Carbon Pasts, Low Carbon Futures: Teaching Low Energy Architecture Through Adaptive Reuse of Heritage Sites in the South Wales Coalfield

Whitman, Christopher ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7779-6930 2024. Carbon Pasts, Low Carbon Futures: Teaching Low Energy Architecture Through Adaptive Reuse of Heritage Sites in the South Wales Coalfield. Presented at: 37th PLEA Conference - Passive and Low Energy Architecture, Wroclaw, Poland, 26-28 June 2024. PLEA 2024: (Re)thinking Resilience. The book of proceedings. Wrocław: Oficyna Wydawnicza Politechniki Wrocławskiej, pp. 1461-1466. 10.37190/PLEA_2024

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Abstract

As we rethink resilience in the face of the climate emergency, it becomes increasingly important to consider embodied carbon, and not only the reduction of operation carbon emissions. Whilst it has been acknowledged for some time that we must retain and reuse our current building stock, architectural education predominantly maintains it focus on the teaching of the design of new-build construction. This is despite the fact that within the construction industry, over half of construction work engages with existing buildings. Architectural students are now requesting the opportunity to engage with design work exploring adaptive reuse, building conservation, and retrofit. This paper presents the development and delivery of a final year architectural design unit that has come about through such demands. For the past three academic years the unit “Carbon Pasts, Low Carbon Futures” has challenged students to propose sustainable reuse strategies for former mining infrastructure within the South Wales Coalfield, transforming these sites once responsible for the UK’s carbon legacy into part of the solution to its devastating effects. To date, proposals have included renewable energy production, storage and distribution; reuse and recycling centres; low carbon manufacture; education and knowledge sharing; wellbeing facilities; and innovation and research centres

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Status:	Published
Schools:	Architecture
Publisher:	Oficyna Wydawnicza Politechniki Wrocławskiej
ISBN:	978-83-7493-275-2
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	28 October 2024
Date of Acceptance:	24 January 2024
Last Modified:	15 Dec 2024 02:30
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/173457

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