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Manchester lifestyle reviews |
![]() Do Stuff: Sustainability vs. ProgressNorth Tea Power Cafe - December 2010Reviewed by Mark Iddon, panel memberDo Stuff is the initiative of Manchester architect, Ric Frankland, and aims to be a series of events on the subjects of design and sustainability with the intention to ‘listen - discuss - debate - Do!’ and will take place on a bi-monthly basis.
The first event took place in December 2010 at the North Tea Power café, Tib Street, in Manchester’s Northern Quarter, with a debate on the subject ‘Sustainability vs. Progress’.
North Tea Power is a café that prides itself on its tea, but also offers a range of coffees like the really nice and well presented Mocha that I enjoyed. It is a recently opened café and with its modest decoration and friendly patrons, is an unpretentious venue conducive to open and forthright debate.
The host for the evening was Adnan Sarwar who introduced the debate with a short animation compiled by Ric Frankland called ‘The story of Stuff’ suggesting that the material economy may be in crisis due to the over-accumulation of ‘stuff’. A diagram was also shown which illustrated the relationships between ecology, economy and social issues, such as recycling, energy production, and fair trade. This gave rise to questions as to the scale of solutions (individual vs. global) required? Also, is it fashionable to be green or is human activity really killing the planet? What is the impact on progress, and do sustainable proposals inhibit progress?
The panel introduced themselves as;
Sara started the discussion with images illustrating some of the problems the world is facing at present, such as traffic congestion, increasing population of the world, pollution and waste disposal. Visuals of ‘BedZED’ housing, a zero carbon development for the Peabody trust, a glass house by the architect Greg Timberlake and a visitor centre by Walker Simpson Architects, were presented to show that sustainable architecture does not mean that buildings can’t be beautiful or elegant. The glass house incorporated discreet solar strips for energy production and the visitor centre incorporated straw bales to achieve a high standard of thermal insulation. Other slides indicated how wind turbines can be incorporated into the design of a building to compliment a contemporary form, rather than appearing like incompatible additions. Sara noted that although new houses achieve good standards of efficient energy distribution and thermal insulation performance, older houses were in need of upgrading to avoid haemorrhaging heat, which is wasted to the atmosphere.
This was illustrated in an image of the Pont De Garabit, bridge, an elegantly engineered structure crossing a valley that was inhospitable to rail transport. Mark suggested that we should oppose the reductionist agenda and demand more innovation, research and development to solve future issues such as the energy crisis and climate change to achieve real progress.
One audience member asked Sara, if there were cost implications in developing houses to the zero carbon standard? Another asked what is the problem with burying landfill and landscaping the site for recreation purposes? He also questioned the rationality of making improvements to old houses when they could be demolished and replaced by hi-tech prefabricated ones that could be more efficient, functional and erected quickly. Sara said there were different levels of sustainability that would be appropriate according to the budget criteria. She was concerned that burying landfill would contribute to increasing contaminants in the ground, and advocated that recycling should be encouraged. In response to another question on nuclear energy Sara was concerned over the residual life of nuclear waste and suggested more research would be required prior to nuclear energy being a viable proposal.
There were clearly many conflicting ideas that could have been debated for much longer, but the time passed too quickly to really challenge the panellists’ views and interrogate the implications of their argument. Fortunately, there was time for people to mill around and discuss more informally in the relaxed atmosphere of the North Tea Power café. This was indeed a taster event for ‘Do Stuff’ and we can look forward to the next event on 7th February 2011.
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