Facilitating green building: turning observation into practice

This thesis is the story of my five year journey developing a practice in integrating ‘green’ innovation within the built environment—mainly in new buildings. It is an exploratory thesis based on qualitative observation and documentation of my experience and detailed reflection on the successes and failures of this practice as I moved from naïve novice to expert. Initially I identified a great deal of desk-based and survey research on ‘green’ buildings, but little research actually looking at the field from within the practice of a building project. I thought that exploring this would create some understanding of why some ‘green’ initiatives were not taken up at the rate many people expected. Through the telling of the over fifty stories which make up this thesis, I hope that I can create vicarious experiences in readers thus enabling them to use my journey to reflect on their own paths and to therefore learn with me. A number of useful tools and methods I developed to support my practice are presented, along with the key insights I extracted from my experience: that different types of ‘green’ information are relevant at particular stages of the building life cycle; that reflective practice is an essential tool in a facilitative practice working in a discursive, dynamic and complex field; that the power, culture and nature of the agents play a role in the ability to successfully integrate ‘green’ innovation; and, most importantly, that there is a need for all agents to have a voice in the integration of ‘green’ innovation into a project. A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T S I would like to dedicate this piece of work to my parents and my sister. You are all an inspiration to me. Without you I would not be who I am or have had the strength to do this work. I would particularly like to thank my mother for taking time out of her holiday to read through the first draft of the thesis. I know my spelling and grammar were frustratingly creative at times. Similarly to Peter Downton, who was a mentor long before he had an official role in this research. You gave me the confidence to believe that I could do a PhD. To Ranulph Glanville, without whom I would have quit in the first six months. You were instrumental in pointing me in the right direction and supporting me to look at closed doors in another light—not seeing them as rejection but as a challenge to finding out why they where closed. To the principals of the two firms in which I carried out the research part of my practice, thank you for taking the risk of letting me learn. To all the colleagues I worked with at the two firms, I hope you have a chuckle at the memories this thesis may revive. Another major influence on this thesis is Nita Cherry: I did not always follow your advice but it was always stimulating and it’s THE reason I went down the reflective practitioner path in telling my story. Because of you, Nita, this whole experience would not have been so rewarding or rich, thank you! From a technical ‘green’ perspective thanks go to Alan Pears. You were my mentor without whom I would not have had the confidence to immerse myself in the building industry. To Doug Evans, my second supervisor, who tried so hard to make me frame my research, and ground it more deeply, within the architectural literature. My most sincere gratitude to Elaine Hogarty who held my hand at the end, and Daria Loi and Peter Burrows, two fellow PhD students who helped me stay sane and provided me with needed moral support and friendship. To my partner, Tim Simpkin, thanks for putting up with me when it all seemed too hard! Thank you, also, to Nicola Morelli and Chris Ryan, who where instrumental in the early days of my research. To Ceridwen Owen, who gave up her time to read through the thesis thoroughly giving thoughtful and insightful comments on its structure and content. If it wasn’t for her this thesis would be a lot ‘clunkier’. Similarly to the polishers of this thesis: Anitra Nelson and Frans Willem Timmerman who cleaned up the text with their expert editing and Joy Lankshear who with her graphic design genius made this thesis shine. Finally thank you to RMIT School of Architecture and Design and Helen Lewis my boss, for withoutthe three month breathing space you gave me early in 2004 I would never have found the space to write this thesis.