual building scale, as net zero neighbourhood architects, we have modular timber framed SIP panels, insulated with carbon positive materials (such as hemp), timber framed triple glazing with insulated sliding shutters, strong bases with high thermal mass made from rammed earth and facing materials in a collage of reclaimed bricks.
The landscape is wild and timber walkways create paths which allow the habitats below to thrive without human interruption.
Existing buildings are radically transformed using similar natural and reclaimed materials, lightweight timber frames adding rooftop extensions and ground floors altered using reclaimed bricks and reused steelwork. An emphasis is put on solving the architectural issues too: more daylight, broken plan living and easier access to growing spaces. Air tightness and thermal performance are given high priority too.
Zero carbon systems
A network of overlapping systems on a masterplan scale, ensure that nothing is wasted: heat and coolth are exchanged and deliveries and access needs are met with electric vehicles - that cross the neighbourhood on key avenues only with a much finer grain devoted to cycling and walking.
Water is used as a naturalistic landscape feature, is recycled and large areas are given over to floodwater attenuation - likely key for climate resilience.
An overview of the Net Zero Neighbourhood
Materials are stored, cleaned, measured and catalogued so that not a single MDF offcut or roll of sheeps wool insulation is lost - and toward the end of their life they are either recycled, re-purposed for non building uses or can naturally degrade.
Trees provide much needed summer shade - with an ambitious 40% canopy cover to streets, rooftops are biodiverse and provide ecological linkages. Allotments and growing spaces add much for insects and birds too.
The true purpose of the Net Zero Neighbourhood is to make a place where living a life free from fossil fuels and environmental harm is made easy. Being healthy, happy and social is perhaps the greatest benefit of a carbon free life! As the Max Fordham House demonstrates this is not a pipedream but a very possible and tangible future that we now must enact.
