Homes and Buildings: Designing inclusively for climate

London’s housing stock was built for a different climate to the one we have today. This panel session focused on how to design and deliver climate resilience in new and existing homes.

Panellists explored where buildings sit in the wider challenge of equitable climate resilience and the mechanics of achieving change. What should a manifesto for building resilience include? Read on to find out.

Speakers

• Becci Taylor, Director, Arup (Chair)
• Tom Dollard, Partner, Pollard Thomas Edwards
• Kasang Kajang, Founding Director, KSQUARED
• Rob Krzyszowski, Assistant Director, Planning, Building Standards & Sustainability at Haringey Council
• Nicola Tilbury, Director, Potter Raper

Becci Taylor, Arup (Chair)

Becci leads Arup’s team of engineers that work on building resilience and decarbonization in Europe. She also leads Arup’s business on scaling retrofit in a UK context. The sector knows what needs to be done to adapt buildings, Becci said.

• We know that responding to events and repairing damage is more costly than investing in the adaptation of the buildings. But we need a cultural change to make resilience a priority, and link with other actions such as decarbonisation and building safety
• Many homes in London are unfit to withstand the challenges of our changing climate which is extreme. To address this, we urgently need an adaptation retrofit and behaviour change programme that operates effectively both at scale and on an individual level.
• It can be easier get residents engaged with climate resilience compared to mitigation. Because it’s about preparing for future direct impacts
• Climate resilience is compelling as an issue of collective action – the sum of individual efforts to avoid building overheating and urban heat island effect can be significant.

“The neighbourhoods and buildings vulnerable to heat often house our most vulnerable residents. This is a social justice issue. We must be inclusive in our approach to resilience.” – Becci Taylor

Tom Dollard, Pollard Thomas Edwards

Tom is Partner for Sustainability for Pollard Thomas Edwards. He’s also vice chair of Good Homes Alliance, a network organisation bringing members together around a mission to deliver better housing.

Tom authored Pollard Thomas Edward’s design guide ‘Shading for housing’ that calls for a new design culture in the UK.

• Embedding climate resilience at a building level requires systemic change, because London faces cultural, economic and regulatory barriers. That is to say: weather patterns aren’t yet seen as an emergency in the UK, upgrades are expensive, and the UK lacks clear regulatory guidance on keeping homes cool.
• There’s a need to design homes correctly from concept. This means including key features such as communal heat systems, deck access, dual aspect windows and horizontal banding of windows.
• Monitoring homes through post-occupancy evaluations is essential – to know how they are performing and to engage residents.

“Culturally, we haven’t prioritised resilience, because we’re not seeing disasters yet. When you’re designing homes you respond to the resident, the culture and the context – and the culture doesn’t see it as an issue.” – Tom Dollard

 Kasang Kajang, KSQUARED

Kasang is Founding Director of KSQUARED, a consultancy that helps landlords of social homes deliver retrofit. She shared practical actions to make change happen.

• Many landlords for social homes feel financially stuck between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, there’s a need to meet the Building Safety Act and carry out repairs. On the other, rent caps mean that income is limited.
• There is a wealth of funding available to upgrade social housing for sustainable targets. But organisations often need support making business cases to access it. Warmer Homes SHF, for example, we have accessed £5 million in funding for our clients.
• The built environment sector needs to see residents as key stakeholders, not people that change is happening to. Residents hold a lot of knowledge on what it is like to live in the home, the lived pain points and they should be included in meaningful retrofit discussions.

“We need a change in narrative, a change in dialogue and a change in strategy to make retrofit programs successful with futureproof thinking.” – Kasang Kajang

 Nicola Tilbury, Potter Raper

Nicolas is Director at Potter Raper, a firm of surveying consultants that works for the majority of London Boroughs. Her focus is on new build as well as retrofit.

The construction industry must change how viability is modelled, and be more open to risk, Nicola warned.

• Viability modelling currently only reflects capital expenditure costs; savings residents get from energy efficiency aren’t included in this equation. Factoring in the whole life cycle will encourage embedding sustainability into design.
• There’s a need for a cultural change in the construction industry. We all need to become curious, about the improvements to peoples lives we can make, and how well these improvements work.
• Post occupancy evaluations are critical. We need home user guides that enable residents to play their roles in climate resilience. For example, “get a resident to explain how fittings works, in plain English – then make this available via an app or a YouTube video”.

“The construction industry is typically a slow adopter of change. We watch from the sidelines. We need to embrace risk a bit more to shift the dial on sustainability.” – Nicola Tilbury

Rob Krzyszowski, Haringey Council

Rob is Assistant Director for Planning, Building Standards and Sustainability at Haringey Council.

Local authorities are democratically elected organisations, Rob said, and need to take a resident-centred approach to resilience.

• From a council perspective, there are two key ‘prongs’ to planning for climate resilience. Firstly, councils need to set high standards on planning applications for new buildings. And secondly, they need to enable retrofit.
• The built environment sector needs a culture of innovation – so that best practice today becomes the norm for the future.
• Haringey has created an action plan that straddles climate and sustainability. People working in the industry are in a privileged position to be able to do something about climate resilience, and must embrace the responsibility that comes with this.

Haringey Climate Change Action Plan (March 2021)
Haringey Council Housing Energy Action Plan (October 2022)

“Planning has a role in setting what policy is going forward and looking to the future. There’s a real opportunity in planning to play a very positive role, to set the highest and best standards for future proofing buildings.” – Rob Krzyszowski

Manifesto for change

The panel created a manifesto for immediate action – for all buildings to be adapted for climate in an equitable way (across heat, water stress, extreme weather and flooding)

1. Go beyond minimum compliance and ‘design checks’ to design better e.g. Healthy homes pledge
2. Planning and policy need to drive action and remove barriers e.g. permitted development for adaptation
3. Think about lifetime costs in decision making from viability modelling onwards – especially if its your asset! Include risk in this
4. Work with finance – there is ambition and we need to shift the narrative/ knowledge base
5. Residents are key – include in process; think about need, and use…all the way to good handover and POE
6. Lets use the information networks we have and add in resilience to performance metrics – from ‘Be Seen’ to Golden Thread to PAS 2035 to Building Passports to LAEPs.

Future of London’s takeaways

Thinking about climate resilience at a building level brings to the fore important issues for the sector. Climate-vulnerable people are more likely to live in climate-vulnerable homes: this is an equity issue.

Panellists shared that the construction industry lacks a culture for leading on change. In many ways, the industry already has the technical skills it needs – the challenge is the agility to deliver at scale. Becoming less risk-adverse can open up doors to create more social impact and greater financial returns in future.

Integrating climate resilience at a building level is a systemic issue. Regulation could drive improvements in cooling homes by increasing understanding and introducing stricter repercussions when buildings don’t deliver. It’s also possible to work in a more joined up way with the financial sector, panellists said.

There’s a need to think more holistically about the whole lifecycle of a building. The value of climate resilience is most evident when post-occupancy savings are taken into account. And engaging with residents is essential to understand which solutions work and chime with how residents use their homes.

Conference session write-ups

Keynotes: Mete Coban (Deputy Mayor), Emma Howard Boyd (London Climate Resilience Review), Indy Johar (Dark Matter Labs)

Fresh Perspectives – Young people-led panel discussion

Fresh Perspectives – Two US projects using art and culture to explore climate resilience

Including All Voices – ensuring communities are fully involved

Neighbourhood Futures – Tackling climate resilience and health equity

Homes and Buildings – Designing inclusive climate approaches

Council-led Housing Network – climate resilience through council development

Fresh Perspectives – Alumni ideas on climate resilience, plus domestic retrofit and infrastructure innovation in Arnhem

Inclusive Finance – Financial models for equitable climate resilience

Neighbourhoods – Designing inclusive climate approaches

Health and Racial Equity – Developing community-led action for ethnic minority communities

Make It Happen – Closing plenary with conference takeaways, including governance, finance and partnerships

Strand Aldwych Walking Tour – how a striking new landscape was created in the historic London

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The conference is part of our major Knowledge programme for 2024/25, with a final report in Spring 2025. Find out more about our Climate Resilience and Equity programme.

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