Twinn Sustainability Innovation

Sustainability should cost less than Business-as-Usual

Jersey Archive Centre 3 ©MJPShouldn’t buildings go beyond the green-bling?
And why should they cost more?
.       Surely the aim is to use less materials &
.          resources to deliver social amenity & prosperity?
             Wanting to move this into practical delivery?

Looking for help and experience to produce something which takes this forward and delivers that better value, tailored to your particular needs?

Want to explore these ideas further?

Chris Twinn     FRSA HonFRIBA FCIBSE MEI CEng BSc(Hons) 

                                          Managing innovation

CV:  Download link to CV / resumé

Profile

I am a specialist builtChris Twinn of Twinn Sustainability Innovation.jpg environment adviser.   My experience crosses many boundaries, including:  policy, regulation, strategy, planning, concept, design, site implementation, and building end-use.  My collaborators tell me that what makes my offering so different is bringing to bear this vast experience when taking those concept sketches and bullet points all the way through to practical implementation and building operation feedback. So as my profile defies conventional pigeonholes, the following provides an outline of where I am coming from.

My background is multi-disciplinary building design;  from architectural engineering, through M&E systems, to building physics & through to multi-faceted sustainability.   I have also built up extensive experience of using planning policy, business strategies and lean design and implementation to deliver sustainability win-win benefits.

After 28 years at Arup,  latterly as a director and Arup Fellow,  I decided to set up my own specialist practice to focus on where sustainability is heading next. Based in China and Australasia for much 2010 to 2013, I have worked on numerous Eco-cities, zero carbon and similar projects.  While exciting and dynamic,  it brought home to me how far we still need to reduce our environmental impact if this planet is to provide sufficient resources for us all to achieve a reasonable standard of living.

Construction Industry Council ZCB Building, Hong Kong Demonstration building in the Kai Tak Kowloon City District regeneration area. Designed and constructed as a zero carbon building using many passive design features, including natural ventilation for a humid climate. Responsible for winning concept building design and then assisting the local design team through to detailed design. Collaborator: Ronald Lu & Partners (Hong Kong) Ltd Image ©Arup
Over some 34 years I have worked on many of the world’s pioneering green buildings and low carbon communities. These include Beddington Zero Energy Development (BedZED) – a first for urban carbon-neutral designed projects, Kingspan Lighthouse – the first Level 6 building to the UK’s Code for Sustainable Homes, the Samsung GREEN TOMORROW Zero Energy House – the first LEED® Platinum certified project in East Asia, and the Construction Industry Council Zero Carbon Building in Hong Kong – to mention but a few.

Through the years I have served on numerous professional and policy advisory bodies, including the UK’s Design Council’s Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment and as a consultation contributor to the Chinese 12th Five Year Plan. I gave the main keynote address at the Chinese National Planning Conference in Guilin at the request of Vice Minister Qiu Boaxing and was invited on secondment into the Chinese Construction Ministry (MoHURD). I have been a UKGBC Ambassador and a member of their Non-domestic Zero Carbon Task Group mapping out the roadmap to zero carbon new-build.

I am particularly interested in the relationship between people and their built environment, and why conventional building design tends to overlooks behavioural issues. Yet harnessing this, offers the potential for significant environmental impact benefits.

I also fervently believe that sustainability should cost less than conventional solutions. We should be using less resource to deliver increased built amenity – quite a challenge, but ultimately what is needed for wider and mass adoption to allow us all to live within that finite carrying capacity of our planet.

I would like to share with you my experience, knowledge and ideas for achieving this and more.

Chris

Approach

urbanalismo-1Delivering good quality new and refurbished buildings is a collaboration. I work closely with architects, planners and contractors – seeking solutions that go beyond the norms. I work with clients to help them tease out what can provide them with more value from their projects.

My approach is:

  1. Listening – to understanding your specific needs
  2. Seeding – bringing ideas that question the conventional
  3. Exploring – collaborating to find the right combination
  4. Solutions – providing the detail that makes it work.
  5. Feedback – and refinement

Buildings that bring value are those that are appreciated by their users.

Experience

abcd
Masterplanning

CABE Sustainable Places - Twinn
Policy Strategy

BedZED
Zero Carbon

Passive Archive Predictions Twinn
Building Physics

Portcullis House river view ©Hopkins
Public Buildings 

White Collar Factory ©Derwent London
Commercial

Barratt GreenHouse ©PeterWhite
Residential

Shanghai EXPO
Infrastructure

Services

Portcullis-House-detail-(c)

  • Client special advisor – working closely with you and your team
  • Collaborative ideas generating and testing
  • Moving strategies from formulation through to practical implementation
  • Providing project development Oversight, procurement Guidance and managing Innovation
  • Masterplanning
  • Concept design
  • Environmental design
  • Building physics
  • Low Energy & Carbon design
  • Detailed building design
  • Construction and post-occupancy advice
  • Policy and strategy advice
  • Sustainability strategy

 

Please browse my Experience pages