Zero Ambitions Podcast

People off the telly don't tend to know the first thing about sustainability, let alone possess a properly anoraky understanding of the subject, but Charlie Luxton is different.

Jeff and Alex spoke to Charlie about his approach to sustainability, how to communicate about the benefits of sustainability, asking more questions to our clients, and about the state of architectural education, among other things.

For those who, like Jeff, have been living under a rock these past 20 years, Charlie Luxton has presented numerous shows across British TV, including Building the Dream, Homes by the Sea and Impossible Builds (More 4), World's Wierdest Homes, SuperCommuters, Best Laid Plans (Channel 4), Modern British Architects (Channel 5), Britain’s Hidden Heritage (BBC 1), Restored to Glory and Rebuilding The Past (BBC 2), Homes and Property (ITV) and The Great Treehouse Challenge (Sky Living).

Charlie and his wife Kate Luxton also run an architectural practice, Charlie Luxton Design, whose work seems to be annoyingly well conceived.

Kudos to Grace Fraser from heat recovery ventilation supplier Airflow for connecting Jeff and Charlie.

Notes from the episode

• Salk Insitute: https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/louis-kahn-salk-institute
• Ditchley park: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ditchley_Park
• The Camden project Jeff mentions: https://passivehouseplus.ie/news/design-approaches/study-extreme-overheating-not-reflected-in-building-simulations
• Charlie's house - https://charlieluxtondesign.com/charlie-builds-house/
• Charlie Luxton Design's office, Black Barn Studios: https://charlieluxtondesign.com/buildings/black-barn-studios/
• Airthings - Internal air quality monitoring: https://www.airthings.com/en-gb/
• Skipton Building society's carbon profiling of its building portfolio: https://www.skipton.co.uk/about-us/our-environment
• Charlie's Cornish holiday home: https://www.granddesignsmagazine.com/self-build/charlie-luxton/
• Helen Macarthur Foundation: https://ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/
• RHS Malvern garden built from waste materials: https://charlieluxtondesign.com/rhs-malvern/

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

• Zero Ambitions Partners email address - [email protected]
• Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
• Email Alex and Dan about user research, websites, and communications - [email protected]; Everything is User Experience
• Join ACAN
• Join the AECB
• Join the IGBC
• Listen to Accelerate to Zero, Sara's podcast produced at BE-ST, on Apple or Spotify

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

This week, Jeff, Alex and Dan are joined by Dr. Peter Rickaby, a man who should need little introduction to those who know the sector well, and to the listeners of our podcast, he's been on twice before.

To those less familiar with him, he's an expert in the sector, who's devoted a career to improving energy efficiency in the built environment in the UK with a particular interest in retrofit.

This week, rather than talk about a particular piece of work or technology, we wanted to talk about a slightly more esoteric subject: who can you trust? In other words, how difficult is to know what to do about anything. It's something we talk about amongst ourselves a lot, and presumably you our listeners find yourselves talking about much the same.

The challenge here can probably be best summed up by the endless heat pump debate, in which we're asked to often hold two contradictory and correct positions at the same time: every home can be heated by a heat pump vs. not every home is suitable for a heat pump. We thought Peter would be a great person to talk about it because of the length and breadth of his experience, and he's a great speaker.

We took in the housing market, heat pumps, hydrogen, retrofit, snake oil and more. In spite of our conversational meandering and rambling, we did actually manage to come up with, albeit a very short list, of people that we do think you can actually trust. Anyway, we hope you enjoy the conversation as much as we did.

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

• Zero Ambitions Partners email address - [email protected]
• Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
• Join ACAN
• Join the AECB
• Join the IGBC
• Listen to Accelerate to Zero, Sara's podcast produced at BE-ST, on Apple or Spotify
• Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - [email protected]; Everything is User Experience

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

This week we're joined by Dr. Oliver Kinnane and Dr. Richard O'Hegarty of University College Dublin to discuss their recently published paper: A whole life carbon analysis of the Irish residential sector - past, present and future.

In some ways it's quite a technical episode, delving into calculation methodology, but one tempered by lots of meandering diversions. The pair are academics who both occupy positions in the rarefied world of academia and can hold their own space at the coal face of the built environment, and this is one part of a body of work that is focused on unpicking the sort of detail that the industry really needs.

Their paper looks into carbon consumption in the residential sector, from both an operational and embodied perspective, forecasting results in line with Ireland's national development plan and climate action plan using a methodology that accounts for consumption, not just production.

Notes from the episode

• The paper we're discussing: A whole life carbon analysis of the Irish residential sector - past, present and future
• Their previous paper: Whole life carbon quantification of the built environment: Case study Ireland
• Grant Chalmers' tweet illustrating changes in regional carbon consumption: April 2023 median carbon intensity gCO2eq/kWh) and power consumption breakdown (%). Data via Electricity Maps, table via R {gt} package.
• Another paper: Small Penises and Fast Cars: Evidence for a Psychological Link
• The Building in a Climate Emergency Research Lab

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

• Zero Ambitions Partners email address - [email protected]
• Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
• Join ACAN
• Join the AECB
• Join the IGBC
• Listen to Accelerate to Zero, Sara's podcast produced at BE-ST, on Apple or Spotify
• Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - [email protected]; Everything is User Experience

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

This week Alex and Dan were joined by Emma Elston (Sustainability Associate) and Amandeep Singh Kalra (Associate Director) to talk about all things MMC (modern methods of construction).

The pair are working on some pioneering projects that are utilising MMC in order to deliver value throughout the supply chain, including a construction pattern book that could be of massive value to everyone involved, long into the future.

Notes from the episode

• Be First Regeneration website / LinkedIn
• The Be First design team's Instagram
• Modernise or Die by Mark Farmer
• We haven't included the UK government website, as per Emma's recommendations (we're sure you'll be able to Google it though)
• Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey A Moore

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

• Zero Ambitions Partners email address - [email protected]
• Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
• Join ACAN
• Join the AECB
• Join the IGBC
• Listen to Accelerate to Zero, Sara's podcast produced at BE-ST, on Apple or Spotify
• Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - [email protected]; Everything is User Experience

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

What's it like trying to scale a retrofit start-up?

This episode welcomes Max Bloomfield and Alex Whitcroft, two of the folks from VundaHaus, to talk about their product, its ongoing design and development, and their preparations to scale the business as they raise funds from investors.

VundaHaus designs and manufactures a rapid-fit insulation solution for external wall insulation (EWI) of residential homes. It's a a sophisticated off-site, MMC, insulation jigsaw that’s been developed to make the logistics of installation much easier than traditional EWI.

There's more to the story but you can listen to that on the episode.

Notes from the show

• The VundaHaus website
• The KIN website
• Max Bloomfield on LinkedIn; email Max here
• Alex Whitcroft on LinkedIn; email Alex here
• The TransformER project

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

• Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)
• Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - [email protected]; Everything is User Experience
• Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
• Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
• Join ACAN
• Join the AECB
• Join the IGBC
• Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**