Author: Freya Wise
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Celebrating the diversity of research in the built environment
A few months ago I took part in a ‘video challenge’ being run by the international, open access journal, Buildings & Cities. The challenge was for PhD students and those who had recently completed their PhDs to explain ‘why their research matters’ in a two minute video aimed at a general audience. The purpose of […]
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What is the problem with solar thermal panels?
In my research on carbon reduction from heritage buildings, visible renewables such as solar panels are interesting. Quite a lot of the heritage conservation community isn’t necessarily convinced by solar panels on the roofs of heritage buildings and there’s been lots of research in various places to consider how to integrate solar PV sensitively with […]
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Boiler bans for off grid homes-a rural design challenge?
Reducing energy and associated carbon emissions from the built environment is critical to meeting our climate targets. A key part of the Government’s strategy for this in England (energy policy is a devolved matter), is to decarbonise heating in residential properties by shifting away from fossil fuels. Announced by the Government as far back as […]
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Retrofit and new build – the policy reality gap
I was quietly minding my own business on Thursday the 24th of June when not one, but two colleagues emailed me to say that Radio 4’s The World at One was discussing heritage buildings and that I might want to listen in. Through the wonders of BBC Sounds I was able to go back and […]
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Some Research Conclusions… with Playmobil!
My research is investigating ways to reduce carbon emissions from heritage buildings while retaining their heritage values, I have mostly completed my data collection and am now in the process of analysing it all. Once again the OU Graduate School are running a research poster competition that includes a multimedia option and this seemed like […]
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Pick a metric, any metric! Designing Building Energy Standards
The UK Government is currently consulting on the Future Building Standard which includes updates to parts of the building regulations dealing with energy use in buildings (MHCLG, 2021). The built environment is a major user of energy and contributor to carbon emissions so tightening standards for new buildings and retrofit is an important step for […]
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Reducing carbon from older buildings: the need for holistic heritage approaches or… hot water bottles, curtains and lifecycle carbon
My research is investigating ways to reduce carbon emissions from residential heritage buildings while retaining their heritage values. It is generally acknowledged that many more buildings can be considered heritage buildings than merely those designated in planning as listed or in conservation areas. It is unclear how many buildings fall into the ‘heritage category’ but it […]
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Fieldwork is fun! Update
This is a quick update on my previous post now that the OU research competition is over. The previous one talked about how I made the video (which you can read here). https://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/design/fieldwork-is-fun/ It was great fun to make and it was really pleasing that it won the multimedia community choice category in the recent competition: http://www.open.ac.uk/research/news/ou-postgraduate-research-poster-competition-2020. […]
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Fieldwork is Fun!?
I’m researching ways to reduce carbon emissions from residential heritage buildings while retaining their heritage values. I’m focussing on Cumbria and the Lake District National Park and before the small matter of coronavirus prevented all activities I was halfway through my fieldwork. My fieldwork is made up of visits to residential buildings across Cumbria and […]
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Heritage buildings, carbon emissions… and gingerbread!
One day in early October, as I was quietly wandering along, minding my own business, I was accosted by a lady from the graduate school. ‘Ah, the very person I was looking for!’ She said. My heart sank, ever since I foolishly showed up for a number of training sessions during the first year of […]