Lucy Roper’s Built Environment blog: ‘Housing revolution’, endangered buildings and a ‘landmark project’

Posted on: 2019-10-29

The latest blog from UCEM Information Governance Manager, Lucy Roper, sees Lucy turn her attention to a bold statement from the new Housing Secretary, 10 buildings in need of some urgent care and a new airport for Beijing…

Cleaning up our act

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll be aware that we face some fairly weighty environmental challenges as a species which could define the lifespan of Earth as we know it. Wherever possible, we have to come up with better, sustainable ways of living.

The new Housing Minister, Robert Jenrick, has acknowledged this with the announcement of a new green standard (described as a ‘green housing revolution’ on the government’s website) for all new build homes designed to cut carbon emissions. Gas boilers will be banned from new homes by 2025 and replaced with clean technology. Every local authority has been tasked with coming up with a housing design guide, reflecting the area’s character and meeting the national standard. Hidden among the more perplexing Brexit updates on the news, this is certainly a step in the right direction.

Endangered species

With Sir David Attenborough once again returning to our screens in the BBC’s new ‘Seven Worlds, One Planet’ series and warning of the threats to certain animal species due to human activity, it’s apt that The Victorian Society has announced this year’s 10 most endangered buildings.

The Society champions Victorian and Edwardian buildings in England and Wales, and has published its annual ‘at-risk’ list since 2010. Among the buildings in the list are a gothic country mansion in Norfolk, a disused railway tunnel in West Yorkshire and a Grade II-listed library in Liverpool. The announcement gained widespread coverage from the likes of the BBC and ITV which hopefully will go some way to being seen by those who may be able to conserve these buildings.

World’s largest terminal at new airport

Beijing’s new $13bn Daxing International Airport has the world’s largest terminal (670,000 sq m), seven runways and 78 gates with a capacity to serve 45 million passengers per year. Construction of the airport was completed less than five years after work on it began with Chinese President Xi Jinping calling it a ‘landmark project’. Quite the achievement by engineer, ADP Ingénierie, and designer, Lead 8!

For more from Lucy, take a look at the latest edition of Knowledge Foundations.