AJ Climate Champions podcast – Steve Webb & Wilf Meynell: ‘We’re brainwashed into steel and concrete mode’

Webb describes what it will take to transform an industry fixated on concrete and steel, and outlines simple steps to decarbonise Victorian house extensions, while Meynell explains the budget challenges of low-carbon retrofit and why architecture is essentially political.

If you want to find out more about sustainability in architecture, the entire AJ Summit programme from March 2021 is free to watch on demand until June. More than 20 sessions capture thought leadership on whole-life carbon,  circularity, building performance, community engagement, the adverse impacts of demolition and more. Also hear keynote speaker AIA Gold Medal winner Ed Mazria in conversation with podcast host Hattie Hartman on the runup to COP 26.

Find Climate Champions on your favourite podcast app: subscribe via Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Deezer and Podbean

About Steve Webb

Webb Yates co-founder Steve Webb has pioneered the use of structural stone as an abundant low-carbon alternative to concrete. Last year he collaborated with Amin Taha of Groupwork on the New Stone Age exhibition at London’s Building Centre.

Unafraid to challenge clients to consider building with timber, Webb has successfully increased the use of timber on recent projects such as the Hoover Building and York House.

Show notes: resources mentioned in this episode

Time to stop tinkering with global warming by Steve Webb

How to slash CO₂ in home improvement projects by Steve Webb

York House (2019) by dMFK Architects

Source: Jack Hobhouse

.

At York House, Webb Yates was instrumental in persuading the client to extend the 1980s building near King’s Cross to the front with a CLT structure behind a self-supporting perforated brick screen. Two new floors on top of the existing building also have a CLT structure.

Hoover Building (2018) by Interrobang/Webb Yates Engineers

In the conversion of the Hoover Building to residential use, Webb Yates proposed the replacement of steel partitions between units with gang-nail trusses, resulting in significant cost and carbon savings.

About Wilfred Meynell

Meynell is a director Studio Bark, which has established a strong track record of using natural and locally sourced materials since its founding in 2014. The practice prides itself on delivering cost-conscious environmental architecture.

U-Build, a sister company of Studio Bark, manufactures a flat-pack demountable building system ideally suited to garden studios and internal fit-outs but also applicable to large buildings.

Everything Needs to Change: Architecture and the Climate Emergency, edited by Sofie Pelsmakers and Nick Newman, RIBA Publishing, 2021

ACAN (Architects Climate Action Network) Embodied Carbon group

Credits

Climate Champions is produced in association with ACAN, the Architects’ Climate Action Network

Podcast edited by Concept Culture

Music: Edmilson do Pífano, Forró de dois Amigos. Interpretation: Felipe Tanaka e banda Balaio de Baião