Passive Passion...

... a summary of what is PassivHaus

 

Passive Passion trailer from Charlie Hoxie on Vimeo.

You can watch the full video here.

Carpe diem!

a non affordable Expo...

now offering affordable luxury

"a warm welcome to the Highlands"

Do you remember the above photo of the main entrance to the Highland Housing Fair or Highland Housing Expo as it was renamed on its way to become a brilliant success? That's how it started, that's how it went on and that's how it ends: Expo's Funky Town in the bin:

Inverness Courier, 17-10-11: Luxury housing fair homes now selling as "affordable"

THREE of the prestigious houses built for Inverness’ controversial housing expo are being marketed as affordable homes as organisers try desperately to sell the 24 remaining properties before April.
The terraced houses, which feature Ikea kitchens, Neff appliances, ground source heat pumps and solar panels, are valued at £200,000 but are being marketed on an 80/20 shared equity basis, leaving the purchaser to find £160,000.
If the move proves successful, expo organiser Highland Housing Alliance is likely to try and sell more of the homes in this way.

I bet, once three more units are sold it will be then described as the greatest success in Scottish history of what once will have been a world's first and the globe's market leading event or some kind of other beloved exaggerations that have accompanied this disaster all along.

And how do you define "luxury", by the way?

Carpe diem!

More from the Inverness Courier:
Affordable Homes at 300,000? 
Expo homes in running for design awards 
Housing Expo to mount sales drive in bid to recoup 6m
-   (...just decide what headline you would like to give this one!)

next winter might be a cold one...

...saw Germans putting up snow poles in the Highlands last night...


Carpe diem hiems!

dogs bark elsewhere...

... certainly not in the Highlands:

Watchdog refuses to probe council role in housing fair bailout

27 of 30 remain unsold... funny; and there are no complaints from those who are bailed out? Reminds me of those birds flocking together, or was it dogs?

Carpe diem!

cutting our nose...

... to spite our face!

Highland Council needs to cut expenses!

Investments into education are regarded as just that: expenses!

So cutting our future might safe or save what...?

If you think that makes sense then don't bother! If not, please sign and discuss and indignez vous!! That is for all of us, whether for your own children or in responsibility for our society's children!

Support Highland Classroom Assistants Petition Online Petition: Highland Council is proposing to axe all 350 Classroom Assistant posts from primary schools in the Highlands. We believe this will have an ... www.gopetition.com/petition/42573.html Carpe diem!

new year: old news

All the best for another year of more of the same: unsolved but mixed problems! Take it easy!

On the Euro and the Yuan;
China and Grangemouth;
Affordables, efficiencies
and the Scottish Expo!

The Euro's main function now during its finale seems to be to assist the US $ in paving the path for the Chinese Yuan to become the world's sole key currency. Sounds odd?

Nothing odd about China's intelligent moves to install themselves as the one and only superpower while the decadent rest watches and applauds. And really, for all their investments they use that green paper covered in rot and mold while most of their investments into e.g. deprived harbours in Portugal, Greece or Scotland are covered by petty cash:

The operators of the Grangemouth oil refinery have struck a deal with China's largest oil and gas producer to safeguard the future of the facility.

At the weekend, it was announced that Scotland and China had sealed a major green energy deal, worth $10m (£6.4m).

Petty cash that opens a flood gate - for China:

It will see technology pioneered in Scotland used at a new renewable energy conversion plant in China.

Combined with technology transfer: clever deals, China! I would like to see that "technology pioneered in Scotland"; to me it rather seems like Grangemouth needs an urgent upgrade itself to possibly understand that 20 or 30 metre high flare flames from burning off flare gas 24/7 could be considered as an substantial waste of energy, not to mention an enormous carbon belcher - obviously it is not any financial problem: we, the stupid customers using stupid gas pumps or desperately in need of energy to fight the cold in our eco-houses will be paying the bill: anyway!

Oh: and two flames are heating up that frosty sky above those human ecotopes at least twice as efficient!

Those Low Energy Home Tenants sitting in eco-friendly homes representing all those stupid marketing credentials while facing sky high power bills would probably love to have their share in those Chinese flames of Grangemouth.

"Some of them are switching the heating off altogether because they cannot afford to keep it going. To build eco-houses that people cannot afford to live in is just not right."
The development, a mix of flats and two and three bedroom houses, was built by Tulloch Homes Express just over 12 months ago.

The properties are fitted with under-floor heating powered by an exhaust heat pump system which recycles hot air. In its 2010 annual report Cairn boasted that the homes would provide tenants with low heating and water bills.

By the way, I commented on the article; must have been lost for many days or could it actually be the case that the Inverness Courier does not want to lose an express client?

This is old news, again an unsolved but an ever increasing problem; the modern society's version of "biting the hand that feeds one..." called progress, growth, prosperity and a human life!? In Germany it is currently called "dioxin crisis", you could also name it "Haiti" or "banksters" or just "peak globe"!

click to enlarge

That last August, remember? I dared to write about our visit to the Scottish Housing Expo, a lot of criticism, some asked me why I would be so grumpy? No mention of me being unfair, wrong or untrue. Here is an update on its sales:

Sales of properties at the site of Scotland's Housing Expo have been mixed almost five months after the event finished in August last year.

Albyn Housing Society said it had sold 10 of its 11 homes at Balvonie Braes in Inverness.

The organisation added that there was interest from someone in its remaining property.

Highland Housing Alliance, one of the expo organisers, has still to sell all of its 27 homes.
The event, showcasing eco-friendly and energy efficient designs, was held during the whole of August.

Backed by Highland Council and the Scottish government, the expo attracted 30,000 visitors.

This "backed by ..." you can find here; a +two million package with mixed sales and modern cladding:

No, I am not a grumpy old man; not yet, just an old, slightly mixed sarcastic realist.

Carpe diem!

lie the unthruth

My recent blog on the Highland Housing Expo has triggered some strange reactions. Some asked why I would purposely "damage Scotland's and the Scotts' reputation" by criticising Scottish craftsmen, architects and builders so directly and drastically?

Hello?

I had described the most obvious which obviously and directly leads to the ones responsible for same! What is wrong with that? The key word here is “responsibility”, which at least in former times, came with every and anything one did. To stick with the subject who ever designed, developed, built, cut, screwed or painted anything was responsible for what and how he did it.

Has that changed? If so, should I say "Sorry, I offended you - I should have lied"??

I had commented elsewhere:

I admire you trying and really managing to say the truth while circumnavigating the obvious which, as in most cases, would include addressing the ones responsible for the disaster. At the same time I doubt whether this helps to improve things, to get better, to learn and train people from craftsmen to architects, engineers to customers per se and in the end to solve problems that we – all and together - need to deal with so desperately.

Not daring to say the truth, being afraid of criticism, of criticizing or simply to may be violate any kind of superstitious law, i.e. a discrimination act or similar … will not help us achieve anything and in the end puts even more responsibility on those hiding behind such excuses as on those not seeing and/or not understanding the real problems.

Tomorrow we will read how great a success it was, all aims achieved, visitors in loads and progress all over, may be next time we add some fireworks; no worries, life goes on and the Affordables will be affordable from now on.

My comment above was "used" against another blogger’s opinion of “how the ideas and buildings shown at the EXPO could be relevant across Scotland…” which you will find here.

This opinion, thrown at me by a number of people, is one from a designer’s point of view, something that I had sensibly avoided as a) it is not really my field and b) it definitely is not measurable, hence, no measure for what the Highland Housing Expo was supposed to stand for (if the link doesn’t work here or here might help; I wonder why this www.scotlandshousingexpo.com website is so slow; will it be shut down a week after the event, already, or do they work on it?

Just to remind us:

Featuring innovative construction and cutting edge sustainable systems the houses will showcase the very latest in product design, landscaping and interiors. Affordability and low running costs are a main part of the design brief.

Any design brief, of course, includes anelement of “art” but the overall majority of the design work would have to be donewith-your-hand-on-the-arm, that’s designing room shapes and sizes, ratios andfunctions, floor plans and elevations, interiors and exteriors.

Today, I am afraid,architects and designers have to include a flood of accurate calculations anddefinitions into their work limiting the artistic elements and forcing those into what might exactly not be what an architect thinks he wants to be doing. But form follows function where function is much more than utilisation like sleeping, working, living or cooking; it does include energy performance and durability ruled by sustainability and – as always - cost. I know, it almost sounds as complicated as a sales pitch for features a’la RV-like slide-outs clad in copper surrounded “by sort-of robust walls” enclosing a Hemingway designed walled garden.

No kidding!

That's a prime example of why I refrain from discussing taste, flavor or design as in “art” and I believe, no arrogance hidden, that is what "designers" and many others should do vice versa. Example? Just one or three… in no relevant order and definitely not to discredit anybody.

While designed to catch one's eye, to make it different, almost unique, think!

Last winter we had 30" of snow, almost three months in a row, so the roof valley above would have been filled with snow, compacting to ice, thawing, freezing, more ice, clogging up the gutters. Is the roof construction made for one, two or three tonnes of ice? In the alps those gutters do have to be heated something which makes efficiency avoiding sustainability! While here design celebrates a form, its primary, most important function has to be questioned, to say the least.

Second example: the hatches (on the photos) were missing, so looking into lofts was easy, as easy as the craftsmen had taken the installation of any type of insulation; that included any pipework in the loft or the underside of any roof. It was explained to me that these were so called "cold roofs", ventilated to avoid condensation...: designed to last and losing heat?!

Well, give me a break. "... cutting edge sustainable systems..."

Apropos cut edges. Click on the next photo to make it larger, please; what you will see is rough, unplained timber, sprayed, it might be called "chalked" but it won't be chalk, it is made from fresh cut wood pieces, just touching, sucking in what should run down.

This clad will be an ongoing subject to maintenance, chemicals and energy, and even with the best intentions it will be hard to keep it up. I won't sing a song for the Scottish timber industry, at least as long the output besides low-grade timber is nothing but hollow words.

Walking with open eyes through and around the expo's houses you could have seen endless examples of how to not do things (another one was to see huge radiator sizes in the smallest rooms - obviously energy demand calculation programmes did not include "designing" the correct radiator surfaces). All that could be regarded as one of the pluses of the expo, at least, as long as customers tried to see and understand; left alone to do so they were! There was also enough material to discuss room sizes and designs or "miniature sinks in family bathrooms behind doors with the hook on the door aiming at the hand washer's skull"; with the majority of comments not really repeatable.

For sure the overall designs must have been a challenge for the Planners; I doubt whether it will be easy to take the vast majority of the designs and copy them elsewhere, at least in the Highlands, without major fights with Planning and neighbours; to go beyond tradition or only push traditional design a wee bit into future will be a challenge. In this respect the expo houses offer a brilliant opportunity for those who want to live in one. By the way, here you will find prices of some of the homes for sale.

Hopefully the area won't end up like somebody commented:

...who's paying him... ? ... those who knit their own yogurt or are placed there due to having nowhere else to live would want to live in the "Goldfish Bowl" that is the development at Highland Expo. Wait to see it in a few years, it will either have been bulldozed or be a very sorry sight of weathered wood and peeling paint.

While the organizers did what they had to do builders, architects, landscapers, bathroom and kitchen designers, even garden and furniture suppliers could have made a difference.


Carpe diem!


addendum: an Inverness Courier article on the energy efficiency of the HHExpo homes (07-092010) in general; somebody not lying the untruth!

Loch Ness closed

A tourist approaching Loch Ness on A82, the main road wonders whether the next layby is closed or rather 1/2 mile away - or both? Adding to the confusion is the fact that unlike all the other traffic signs those two are lacking the Gaelic translation?!

For close to two years the most prominent and first stop on the shores of Loch Ness has been closed: no money and the bins are full!

Carpe diem!