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Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment

Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment

The Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment is a charity which exists to improve the quality of people’s lives by teaching and practicing timeless and ecological ways of planning, designing and building.

 

Respecting the past, building the future

The Prince’s Foundation supports people to create community. Whether through championing a sustainable approach to how we live our lives and build our homes, teaching traditional arts and skills and restoring historic sites, or by looking after places to visit for everyone to enjoy, The Prince’s Foundation is leading the way forward.

 

Realising HRH The Prince of Wales’ Vision of creating harmonious communities

The Prince’s Foundation supports people to create community. Whether through championing a sustainable approach to how we live our lives and build our homes, teaching traditional arts and skills and restoring historic sites, or by looking after places to visit for everyone to enjoy, The Prince’s Foundation is leading the way forward.

The Prince’s Foundation was created by the merging of The Prince’s Foundation for Building Community, The Prince’s Regeneration Trust, The Great Steward of Scotland’s Dumfries House Trust and The Prince’s School of Traditional Arts in 2018. This combined force enables the charity to achieve His Royal Highness’s goal of creating harmonious communities, through three core tiers.

Realising HRH The Prince of Wales’s vision of creating harmonious communities. Respecting the Past, Building the Future.

 

 

Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment

Mission: Sustainability

There is overwhelming scientific consensus that our world is experiencing dangerous global climate change, and equally overwhelming evidence that environmental pollutants are harming our health.  It is urgent that we take immediate steps to minimize carbon emissions, reduce other pollutants, and remove unsustainable materials and harmful chemical inputs from all furnishings product platforms.  SFC supports members of the industry in taking those steps. 

 

The Sustainable Furnishings Council is a coalition of manufacturers, retailers and designers dedicated to raising awareness and expanding the adoption of environmentally sustainable practices across the home furnishings industry.

 

Our mission is to help companies reduce their environmental footprints as they grow, and to help consumers find healthy furnishings.  To accomplish these lofty goals, we provide the best education, promotion, and networking opportunities available.  We raise consumer interest in environmentally safe furnishings and promote the development of many more sustainable options.

 

SFC urges the use of Life Cycle Assessment as the best method for analyzing the environmental and health impact of products and a verifiable chain of custody as the only acceptable method for tracking wood flow. SFC members support the triple bottom line of PEOPLE – PLANET – PROFITS and lead the industry in best practices throughout their supply chains. Members are committed to continuous work toward a healthy future, inside and out.

 

Our goals are to:

  • Raise awareness of sustainability issues
  • Assist companies in adopting eco-friendly practices
  • Serve as an information clearinghouse
  • Provide a symbol of assurance for consumers

 

History:

The Sustainable Furnishings Council was created and organized in the showroom of our founder, Gerry Cooklin, at High Point in October, 2006.

 

For years, Gerry had pursued sustainability as a personal passion. He had an awakening moment while camping in the Sierra Nevadas when he encountered a magnificent Juniper tree at an elevation of over 11,000 feet. He was humbled and, in an instant, recognized his duty to protect the rainforest, a prime source of wood for his furniture company, South Cone. He worked to “green up” his own manufacturing operations and to make a significant difference in his native Peru.  Further, he started to organize small meetings at the High Point Furniture Market, which eventually blossomed into the founding meeting of SFC with some 70 members present. The SFC has since grown to over 400 members, the largest organization of its kind in residential furnishings.

 

Our structure has been key to our success.  By reaching out to all constituencies in the industry, and including environmental heavyweights like Rainforest Alliance, World Wildlife Fund, a founder of the US Green Building Council as well as retailers, manufacturers, designers, and suppliers, we maintain a crucial balance in perspective. We welcome one and all to join us in doing our part for a healthy future!

 

Good Business That’s Good for Business

Importantly, we note that sustainability has become a mandate among the buying public. As consumers become more educated, they seek out acceptable choices that meet their needs for style, value, and eco-responsibility. Our organization is known for its rigorous compliance with established sustainability standards to ensure that all members are demonstrably committed to ongoing improvement.

 

In 2008, we launched a public advertising and in-store tagging program for consumers to identify retailers and products that exceed our threshold sustainability standards. Our Standards Committee reviews all legitimate, independent certification programs to establish eligibility requirements. All who joined in 2007, our debut year, are designated Founding Members and we appreciate what their commitment has made possible.

 

The time is now — the solution starts with you!

Read all about this inspiring foundation here…

 

The couple who quit their high paid jobs to live off-grid

The couple who quit their high paid jobs to live off-grid

Charis and Matthew live a very different lifestyle to your average family

 

A family who escaped the “rat race” of the city to live completely off grid have revealed that their only bill left is council tax. Seven years ago, Essex vets Charis and Matthew Watkinson decided to drop everything and start afresh.

For the pair it was a big, and daunting idea – not least due to their lack of farming experience. But, now parents to Elsa, five, and 18-month-old Billy, the family of four have found a way to adapt to everything from their man-powered washing machine to their horse-poo powered cooking gas by using solely the land they live off.

Speaking from Beeview Farm in Pembrokeshire, Charis, 34, said: “We were in Essex when the London riots were going on and they got within a mile of us on the last night. “Then there was the Occupy London which was all about relying on consumerism and that affected us we did rely on shops. “We just figured we wanted to be able to look after ourselves and be a bit more self sufficient.” For the couple the idea continued to grow, prompted by some research into today’s climate crisis.

The Essex vet added: “Neither of us are from Wales but we knew about Newport as we had been camping here and loved the area. “I think by the time we handed in our notices I knew I needed to do it. As we were just locuming after we moved we didn’t have a job lined up so living without a stable plan was a big thing. But we were ready to get going. “Otherwise we would have bought [a house] – we almost had it that way with a mortgage and a job but we didn’t want to carry on with the rat race.
We almost did it without thinking about it.”

read more here…..

 

 

Images: Robert Melen

Images: Matthew and Charis Watkinson

Urban Terrazzo – new materials gained out of demolition waste

Urban Terrazzo – new materials gained out of demolition waste

Whenever an old building has to be demolished or its core removed, an enormous amount of demolition waste is produced.
What seems like a pile of rubble, which usually ends up on our local dump sites, 
can actually be the beginning of a great new material story …  
 
 
 

 

 

WHO ARE THEY? 

‘They Feed off Buildings‘ is a design and architecture collective from Berlin (Germany), which specializes in material research and design installations. The studio works in a core team of inventors and a broad network of collaborators. In their projects they unite a team with an expertise in design, material research, architecture, film and photography. Their performative design installations explore a new perspective on architecture, design and its materiality.
 
The project ‘Urban Terrazzo‘, which travels through various cities to explore the utilization of available material from architectural demolition, illustrates one of those experiments. The products developed during those explorations show new possibilities for the contemporary application of sustainable building materials.
 
 
 
 

 

 

The Core Team

 

  • Luisa Rubisch – Design & Urban Planning

  • Rasa Weber –   Design & Interior Architecture

     

The TFOB collective works in a core-team of developers and founders. 
Project-based TFOB works in a broad network of collaborators from the 
creative industries, technology and industrial production, in order to tell unexpected 
material stories of the future and create new circular models of production.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Read all about this amazing venture, winner of the   ,    winner of the  ,     
and winner of the German Design Award 2019
 
 
 
 
 

PHOTOGRAPHY / Photosources : all rights belong to  HANNES WIEDEMANN AND THEY FEED OFF BUILDINGS

Global Award for Sustainable Architecture 2019

Global Award for Sustainable Architecture 2019

WHEN  Monday, May 13, 2019 – 2pm

WHERE  Auditorium,  CITÉ DE L’ARCHITECTURE ET DU PATRIMOINE, 7 AVENUE ALBERT DE MUN – 75016 PARIS

 

Symposium Global Award for Sustainable Architecture™ 2019 with the conferences of the 5 laureates

 

The Global Award, created by the architect and scholar Jana Revedin in 2006, every year rewards five architects who contribute to a more equitable and sustainable development and build an innovative and participatory approach to meet the needs of societies, whether they are experts in eco-construction or self-development actors for whom sustainability is synonymous with social and urban equity. The originality of the prize is to federate them in a unifying scene, enriching the global debate. Attentive to emerging scenes, interdisciplinarity and experimental learning, the Global Award is recognized as a discoverer of 21st century architects : Wang Shu, Alejandro Aravena, Carin Smuts, Francis Kéré, Al Borde, Assemble, Rotor, Bijoy Jain or Marta Maccaglia.

At the Centenary of Walter Gropius’ Bauhaus, the Global Award 2019 honors the multidisciplinary and social-reformatory aim of the Bauhaus: “Architecture is science, art and crafts at the service of society.”

Each year the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture ™ recognizes five architects who share both the principles of sustainable development and a participatory architectural approach to the needs of society, in both the northern and the southern hemispheres.

The Global Award was created in 2006 by the architect and scholar Jana Revedin, in partnership with the Cité de l’Architecture & du Patrimoine and the member institutions of its international scientific committee. In 2010 it was put under patronage of UNESCO.

The work carried out during the past ten years has assured the undisputed international recognition of the Global Award, proving its scientific independence and uniting the award winners in an avant-garde community of collective research and experimentation of architectural and urban self-development projects.

The Cité de l’Architecture & du Patrimoine guarantees the cultural promotion of the prize by publicizing the work of the architects and their contribution to the global debate. Given the cultural and political importance of this movement, since 2017 the Cité produces the Global Awards, counting on its founder prof. Jana Revedin as the president of its scientific jury.

 

The Global Award scientific jury is composed by :

  • Jana Revedin, Founding President Global Award, Paris
  • Benno Albrecht, IUAV, Venise
  • Marie-Hélène Contal, Cité de l’Architecture & du Patrimoine, Paris
  • Spela Hudnik, International Architecture Biennale, Ljubljana
  • Deniz İncedayı, Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Istanbul

 

 

 

The Founding Principles

Sustainable design is the catalyst for a new participative approach in architectural und urban planning processes. The very fundamentals of a project: durability, flexibility, economic, technical and ecological adequacy, cultural and social acceptance are being readdressed respecting society’s new concerns, fighting inequality, cultural disrespect and unreflected functionalism.

The Global Award Community, which consists of the 60 contemporary architects and teams from around the globe who have received the award, works towards a sustainable architectural ethic and fosters research, experimentation and transmission in the fields of sustainable architecture, urban renewal and academic social responsibility. It defines architecture as an agent of empowerment, self-development and civic rights.

 

 

 

Lauréats 2019 :

 

 

 

 

 

Photosource: www.citedelarchitecture.fr

The Global Award scientific jury honors for their groundbreaking approaches:

– Prof. Dr. Werner Sobek for his innovation and transmission excellency, directing the Institute for Lightweight Structures and Conceptual Design ILEK Stuttgart (Germany) in succession of Frei Otto and Jörg Schlaich.

– Prof. Ersen Gürsel for his lifelong context- and society-concerned Design-pedagogy at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Istanbul (Turkey), the school that since 1933 offered a home to major exponents of the Bauhaus movement – Bruno Taut, Martin Wagner and Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, on the run from Nazi-persecution.

– Rozana Montiel (Mexico), Ammar Khammash (Jordan) and Jorge Lobos (Chile) for their dedication to interdisciplinary scientific researches as well as artisanal and artistic approaches to architecture and the public, making them understandable, desirable and affordable for all.

The Symposium 2019 will be followed by a presentation of the books:
Sustainable Design VII – Global Award for Sustainable Architecture 2018, Marie-Hélène Contal, Jana Revedin; Ed. Alternatives-Gallimard, 2019
Building with the immaterial, under the direction of Jana Revedin, Ed. Alternatives-Gallimard, Manifesto collection

Lammas Ecovillage

Lammas Ecovillage

The Lammas Project for Alternative Living

The Lammas project has been created to pioneer an alternative model for living on the land. It empowers people to explore what it is to live a one-planet lifestyle. It demonstrates that alternatives are possible here and now.

The project centres around the ecovillage at Tir y Gafel, in North Pembrokeshire, which has been designed using a model that can be replicated across Wales. It combines the traditional smallholding model with the latest innovations in environmental design, green technology and permaculture. The ecovillage was granted planning permission in 2009 by the Welsh Government and is currently part-way through the construction phase.  At its heart it consists of 9 smallholdings positioned around a Community Hub building, and it is supported by a range of peripheral projects and networks.

 

Ecovillage

The concept for the Lammas ecovillage is that of a collective of eco-smallholdings working together to create and sustain a culture of land-based self-reliance. The project supports a permaculture approach to land management – in which human beings are considered an intrinsic part of the ecosystem. As a result the approach to environmental  management is one of stewardship for future generations rather than exploitation for short term gain.

The residents of the ecovillage have come from all walks of life and whilst some have experience of low-impact living and natural building, many have none. They have all purchased plots costing between £35,000 and £40,000, and have 5 years to establish their holdings. Water, woodland and electricity are managed collectively and the plots are largely dedicated to growing food, land-based businesses, growing biomass and processing organic waste. Land-based enterprises include fruit and vegetable production, livestock and bees, woodland and willow crafts, value-added food production, seed production, and permaculture (the farming of composting worms).

Under the planning conditions the project reports to the Council each year, setting out its progress against a series of performance indicators that include traffic generation, land-based productivity, and ecological foot-printing. The project is required to substantially meet its needs from the land and demonstrate positive environmental, social and economic benefit.

The ecovillage began construction in 2009/2010 and is currently midway through its set-up phase.