Talk:BedZED

message: "The 82 houses, 17 apartments" This can't be right: there are relatively few houses, but many flats and duplex maisonettes. The other way 'round, perhaps? 86.0.203.120 21:55, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: "The residents' car mileage is 65% less."
Surely this means carbon emissions increased? A lower mileage means less miles to the gallon, meaning less efficient cars.
Is this true or is it an error? Greggydude (talk) 10:24, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Car Performance 

message: I am Geoff Beacon.
My entry on the embodied carbon in BedZED has been removed by a moderator. OK, It did point to a website I set up with a grant from UnLtd, the millennium charity, which has the relevant references. But the moderation has had the effect of denying readers the chance to know the enormity of the problem of embodied energy in buildings like BedZED - the Beddington Zero Energy Project.
Again I ask the question Is Wikipedia too credentialist?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by RedParasol (talk • contribs) 08:29, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Embodied Carbon 

message: NicholasSchoon (talk) 18:55, 17 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I am all for improving this article. I have done so myself in a small way recently by adding an infobox and a several additional photos. I am very happy with your suggested changes, and think you should make them, unless anyone has any further suggestions. You may also want to consider mentioning the development being featured in The Great Interior Design Challenge last week. This is a notable point, and the programme has its own Wikipedia article. A P Monblat (talk) 21:54, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

text: I'd be hesitant to agree to large portions of the article being sourced to Bioregional.com, considering they seem to be the company behind the development. I've added a 'refimprove' template to the article, but BedZED is very well known as an early example of low energy mass housing, so there should be plenty of independent, reliable sources available to support the facts. For example, the BD Reviews report seems to be a perfectly acceptable independent source for the 'Problems' section, which shouldn't be erased (but instead augmented). Sionk (talk) 22:24, 17 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I would add, the article really needs some background information, for example a 'Background' section, giving some description of the scheme, its development and construction. Some of this is currently crammed into the intro paragraph (the lead paragraph should be a brief summary of the article, while the details should be in the article body). Sionk (talk) 22:38, 17 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for these thoughts - I'll take them all on board in rewriting and editing.NicholasSchoon (talk) 16:23, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Updating and improving the accurancy of the BedZED article 

message: :I am all for improving this article. I have done so myself in a small way recently by adding an infobox and a several additional photos. I am very happy with your suggested changes, and think you should make them, unless anyone has any further suggestions. You may also want to consider mentioning the development being featured in The Great Interior Design Challenge last week. This is a notable point, and the programme has its own Wikipedia article. A P Monblat (talk) 21:54, 17 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd be hesitant to agree to large portions of the article being sourced to Bioregional.com, considering they seem to be the company behind the development. I've added a 'refimprove' template to the article, but BedZED is very well known as an early example of low energy mass housing, so there should be plenty of independent, reliable sources available to support the facts. For example, the BD Reviews report seems to be a perfectly acceptable independent source for the 'Problems' section, which shouldn't be erased (but instead augmented). Sionk (talk) 22:24, 17 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I would add, the article really needs some background information, for example a 'Background' section, giving some description of the scheme, its development and construction. Some of this is currently crammed into the intro paragraph (the lead paragraph should be a brief summary of the article, while the details should be in the article body). Sionk (talk) 22:38, 17 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for these thoughts - I'll take them all on board in rewriting and editing.NicholasSchoon (talk) 16:23, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Comments

message: I'd like to propose a major edit and rewrite of the article as set out below, using a wider and deeper range of references and leaving it looking less like a list of bullet points. I hope this proposed rewrite gives a better and fuller explanation of what BedZED aimed to achieve and what its novel features are, how it originated, and what has happened since it was constructed. Although Bioregional publications are cited in this rewrite, and it is the charity (not company) which was a partner in BedZED's development, I hope contributors can agree the proposed rewrite is objective. It aims to lift this article off 'start' status. I'll attempt to do all I can to follow Wikipedia style if I go ahead and make these changes to the article, and insert links to other wikipedia articles. It would be good to be given some indication of whether other contributors like the proposed rewrite, or would delete it and revert to the previous version - in which case I guess I'd better not go ahead. Please note this is the first time I have attempted to make any contribution to Wikipedia, and I am trying to abide by its ethos of excellence and objectivity.
"Beddington Zero Energy Development (BedZED) is an environmentally friendly housing development and eco-village in Sutton, south London completed in 2002. Providing 100 homes and about 1,000 square metres of workspace, it was designed by the architect Bill Dunster to support a more sustainable lifestyle. BedZED was developed by the Peabody Trust, a housing association, in partnership with the sustainability charity Bioregional and ZEDfactory, Bill Dunster’s architects firm. The development has won several awards for green architecture and was shortlisted for the Stirling Prize in 2003.
Location
BedZED is sited in Hackbridge, 10 miles (16 km) south of central London and 2.0 miles (3 km) north-east of Sutton town centre.
Origins
BedZED was conceived in 1997 when Pooran Desai, cofounder of sustainability charity Bioregional, and the architect Bill Dunster became aware that Sutton Borough Council was intending to sell a plot of open land formerly used for spreading sewage sludge for housing development. Bioregional wanted to build a new, green office for itself, while Bill Dunster, collaborating with engineers Arup and Bioregional, was looking for an opportunity to develop a zero-fossil fuel-energy eco-village.
In 1998 Sutton council backed the idea of an exemplary, sustainable mixed-use development, more ambitious than any previously attempted in the UK. Peabody Trust was recruited as the developer. The council sold its plot of land to Peabody at a price lower than the full market value, having sought assurances that the government would have no objection. It justified this discount on the basis that building BedZED rather than a conventional housing estate would secure wider community benefits, including reductions in climate-changing carbon dioxide emissions. [1]
Zero fossil fuel heat and power
BedZED was designed to avoid any fossil-fuel consumption post-completion, radically reducing its residents’ emissions of climate-changing carbon dioxide and giving them energy security. [2] The plan was to achieve this by
•	making maximum use of solar gain for space heating, combined with high levels of thermal mass and insulation to store and retain heat.
•	using a wood-burning combined heat and power plant (CHP) to generate both electricity and heat.
•	deploying a large area of photovoltaic panels to generate electricity from sunlight.
BedZED consists of eight three storey high blocks and a smaller ancillary building, the Pavilion, which houses its heating plant and a community centre. The main accommodation blocks are arranged in five east-west rows with double glazing covering all of the vertical south-facing facades. Along most of these rows, the north facing aspect consists of a series of terraces, dsecending at an angle which allows the sun to shine all year round onto the south facing, glazed facades of the adjacent row. These terraces house compact ‘sky gardens’ at first or second floor level, each of which is allocated to a nearby home.
The original intention was for the southern, sun-facing halves of these rows to be occupied by homes heated mainly by solar gain. The northern halves would, for the most part, be occupied by two-storey workspaces and ‘live-work’ units in which people would be working throughout the day. The heat from equipment such as office computers and from the occupants themselves would provide much of the space-heating required in the development’s work areas.
The conservatory-like ‘sunspaces’ that front BedZED’s south facing facades are a key solar gain design feature for most of BedZED’s homes. These sunspaces cover all three storeys and are some four feet (1.2 m) deep. During sunny periods, and even under a light overcast of clouds, the air within them is warmed by the sun. Once it reaches a comfortable temperature, glazed doors and windows which separate the sunspaces from the rest of the homes can be opened to allow this warmed air to flow through the rooms. Whenever the air temperature in the sunspaces becomes uncomfortably cool (late or early in the day, at night, or when there is a heavy overcast) they can be closed off by shutting these doors and windows. During summer, when the air temperature inside them can become uncomfortably hot, exterior windows in the sunspaces can be opened to allow cooling. Even in midwinter, the sunspaces can provide daytime space heating when the sun shines.
BedZED’s levels of insulation were significantly higher than those required by mandatory building standards at the time when it was built. The south facing windows on either side of the sunspaces are double glazed while the smaller areas of north, east and west facing windows are triple glazed. The exterior walls have a 300 millimetre layer of rockwool insulation between an outer brick layer and an inner layer of concrete block. The same thickness of insulation was installed beneath the ground level floors and the roofing. Concrete floor and ceiling slabs and the concrete blocks in the exterior walls give BedZED most of its thermal mass helping to maintain temperatures at a comfortable level throughout the year, although concrete is itself a carbon-intensive building material. [2]
While most of BedZED’s heat demand was to be met by solar gain, its buildings still required some heat for hot water supplies and for space heating in the work spaces on the northern halves of the rows. A wood-chip burning combined heat and power (CHP) or cogeneration plant was installed in the purpose-built ancillary building. The hot water this supplied was circulated to the homes and workspaces through a network of underground pipes, where it then heated conventional radiators within the work spaces and the large hot water tank installed in each BedZED home. As well as supplying domestic hot water, these tanks provide degree of space heating throughout the winter months.
The CHP plant was connected to the regional electricity grid; when its electricity output fell below BedZED’s own demand power could be imported from the grid and when it exceeded demand the surplus power could be exported. The plant’s wood chip fuel came from local street trees being thinned and lopped, a zero-carbon energy source provided growing trees replace the wood being burnt. [1]
BedZED also has extensive arrays of electricity generating photovoltaic cells within the glazing of the sun spaces and in panels on south facing roofs, enough to have a combined peak power output on sunny days of 108 kilowatts.
Ventilation
BedZED was designed for high levels of air tightness to reduce heat wastage, and therefore required a ventilation system to bring in fresh, exterior air into the homes and workspaces and expel stale air. This requirement gave the development the brightly coloured rooftop wind cowls which are its most visually striking feature. Changes in wind direction rotate these cowls into a position where an aperture for admitting fresh, exterior air faces into the wind while the larger aperture through which the stale air exits faces away from it. The fresh air is drawn down into the buildings, where it emerges through closeable vents, while stale air is extracted through ceiling vents, all without any need for electricity-consuming fans. As it leaves through the wind cowl, the stale air warms the incoming cool air through a heat exchanger. [2]
Transport
BedZED was designed to substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with transport, compared to conventional suburban housing development. The original intention was that the electricity generated by the photovoltaic panels would be used to recharge up to 40 electric cars parked on the site, some of them owned by a communal car club. Levels of car parking provision (94 spaces in total for homes, visitors and people working on site) are lower than those generally required by planners in suburban locations and BedZED residents were initially charged for car parking spaces with a pricing policy favouring low emission vehicles. By living and working on site, some residents could avoid having to commute. The location is well served by public transport with a nearby railway station and two bus routes. [1]
Water
Reducing the environmental and climate change impacts associated with water supply was also an aim. On completion, the development had its own plant for treating its sewage effluent housed in the ancillary building alongside the combined heat and power plant and the communal space. BedZED also included a system for collecting rainwater falling on the roofs and storing it in underground tanks. Water used for flushing toilets and for irrigating gardens throughout the development came from these two sources. BedZED also had several features which aimed to reduce residents’ freshwater consumption; aerated flow shower heads and taps, household washing machines with relatively high levels of water efficiency and water meters positioned at eye level in kitchen cupboard, visible through a window in the cupboard door.[3]
Liveability, community, and greener lifestyles
The partners developing BedZED wanted the eco-village to be an attractive place to live and work, in order to help foster an environmentally friendly lifestyle. As part of that they wanted to encourage a sense of community among the people living and working there. [1] As well as having an indoor community space, the Pavilion, available to BedZED residents and the wider community, the development has its own large communal green field for play and relaxation and a small village square flanked by buildings on three sides. Road vehicles can only circulate and park around the periphery of BedZED while the mews streets running between the building blocks are traffic free. Its combination of high density housing (relative to UK suburban norms) with both private and shared, traffic-free outdoor spaces encourages neighbourliness.
The 100 homes in the development cater for a diversity of income groups and household sizes. They range from four bedroom houses to one bedroom apartments. One quarter of the housing is for social (subsidised) rent, one quarter for shared ownership and the remaining half were sold on the open market with no differences in specification and appearance between the different types of tenure. [4] The great majority of BedZED homes have their own outdoor space in the form of balconies and small gardens at ground, first or second floor level. [2] Several of the homes connect to their gardens by bridges spanning the mews street.
Greener construction
In order to reduce the carbon footprint of BedZED’s construction, the use of locally sourced or recycled or reclaimed building materials was favoured with 52% of materials by weight estimated to have been sourced within 35 miles (56 km) of the site and 14% by weight being recycled or reclaimed. Much of structural steel was reused from a refurbishment project at Brighton railway station while BedZED’s extensive timber cladding consists of oak harvested from woodlands in nearby Croydon and Kent”[5]
BedZED in construction and in use
During the construction of BedZED it became clear that the planned “live work” units would be difficult to market because of limited demand and because they would be treated as business space so far as local authority rating was concerned. Some of the works space was then redesignated as residential, creating a few extra homes which lack the sun spaces and gardens found in most BedZED homes. Like all of BedZED’s remaining work spaces, these additional homes benefit from large areas of roof glazing, reducing the need for electric light.
There was a significant cost over-run during construction. [6] This may be attributed to problems in managing the construction and design changes, some of them associated with the use of unfamiliar technologies. Peabody has not published an analysis of the overspend.
During the first few years after residents and employers moved into the development, several of BedZED’s environmentally-friendly technologies failed.
•	The CHP plant, a downdraft gasifier design with an internal combustion engine, never achieved the required output of heat and power and frequently had to be taken out of service for modification and maintenance. Condensation of tar was a problem, partly attributable to the plant having to shut down every night and restart every morning, rather than running continuously, due to conditions imposed by council planners concerned about noise pollution. The firm which installed and operated the plant ceased trading and it was removed in 2005 and replaced by natural gas-fired boilers. [1]
•	The waste water treatment facility ceased operating in 2005, mainly because of its high energy consumption and monitoring requirements[1]. The company which installed and operated it had also been dissolved, making it more difficult to operate the plant affordably and reliably. BedZEDs waste water is discharged into the local sewers. [3]
•	Rainwater falling on BedZED’s roofs is no longer collected in underground tanks for use in flushing toilets and irrigating gardens. This is because of concerns about the harvested water being contaminated with faecal coliform bacteria from the development’s ‘green roofs’, where sedum plants grow in a thin layer of growing medium which includes chicken manure.
•	Some of the homes have experienced overheating during heat waves. [2]
This has generated some debates about BedZED, including among the partners who developed it. [7] [8] Arguably, deploying technologies such as the development’s own small-scale sewage treatment plant was over-ambitious. There has been debate about the cost-effectiveness of environmentally-friendly features such as the sun spaces.
The BedZED experience post-construction raises questions about the extent to which the fabric of building, and the deployment of zero carbon on-site energy sources can contribute to the transition to environmental sustainability, and how much this depends on the lifestyles, travel and consumption patterns of the people who live and work in them and on reducing the carbon dioxide emissions of wider energy supply systems. [1] It also points to the need to ensure that environmentally-friendly developments are endowed with the management and maintenance resources required to maintain good environmental performance in use.
Set against its technological shortcomings, monitoring of BedZED in use has shown environmental gains. A survey of 71 BedZED homes in 2007 
found that compared to the average local (Sutton) home, they achieved:
•	A 45% reduction in electricity consumption
•	An 81% reduction in heat demand for hot water and space heating
•	About a 50% reduction in water consumption
•	17% of residents travelled to work by car, significantly lower than the then Sutton average of 49%.[4]
The original plan for the residents to make extensive use of electric cars was never realised because in 2002, when BedZED was completed, they had yet to reach the mass market. The electricity generated by BeZED’s photovoltaic arrays is shared between the local grid and the eco-village. There is no preference for low emissions vehicles in parking arrangements. The development hosts London’s first car club, since taken over by City Car Club; this provides shared, pay-as-you-go vehicles on site, giving residents a convenient alternative to car ownership.
Using 2013 annual electricity and gas consumption figures for the entire BedZED development supplied by Peabody, Bioregional estimated that the eco-village directly consumed 51% less gas and 22% less electricity that an average development of the same size and mix (100 homes plus work, college and community space). That equates to a 37% saving in carbon dioxide emissions.[9]
Residents have reported that that the sense of community was what they most liked about living in BedZED. [4] There is also evidence that BedZED homes sell on the open market at a higher price than local homes of the same size, suggesting that people find it an attractive place in which to live.[10] The eco-village continues to provide offices for both ZEDfactory and Bioregional, while the remaining workspace has been occupied by Orchard Hill College for children and young adults with learning difficulties since 2010.
Standing in stark contrasts to the surrounding suburban housing, BedZED continues to draw hundreds of visitors each year, most of them from overseas, and is regularly included in the annual London Open House architectural appreciation weekend. The development is credited with helping to pave the way for the UK Government’s policy, announced in 2006, that all new homes should be ‘zero carbon’ from 2016 onwards.[1]
Awards
Unchanged – retain existing list
See also
Energy efficiency in British Housing
Passive solar building design
References
[1]Desai, Pooran. One Planet Communities: A real-life guide to sustainable living. Wiley. 2010
[2] Dunster, Bill, Simmons, Craig and Gilbert, Bobby. The Zed Book. Taylor & Francis. 2008.
[3] Shirley-Smith, Christopher and Butler, David. Water Management at BedZED: Some lessons. Engineering Sustainability 171, June 2008, pp 113-122.
[4] Hodge, Jessica and Haltrecht, Julia. BedZED seven years on. Bioregional, 2010.
[5] Lazarus, Nicole. BedZED: Toolkit Part 1- A guide to construction materials for carbon neutral developments, Bioregional, 2002.
[6](2004-1-09). “Peabody’s BedZed soars £10m over budget. Housing Today”. Retrieved 2014-11-17. www.building.co.uk/peabodys-bedzed-soars-%C2%A310m-over-budget/3031053.article
[7] (2006-5-17). “Living in a dream”. Terry Slavin, The Guardian. Retrieved 2014-11-25. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2006/may/17/energy.communities
[8] Tellytubby land: BedZED revisited, Lane, Thomas, 3 July 2009, Building.
[9] “BedZED”. Bioregional. Retrieved 2014-11-17. http://www.bioregional.com/bedzed/
[10] Lazarus, Nicole. Bedzed toolkit part II: A practical guide to producing affordable carbon neutral developments. Bioregional. 2003
[11] BedZED wins Ashden award
External links
•	ZedFactory's BedZED webpage
•	Bioregional BedZED webpage
•	Information about BedZED on Peabody's website"
NicholasSchoon (talk) 18:03, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Suggest you take this in bite-sized chunks. No-one is going to be able to comment/amend this entire re-write. Because you have a conflict of interest someone is likely to revert your re-write en-masse if you try and implement it. Wikipedia usually works through collaboration, correction and addition, not mass replacement. Sionk (talk) 20:30, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed with Sionk. Small edits, particularly with better references from significant national or international sources, rather than those close to the subject such as the collaborators and local authorities, are more likely to improve the article.SovalValtos (talk) 21:00, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposed major edit/rewrite of the article

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