Beddington Zero Energy Development
BedZED
by Guy Dauncey
The Beddington Zero Energy Development (BedZED)
is a high density, high amenity, carbon neutral, sustainable
urban ecovillage located in Sutton, 20 kilometres south of
central London.
Origins
BedZED is an award winning, 92 home urban village, in south
London, that has demonstrated that carbon neutral ecological
living can be affordable, attractive and commercially successful.
BedZED has its origins with the BioRegional Development Group,
an independent environmental organisation which develops products
and services designed to meet our everyday needs from local renewable
and waste resources, and to demonstrate that humans can live
quite happily while consuming only their fair share of the Earth’s
resources.
Aims and Objectives
BioRegional’s original intention was to simply relocate to green
offices as they were outgrowing their original building. However
when BioRegional met eco-architect Bill Dunster in 1997, and
found a 1.6 hectare development site in their area, the partners
plans grew into designing an urban cluster of homes and offices
that would make sustainable living easy, affordable and attractive.
The Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions
has estimated that by 2016, Britain will need over four million
new homes. If these homes are built at the current levels of
density, they will cover an area land greater than the whole
of Greater London, and create an additional burden of stress,
road congestion, greenhouse gas emissions, landfill waste and
unsustainable living that will impact the whole nation.
In 1997, the partners linked up with The Peabody Trust and the
London Borough of Sutton to develop a project on the 1.6 hectares
brownfield site of an old sewage works. A set of green building
and design goals was established reflecting many dimensions of
sustainable ecological living, and the consulting engineers Ove
Arup and Partners joined the team, along with Ellis and Moore
(structural and civil engineering) and Gardner and Theobald (construction).
One of the conditions of planning consent imposed by Sutton was
that the project should achieve a 50% reduction in fossil fuel
consumption from private car use over the next ten years, compared
to normal development.
Construction started in 2000 on 92 dwellings and 2,500 square
metres of workspace, offices, and community accommodation, including
a nursery, sports club house and 5-a-side football pitch. The
residents started moving in March 2002, and nearly all the homes
were sold within six months of completion, at prices starting
around £102,000.
Features
The village is just a few minutes walk from Hackbridge railway
station, and the first thing to strike the eye is the curbed
nature of the roofs, and the large brightly coloured wind cowls
on the roof. The homes have all been designed so that they face
south to maximize their passive solar gain, using masonry and
concrete to store the sun’s heat, and super-insulated to a very
tight standard of energy efficiency, including triple glazed
argon filled windows and 30 centimetre insulated wall cavities.
Such well-sealed buildings need a regular air exchange, and the
rooftop cowls use the wind’s energy to channel fresh air into
the rooms, pushing the warm stale air out. As the air leaves,
its heat is transferred to the incoming air through a simple
system of 19 plastic bag dividers located at the base of the
wind funnels, which transfers around 70% of the heat into the
incoming cold air. It is by measures such as this that the project
has managed to reduce the amount of energy needed for space heating
by 88% compared to an average UK home. In order to reduce its
energy demand further, all of the homes have been fitted with
super-efficient lighting and appliances, lower volume baths,
and water efficient taps and showers.
The heat and electricity for the whole project is generated
onsite in a biomass combined heat and power plant which burns
chipped tree waste from the London Boroughs of Sutton and Surrey,
which would otherwise have gone to the landfill (generating methane),
providing almost all the hot water and electricity the site needs.
A 109 kilowatt array of 1138 photovoltaic (PV) panels on the
roof, installed by BP Solar, provide around 88,000 kWh of electricity
for the site. The PV panels also provide shade for the conservatories,
and are an integral part of the building envelope. They cost £420,000,
with subsidies from the EU Fifth Framework programme, the DTi
and SEEBOARD.
BedZED’s water consumption has been reduced by 33% simply through
the use of dual flush toilets and low water appliances and fittings.
When fully commissioned BedZED’s Green Water Treatment Plant,
which treats all the site’s waste water and sewage, will reduce
mains water use by a further 33%. The Green Water Treatment Plant
is biologically-based using plant roots and microbes to remove
the nutrients from the waste water and sewage, recycling it back
as clean water to be used to flush the toilets and for irrigation.
Where possible, recycled building materials have been used,
and the bulk building supplies have been taken from within a
35 mile radius, including 50% of the concrete and 80% of the
timber, reducing the impact of heavy trucks burning fuel while
they haul materials all over the world. The timber came from
local hardwood forests that have been certified by the Forest
Stewardship Council for their sustainable ecosystem based management.
Transport
The single biggest impact of most housing is the transport that
we generate as we travel to work, play, and shop. BedZED’s goal
is a 50% reduction in private fossil fuelled car miles over ten
years, compared to the area’s average. BedZED is well located
close to railway stations and bus routes, and within easy walking
distance of local schools and shops. BedZED includes 1,600 square
metres of workspace and offices for 100 workers, making it possible
for the residents to work on site. A nursery, dance studio, and
club house are included in the design, reducing the need to travel.
Every home has been equipped with an easy arrangement to receive
a weekly box delivery of organic produce, reducing the need for
shopping, and high speed internet links encourage on-line grocery
shopping.
To reduce the need for car ownership, BedZED has generous bike
storage facilities, and links to Sutton’s existing cycle network,
and its own car share club - Zed Cars, which has 42 members.
Each shared car displaces four or five privately owned vehicles.
Living at BedZED
BedZED is a deliberately high density settlement, with 82 homes
on just 1.6 hectares, including a large green open space with
space for allotment gardens, and yet every home has either a
conservatory, and/or a private rooftop garden on top of the workspace
roofs that can accommodate raised beds.
This is a density of 130 homes per hectare, far higher than
most new town settlements. If all of the four million new homes
that are needed by 2016 were built in a similar manner, they
could be placed on existing brownfield sites, eliminating the
need to use any agricultural land.
Of the 92 units, 44 were sold privately; 23 are under shared
ownership; 10 have been rented to key local workers; and 15 are
for affordable social housing. Nearly all of the units were sold
within 6 months, and the result is a mix of people and ages who
are experiencing a very satisfactory sense of community.
Structure and Finance
The £17 million project was accomplished by a partnership including
the BioRegional Development Group, the Peabody Trust, the Department
of the Environment & Transport, Bill Dunster Architects,
Ove Arup Consulting Engineers, Gardiner & Theobald Quantity
Surveyors, the London Borough of Sutton, and Ellis and Moore.
Performance
BedZED’s performance can be rated in several ways. As a high
density community of people, the residents are reporting that
they enjoy living there. As a commercial development, the units
sold very quickly. As a carbon neutral project, the combinations
of energy and water efficiency, heat recovery and local carbon
neutral power production are achieving their goals. Water heating
has been reduced by 57%, space heating by 88%, electricity consumption
by 25% and water use by 33%, compared to an average UK home.
Since most of the power and heat comes from carbon neutral sources,
BedZED’s main greenhouse gas emissions result from the reduced
amount of trips by fossil fuels cars that are still being used.
Equally important, BedZED demonstrates a strong contribution
to local economic development, through the provision of local
workplaces, the encouragement for walking and local shopping,
and the use of locally sourced building materials. BedZED also
demonstrates a way to accommodate the UK’s planned population
growth while demonstrating a model for sustainable living, and
local economic development.
For further information contact:
Jennie Organ,
BioRegional Development Group
BedZED Centre, 24 Helios Road
Wallington, Surrey
SM6 7BZ
Telephone: +44 (0) 20 8404 4881
Fax: +44 (0) 20 8404 4893
Email: info@bioregional.com + jennieorgan@bioregional.com
Website: www.bioregional.com
Written by Guy Dauncey, Sustainable Communities Consultancy,
Victoria, B.C., Canada
www.earthfuture.com
First
published in LEDIS, November 2004
