PEAK O TRANS TOW

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Rob Hopkins

IL AND ITION WNS

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If economic growth is only possible with the availability of cheap energy, what happens as production of oil peaks, and petroleum extraction declines? Rob Hopkins, an activist behind the Transition movement, argues for a new bottom-up approach to economic development that is also more localised and nourishing. Shifting the emphasis from sustainability towards resilience, he seeks a rethinking of the way local communities feed, house and power themselves.

Early in 2011, the World Economic Forums annual report advised the worlds governments on the key risks it believes they will face and will need to prepare for over the next 5 to 10 years.1 Risks were ranked in terms of their perceived economic impact and perceived likelihood of occurring within the next decade. Leading the field were the economic crisis, extreme energy price volatility and climate change. Yet in terms of the focus of governments around the world, one would assume that the economic crisis trumps everything else. Certainly the UK governments position appears to be shifting towards climate change being something you sort out once the economy is growing again. A growing number of academics are arguing that economic growth is only possible with the availability of cheap energy.2 As an International Energy Agency chief economist told a conference in Singapore in late 2011: The current high oil prices have the potential to strangle the economic recovery in many countries.3 However, an altogether different emerging approach argues that it is only by looking at these three issues together that any realistic view of the future is going to emerge. The Transition movement (sometimes known as the Transition Towns network, although there are now Transition cities, islands, villages, universities, businesses ...) argues that taken together, these challenges mean that the future will be more localised, more nourishing, and will need to shift the focus from sustainability to resilience. Resilience refers to the ability of individuals, communities or nations to be able to adapt to weather shocks. The Transition network further evolves this, arguing that the process of building this resilience could be the catalyst for a rethink of how local economies feed, house
Yannick Molin (self-builder), straw bale external insulation, Saint Berthevin, France, 2008 Natural building materials such as straw bales can also be used to retrofit existing buildings, such as this house in France.

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and power themselves. There are now thousands of Transition initiatives around the world, and the movement is spreading fast, supporting communities setting up their own energy companies, local currencies, food systems and much more. They are a bottom-up attempt to model localisation as economic development, and their focus is on what can be done when we get together with those around us, on our streets, in our neighbourhood.4 As Madeleine Bunting wrote in The Guardian: if you want to catch a glimpse of the kinds of places outside the political mainstream where the new politics might be incubated, take a look at the Transition movement it isnt so hard to see why politicians are so interested. The Transition movement is engaging people in a way that conventional politics is failing to do. It generates emotions that have not been seen in political life for a long time: enthusiasm, idealism and passionate commitment.5 So what has all this got to do with architecture? The Transition approach builds on the New Economics Foundations leaky bucket idea, which argues that one aim of economic policy should be to ensure that money cycles as many times as possible before it leaves, thereby creating more livelihoods and business opportunities.6 At present, most new housing projects in the developed world, even those that are very green, tend to import the materials from which they are built from wherever in the world they can be found the cheapest. However, in the same way that the concept of food miles explores the embodied energy

in the different components of our diet, it can be argued that building miles are just as important, and that the rediscovery of local building materials is a vital component of the shift to a truly resilient form of architecture. Local materials were, of course, the mainstay of vernacular architecture around the world. People built with what they could transport to the site via horse and cart. Cob buildings in Devon, UK, often cluster around the village pond that was excavated to provide the subsoil needed for the walls.7 Parts of the UK rich in timber still feature beautiful timber-framed homes designed to accommodate the types and shapes of timber found in local forests, while in other places the local architecture is dominated by the different types of stone found there. In more recent times, the rediscovery of local materials has resided mainly in the natural building movement, an international group of people, generally self-builders, experimenting with cob, straw bale, hemp/lime, earth bags, rammed earth, clay plasters and so on. While this has been hugely innovative, it has yet to impact greatly on the mainstream development industry. Gill Seyfang, an academic at the University of East Anglia, argues that the challenge ... is to better understand and therefore harness the creative energies of community-led solutions and adapt them for a wider mainstream setting.8 This is, in a small way at least, starting to change. In 2002, the UKs Suffolk Housing Society built two hemp/ lime council houses, and in 2010 North Kesteven District Council completed a development of straw bale council houses in Lincolnshire. Some materials that have emerged from the natural building world have started to gain more mainstream traction. Prefabricated straw-bale panels are now being produced,
Paul and Ivana Barclay (self-builders), natural building, Dartington, Devon, 2008 Cob walls, sheep wool insulation, local timber lathes and lime/ clay plaster local building materials in practice.

Local materials were, of course, the mainstay of vernacular architecture around the world. People built with what they could transport to the site via horse and cart. Cob buildings in Devon, UK, often cluster around the village pond that was excavated to provide the subsoil needed for the walls.

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and aerated clay bricks are another fascinating material with great potential for local manufacture. A report by the Princes Foundation for the Built Environment argued that such materials could have significant beneficial impacts for local communities, for example by enabling a more local workforce to be used, by enabling the materials to actually be made locally, and many opportunities for retraining and reskilling.9 There is also some fascinating research into the potential of natural materials in retrofitting the existing housing stock. A study by Keven Le Doujet looked at the role of straw bales for externally cladding existing homes, and found a number of examples where this was already happening in both the UK and France. Despite concluding that the design of much of the existing housing stock means that it is a good idea, but that even if it reaches its full potential it will not be sufficient in itself to improve the sustainability performance of UK buildings to the level required to tackle the combined challenge of energy security, climate change and the sustainable use of natural resources, Le Doujet states his belief that it would be a viable solution for around 5 per cent of the UKs housing stock.10 The Holy Grail, however, from a Transition perspective, would be a building that is built to Passivhaus11 standards yet uses mostly local building materials. Two buildings recently completed in Ebbw Vale in Wales, the Lime House and the Larch House, have significantly moved this whole idea forward. The aim of the bere:architects designs was the use of a high percentage of local materials including sourced Welsh timber, local stone and slate, and Welsh-made insulation. The first used around 80 per cent local materials (local referring here to South Wales), but needed to import high-performance windows

from Germany. The second passed 90 per cent after working with a local joiner who was able, with some support, to produce Passivhaus-certified windows. As to how scalable this is, and whether 80 per cent could be an achievable national target for more localised building, Justin Bere of bere:architects believes that in time, people will be forced to do better than 80 per cent!,12 although he was talking here in terms of the drivers for this being not enlightened government legislation, but rather volatile energy prices and increased transportation costs. One key challenge to such an approach is that the infrastructure to support it is not currently anywhere near sufficiently developed in the UK. However, in Austria, for example, the infrastructure for making Passivhaus-standard windows and doors with local timber is thriving; young people can start training in the necessary skills at age 14 and rapidly reach high levels of competency quickly. In the UK this does not exist in the same way, and requires time and commitment if the same kind of infrastructure is to be developed. This leads to another of the Transition movements concepts, that of the Great Reskilling,13 which refers to the need for a huge shift in what builders are taught in order to rapidly move the industry further towards these new approaches and techniques. Materials that may form the mainstay of a more locally resilient, low-carbon building economy could include timber, slate, straw, clay, hemp, lime, wool, recycled paper, milk and local pigments (for paints) and stone. At the moment, many of the wood-fibre boards used to insulate buildings in the UK are imported from Germany, but they could be produced in the UK relatively easily, in the same way that manufactured clay plasters could be.

bere:architects, Larch House and Lime House, Ebbw Vale, South Wales, 2010 The Larch House (below) and Lime House (opposite) were the first demonstrations of the concept of the local Passivhaus to be built.

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If architecture were to shift its focus towards the use of local materials, the advantages for local economies could be huge. A good sign of a sustainable household is one that thinks: Its time for supper, right, whats in the garden? Likewise, a sustainable community, a resilient community, is one that starts the process of building new houses by asking: What materials can we use locally? What skills do we have locally? How might the economies of scale created by this development enable the creation of new industries, livelihoods and skills? It is a big shift, but as a response to the subtitle of this issue, Architecture in an Age of Depleting Resources, one might suggest the role of architecture is to embrace the end of the age of cheap energy and, highly probably, the end of the age of economic growth as we have understood it for the last 150 years, and to see both as the beginning of something else. The beginning of a more localised, resilient, diverse context in which the buildings we design will have the responsibility of having the lightest possible footprint, but also be truly rooted in place, and designed to create the maximum return for the people and the local economies in which they sit. Unlike other industries that make disposable goods, architecture/construction is creating structures that will last for decades, and potentially centuries. In this context, perhaps more than any other sector of our economy, it needs to take the long view, and embody what Jason F McLennan calls the near-heavy, far-light economy: In thenearfuture, he writes, anythingheavywill become intensely local while at the same time the limits to things that are light, ideas, philosophies, information will travel even further than today literally and figuratively.14 2

In thenearfuture anythingheavywill become intensely local while at the same time the limits to things that are light, ideas, philosophies, information will travel even further than today literally and figuratively.

Notes 1. World Economic Forum, Global Risks 2011, Sixth Edition, Executive Summary, 2011; see www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GlobalRisks_ ExecutiveSummary_2011_EN.pdf. 2. For example, Tim Jackson, Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet, Earthscan Publications (London), 2009, and Peter A Victor, Managing Without Growth: Slower by Design, Not Disaster, Edward Elgar (Cheltenham and Northampton, MA), 2008. 3. Associated Press, High Oil Prices Threaten Global Economy: IEA Warns Crude has Jumped to $100 a Barrel from $75 in October Amid Signs the US Economy will Likely Avoid a Recession, The Guardian, 14 December 2011; see www.guardian.co.uk/ business/2011/dec/14/iea-high-oil-pricesglobal-economy. 4. For more information on Transition see www.transitionnetwork.org. 5. Madeleine Bunting, Beyond Westminsters Bankrupted Practices a New Idealism is Emerging: Progressive Politics will Take Root from the Rubble of a Labour Defeat. The Transition Movement is Giving Us a Glimpse Now, The Observer, 31 May 2009; see www. guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/31/ reform-transition-a-new-politics. 6. www.pluggingtheleaks.org/index.htm. 7. An excellent overview of English vernacular building can be found in A Clifton-Taylor, The Pattern of English Building, 4th edn, Faber and Faber (London), 1987. 8. Gill Seyfang, Community Action for Sustainable Housing: Building a Low-Carbon Future, Energy Policy 38(12), 2010, pp 762433. 9. James Hulme and Noah Raford, Sustainable Supply Chains That Support Local Economic Development, Princes Foundation for the Built Environment, 2010; see www. princes-foundation.org/sites/default/files/ pfbe_supplychains_paper_2010.pdf. 10. Keven Le Doujet, Opportunities for the Large-Scale Implementation of Straw-Based External Insulation as a Retrofit Solution of Existing UK Buildings, MPhil dissertation, University of Cambridge Engineering Centre for Sustainable Development, August 2009; see http://tinyurl.com/6hjqs45. 11. A Passivhaus has been defined as a building in which thermal comfort is guaranteed solely by reheating (or recooling) the fresh air that is required for satisfactory air quality. Natural Building Technologies (NBT), Timber Frame System Passivhaus: the Science of Nature, the Future of Construction, 2009. See www.natural-building.co.uk/ PDF/Pavatex/090216_Technical_Manual_ PASSIVHAUS.pdf. 12. From an interview with Justin Bere, April 2011. The full interview can be found at http://transitionculture.org/2011/04/11/thelocal-passivhaus-an-interview-with-justin-bere. 13. See Rob Hopkins, The Transition Companion: Making Your Community Resilient in Uncertain Times, Green Books (Devon), 2011. 14. Jason F McLennan, Local Economies for a Global Future: Yes, We Need to Relocalize But That Doesnt Mean Were Headed for Provincialism. Anticipating OurNearHeavy,Far-LightFuture, Yes! Magazine, 11 January 2012; see www.yesmagazine.org/ happiness/local-economies-for-a-global-future.

Text 2012 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: p 74 Yannick Molin; p 75 Rob Hopkins; pp 767 Justin Bere Architects, photos Jefferson Smith

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