Dr. Natasha Watson; UK lead for embodied carbon at Buro Happold

[edit] Introducing Natasha Watson our Guest Editor

Dr. Natasha Watson EngD CEng MICE is Embodied Carbon, UK Lead and Associate for Buro Happold Structures, she has been familiar with Designing Buildings for some years and receives our biweekly updates. We discussed how it feels from the practice side as a specialist keeping on top of all things net zero and how this is affects project processes as much as projects as a product, managing information as well as relationships in projects and where things seem to be heading.

[edit] Could you tell us a little about the particular news articles from the site and from the web for this week’s features that you have chosen?

There's the article about co-creation, which I think is a really important approach to design, an approach that goes further than collaboration, as well as the Pareto Principle article from the site. I have also selected a piece from the UKGBC about embodied ecological impacts which I think helps designers think beyond carbon and the wider impacts of their work.

Other recent features that caught my eye over the past few weeks were 'Industry responds to Prime Ministers Net Zero policy announcement' because we cannot afford to roll back on our commitments. Not only does it make it harder to mitigate our changing climate, it adds risk to the strategic investment and direction made by construction companies, as highlighted by Julia Evans, BSRIA CEO. 'The Biodiversity net gain regulations and implementation' because it is the Climate and Biodiversity Emergency, and often the ‘biodiversity’ aspects are forgotten within the conversation. I also enjoyed the article 'Learning from lessons' because we need to look deeper into where we have not achieved what we set out to do so we can all learn from these situations and ultimately improve. As the quote goes; “A smart person learns from their mistakes. A wise person learns from the mistakes of others.”

[edit] Can you tell us a little about your background, activities, and interest in buildings?

As a kid I liked making things and being artistic, whilst also really loving science and maths. I originally wanted to become an architect, but I worried that there wouldn’t be enough maths and science for me, so I set my sights on becoming an engineer in the built environment. As I learnt more about engineering at the University of Bath, where I did Civil and Architectural Engineering, I realised that structural engineering was for me. I thought it had the best combination of artistry, creativity, and science for me so that I could feel challenged and fulfilled.

I graduated in 2010, which was a rough time to get a Graduate job as the sector was suffering from the aftermath of the 2008 recession. I didn’t want to move abroad at that time, so I took the opportunity to study for an Engineering Doctorate in Low Impact Building Materials with Buro Happold as my sponsor company.

I learnt a lot more about sociology and psychology as part of my programme, which was run by the Systems Centre, a doctoral centre which was a joint venture between the University of Bristol Civil Engineering Department and the University of Bath School of Management.

I had a hard time getting to grips with the type of knowledge that the humanities developed in us, I felt like I had been failed by my education. How could I call myself a successful engineer (straight As, graduated with a First from a top university, studying for a PhD level degree) and yet I knew nothing about different world views, the importance of the ‘messiness’ of humans, and the fact that sometimes there isn’t a ‘solution’ to a problem? I believe that being challenged in this way changed how I viewed the world and changed how I viewed engineering.

I now work as the Embodied Carbon Lead for the UK Structures Team of Buro Happold. My goal is to develop and deliver our advisory and consultancy service in the area of Embodied Carbon over and above Buro Happold's own dedication to reducing embodied carbon as a company. I believe I can do this best by also working as a Structural Design Lead, to ensure I don’t lose sight of the practicalities of implementing low-carbon design interventions as a structural engineer.

I am also co-lead for the Buro Happold internal ‘think tank’ Urban C:Lab. This allows Buro Happold employees to explore emergent disruption in the built environment. It is deliberately collaborative, working with clients, designers, academia, think tanks and institutions. It has been a great way for me to develop my voice in wanting to make the world a more equitable and sustainable place.

[edit] Do you think there are specific areas of knowledge that are lacking across the industry?

[edit] Case studies and self-reflection

Solid case studies where good and best practice sustainability aspirations, that were challenging, but were achieved, are something I would like to see more of in the public domain. I would especially like to see if these aspirations were either challenged or threatened by project team members, but ultimately kept. Often case studies are published from the point of view of and to showcase success, so typically written by people involved in the project for publicity, marketing or maybe an award.

So, the emphasis is on a snappy profile that may not cover the lessons to be learned. Honest self-reflective case studies from the point of view of, for example the structural engineer, architect, QS or client might share more understanding and maybe include aspects that were not achieved as well as wanted. Knowledge shared in areas that were more difficult, would definitely, help us build-on and improve project processes.

[edit] Post occupancy evaluation

I think post occupancy evaluation is a really great example of where the intention and the benefits are quite well laid out. I know about post occupancy evaluation but I'm not a mechanical engineer or sustainability engineer, yet I feel that for that reason there are benefits of delving into a project to look at what it achieves and what it failed to achieve. These honest studies maybe aren’t talked about enough, though I have attended a few talks with engineers or CIBSE who have talked about where things didn't quite work out.

The contract mechanism along with the relationship between the asset owners and the engineers (the speakers), were most interesting when the team used the building as a learning opportunity, as part of a longer learning curve, and explained this as a cyclical process of improvement between designer and asset owner. In these cases, the speakers shared an understanding of how the building was intended to work from the designer perspective, but users from the users perspective, how the building was used and what issues there were.

This kind of two sided discussion about design, but also operation is important in considering issues such as behaviour change in the efficiency of buildings .

[edit] Do you think there is value in sharing knowledge across disciplines and institutions? And what are the main barriers to sharing and applying knowledge?

[edit] Project relationships

100%, I agree in cross discipline value. Historically, construction has been a very litigious environment where it is very much about contract obligations and, although that is still true in many ways, the nature of projects has changed, and the involvement of clients has changed. It’s possible that the ‘perceived litigiousness’ of the industry is actually what stops us from sharing lessons-learnt and from being as innovative as we could be.

The primary way of tackling this is to concentrate on building a good relationship between designers, contractors, clients and the wider team. To work together and be innovative in a time of Climate Crisis, there must be an understanding of a collaborative risk and reward jointly. This can be supported in the right project framework, which has developed across the industry to have many more options than before, along with BIM and how that affects the way of working within a project.

[edit] The Pareto Principle

I believe that the Pareto Principle can be applied to building design, where 80% of the ‘simpler’ aspects of a building can be achieved with 20% of the effort, but the ‘tricky’ remaining 20% of the building, particularly in terms of services that can takes up 80% of the effort.

What if we could shift that so that the ‘simpler’ elements of the buildings had more effort attributed to them, so that they could be further optimised; and the ‘tricky’ elements of the building could be mitigated through challenging the assumptions and the brief to design some of the trickier areas out. For example, building an office for 100 people doesn’t need to have 100 desks. We could design an office with 30 desks, add a bit more breakout space, and implement a hybrid working model. Automatically you have halved the required ‘space’ that is needed, and maybe it now fits within an existing building that can be retrofitted on the same street.

Another example could be the requirement for a tight control of an internal space, e.g. 20 degrees for 90% of the time. Asking the question if being a little colder in the winter or warmer in summer requires challenging the brief before the project kicks off, and requires greater trust and collaboration, but also prevents potentially undergoing ‘technical gymnastics’ to deliver something that, if we'd taken a step back, we could have just designed out.

[edit] How did you first discover Designing Buildings?

I used it first as I was working towards chartership, as it provided a great overview of procurement routes and contracts; something I was a novice to as a Graduate-level structural designer!

I have only just joined, and I have never posted an article. What has stopped me in the past is probably time and wanting to write something meaningful and worthwhile, wanting something to be ‘perfect’ and something that I haven’t seen elsewhere.

[edit] Do you browse the homepage features or receive the biweekly newsletter? And do you like or dislike about the site, its content or its functions?

I receive the bi-weekly newsletter more than looking at the homepage; that way I can have a quick flick through and feel like I’m on top of things!

[edit] Do you have any favourite themes relating to buildings and construction, particular eras of construction, styles, technical areas or any favourite building that springs to mind?

Tricky! My favourite themes typically fall into the wider umbrella of ‘co-creation’; the act of genuinely and authentically creating built environment solutions together with end-users, designers, planners, local authorities, nature etc. I am also interested in understanding the management of information and, obviously, all things embodied carbon as well.

[edit] From Collaboration to Co-creation

The main differences I see between collaboration and co-creation is that with collaboration there is still the potential for a hierarchy of decisions and an idea of what the end solution is, whereas I think with co-creation there is almost no preconceived initial idea of what is to be delivered and all voices are heard. Co-creation requires going back to raw basics or grass roots of the project, as it were, looking at the brief before it was a brief as such.

Maybe before talking about a building, we should talk about what, for example, a school needs to help children to thrive in their educational journey, to question again how much of that needs to be met by a building and how much by something else, maybe helping to break away from any pre-conceptions that there might be. This will become more important as we need new thinking to solve our increasingly complex problems to creating a just, low-carbon, and regenerative future.

We need to restore our flora and fauna and prioritise nature-based solutions, as well as to seriously consider ‘no build’ solutions such as retrofitting and increasing our use of outdoor spaces (e.g. the super-blocks of Barcelona). The process of getting to these solutions which are outside of the remit of engineering or architecture, but within the remit of design, can be helped through the process of co-creation and opening up the brief to a wider array of solutions.

[edit] Information overload

Information overload really is a difficult topic to address as it is not easily solved. I am encouraged by the fact that there is a lot more information out there about how to tackle the Climate and Biodiversity Crisis, but it can be overwhelming for someone who doesn’t know where to start. Some task groups, started in good faith, do have overlapping purposes, and I wonder if a consolidation approach might be needed in the near future. Who undertakes this consolidation? Preferably the task-groups themselves reflect and disband, redistributing their time and energy elsewhere. Perhaps this could be the remit of our various institutions and the UKGBC?

Perhaps the information overload could be mitigated through having conversations with key industry people, who will be able to point one in the direction of what is relevant to that particular discipline, sector, or project typology. This could also be a great opportunity for AI; which could be developed further to create the first drafts of dissemination sheets with interviews and web searches; distilling information from places like Designing Buildings, which already helps in getting the important headline, summary and short point explanations out there with links to longer PDFs and information.

[edit] Uncertainty vs. Accuracy of Design with regards to Embodied Carbon

There are often little experiences that, when shared, can help others avoid the same. For example, on a project recently, when using our Revit model to calculate embodied carbon, we were wondering why our figures were particularly high. It turned out that some concrete-encased steel had been modelled entirely out of steel. It was something that we caught because I knew that the answers didn’t look ‘right’. If I hadn’t had that experience, it may not have been captured in time.

These experiences emphasise the need to have the right people involved and the right QA procedures in place. A Revit model used for embodied carbon calculations requires more inputs and QA than a Revit model used for more standard BIM requirements such as clash detection and drawing production, and we need to price and resource accordingly for that.

In a similar vein, greater input is needed by the design team at early stages, RIBA Stages 1 and 2, to satisfy the embodied carbon calculations needed at planning stage. We’re seeing a rise in designs that are closer to RIBA Stage 4 which is incongruent with the high level of uncertainty at these early stages. I think that we need to rethink the way projects are resourced and priced and we need to be clearer on the level of uncertainty that our designs have to the wider project team; such as through giving ranges in sizes or worst-case and best-case example designs.

[edit] Would you like to nominate someone for the guest editor slot? and please do give us a little feedback on the experience of being our guest editor.

I would love to hear more from those involved in Landscape Architects Declare or Interior Design Declares. Nicola Holden is an Interior Designer who I think would be a good fit. I also have other colleagues who know Designing Buildings and would love to take on the guest editor role such as Chin Chen CMLI from Grant Associates and Simone Suss from Studio Suss, they would also be great guests.

As a guest editor, I have loved this opportunity to reflect on our industry and share where I think we can improve; I don’t think we reflect and share our thoughts and experiences enough in our lines of work. I’ve really enjoyed this, thanks.

[edit] Related articles on Designing Buildings

• BIM articles.
• Biodiversity.
• Biodiversity net gain regulations and implementation.
• Carbon dioxide.
• Carbon footprint.
• Climate change act.
• Climate change science.
• Climate Emergency Design Guide.
• Cradle to grave.
• Embodied Carbon.
• Embedded carbon emissions.
• Embodied energy.
• Greenhouse gas.
• Industry responds to Prime Ministers Net Zero policy announcement.
• Learning from lessons.
• PHribbon tool calculates embodied carbon of designs.
• Upfront emissions.
• Use stage embodied carbon.
• Wood, embodied carbon and operational carbon