Following the recent exhibition detailing plans to develop Lewes’ Phoenix Industrial Estate. Anthony Pearce explains the features set to make the Phoenix the most sustainable new neighbourhood in Europe.

Sir Patrick Vallance, the government chief scientific adviser, has argued that “nothing short of transforming society will avert climate catastrophe”.

At Human Nature, we believe this transformation of society starts with how and where we live – by designing and redesigning places that are inherently sustainable, where it is easy and enjoyable to lead communal, low-impact lives.

We see the Phoenix in Lewes as an opportunity to do just that, creating a benchmark scheme that acts as an exemplar for future developments both at home and aboard. Designed to prioritise people over cars, powered entirely by renewable energy and built with upcycled, low-carbon and even carbon-positive materials, it promises to be the most sustainable new neighbourhood in Europe. This is how.

Low-carbon materials

Local architect Duncan Baker-Brown has spoken of ‘mining the Anthropocene’ as a way to reduce the built environment’s enormous impact on the environment. At the Phoenix, we will determine which existing buildings are fit for retainment; which are suitable for deconstruction and reconstruction; and which should be recycled before construction begins.

There are four buildings on site that will be retrofitted: The Soap Factory will become a skateboarding and bouldering centre; The Foundry Workshop will provide space for makers, with a taproom on its upper level; The Every Hall will house a community canteen, co-working spaces and wintergarden; while Phoenix House will continue to be used as the offices of Human Nature. These alone represented a saving of approximately 1,800 tons of embodied carbon.

A full audit will be carried out to determine which materials on site can be reused – such as steel trusses and cladding, brick walls and buttressing – in the new development. For example, it is likely that our Thomas Paine footbridge, which will connect the centre of the Phoenix to Malling, can be engineered from upcycled steel from the site – recast using renewable energy. What can’t be used can be recycled either as ‘cut and fill’ aggregate (to level and landscape the site) or reconstituted as bricks, with nothing destined for landfill.

We intend to use as many low embodied-carbon, locally sourced and natural materials as possible, from chalk and flint to Sussex timber, hemp and lime plaster. We will also utilise glulam and cross-laminated timber (CLT) as a sustainable alternative to concrete and steel in structures, a practice increasingly popular in Europe but yet to be fully embraced in the UK because of building regulations and the absence, as yet, of a CLT production facility. We are also aiming to create one of the first zero carbon-emission construction sites with a fleet of entirely electric or other zero-carbon construction vehicles.

Waste and energy

We must rethink how we consume and discard items, but incremental change on an individual level will not be enough. Appropriate facilities and services must be established in a place from the outset: at the Phoenix that means providing excellent recycling, waste management and composting facilities on site. The latter provides a good example of a circular economy: food waste will be composted, providing fertilisation for urban gardening farming, where food is grown for the neighbourhood canteen, cafés and restaurant. We are providing spaces for residents to set up their own ventures focused on upcycling, repair and reuse: what can’t be fixed or upcycled will be sorted on site for recycling, with only the residual material collected by the council.

We also intend to implement a neighbourhood-wide energy system and grid – generated through rooftop photovoltaics (PV) and by off-site renewable energy facilities, with ground and water source heat pumps for heat generation. The overall strategy is informed by site-specific climatic analysis for passive, low-energy comfort conditioning, ventilation and daylighting, including analyses of temperature, humidity, solar energy and other factors that affect design. In these ways the buildings themselves will be highly efficient.

Low-traffic streets and shared living

In 2021, a report commissioned by Oxfam concluded that in order to limit global heating to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels every person on Earth will need to limit their impact to an average of 2.3 tonnes of C02 per year by 2030. This can only be achieved if we affect behavioural change – challenging how we consume, how we travel and what we eat.

The Phoenix will promote the idea of shared living: of space, amenities and ideas. This is not just for the planet, but for community wellbeing: research points to the fact that social living alleviates loneliness and improves emotional health. As well as an abundance of shared space in community centres, courtyards, play areas, gardens and green roofs, a culture of sharing will extend to energy, amenities, and a library of things (where tools and utensils can be borrowed).

As we have written before for Transition Town Lewes, the Phoenix will prioritise people over cars, creating streets safe for children to play in. A five-minute neighbourhood, where most daily needs can be met within a short walk, will encourage residents to make fewer car journeys, instead travelling by foot or bike. An electric car club and hire, operated from the Mobility Hub, will encourage residents to move away from a reliance on private vehicles. Given cars account for just over 18% of UK emissions – this will likely have a greater impact than anything else we could do.

As individual components, there is nothing here that has not been done before – there is no great leap into the unknown. But no new neighbourhood has brought all of these elements together to create somewhere with sustainability at its core. The Phoenix will prove that all this is possible – and, we hope, inspire a change in how we live.

Article originally published in Transition Town Lewes. Image: Periscope with Human Nature

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Subscription models have moved into nearly every area of our lives – from music to coffee to TV. Services like Spotify, Netflix and Xbox Game Pass have revolutionised how we consume media, while paid-for apps have changed how we exercise and how we date. But can it work for holidays?

A number of travel companies believe so, and are finding inspiration in how streaming platforms use algorithms to tailor content to users. Among them is BeRightBack, which launched in 2018 and matches subscribers with holiday destinations based on their personalised preferences – a sort of Bumble for city breaks. 

Read the full article in the i here. 

The built environment is a leading cause of climate breakdown, contributing about 40 per cent of the UK’s total carbon footprint. This estimate includes the materials used in construction of buildings as well as the energy needed to heat, cool and power them. But places also inform the lifestyle choices made by residents, impacting decisions about waste and recycling, transport and food.

In an age of climate crisis, how we live is the most pressing of questions. We must design places that, from the outset, include bold measures to radically reduce and eliminate greenhouse gases in line with what is needed for a safe world. But it is more than that: we must build in ways that lead to better places and improve the health and the lives for those who live there.

Below are six key points that must be addressed when building new neighbourhoods, and how we intend to meet each challenge at the Phoenix Project in Lewes, East Sussex, where our ambition is to build one of Europe’s most sustainable housing developments.

Mobility
Almost 24 per cent of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2019 were from domestic transport. While the wheels are in motion in the switch towards electric cars, that alone will not be enough to meet global climate targets. We must effect a switch from car to foot, bike, bus and train, making these modes of movement safe, accessible and pleasurable.

The five-minute neighbourhood is one of Human Nature’s key principles. Its concept is simple: creating places where most daily needs can be met within a short walk or cycle. This means that neighbourhoods must be diverse: containing offices, workshops, cafes, leisure facilities and health care, alongside different types of homes, all connected by green and safe streets.

At the Phoenix Project, the co-mobility hub will facilitate this. Designed to receive and hold car and van traffic, it will provide a freight reception and distribution facility, electric vehicle hire, share and club service, as well as vehicle valeting, repair and charging service.

Built form
Construction materials have an enormous environmental impact – with concrete alone accounting for up to 8 per cent of global CO2 emissions. But there are more sustainable ways to build. As Material Cultures, a not-for-profit research organisation and one of our partners at the Phoenix Project, notes: softwood timber, stone, clay, lime, plant fibres and shiv can be grown and sourced across the UK and will be crucial in a low-carbon future. In Lewes, they are exploring the use of local materials such as chalk.

The importance of retrofitting existing buildings and retaining embodied carbon is also crucial, but often overlooked. At the Phoenix Project, we intend to upcycle some of the former industrial buildings where possible, with the Foundry Gallery and the Old Soap Factory leading on to a new public square, the Foundry Yards.

At Human Nature, we also have an underlying design philosophy called Raw+Craft, which, in short, is about committing proportionately more of the build budget than is usually given to the fabric and energy efficiency of the building. Having built well and left a beautiful raw finish, we believe that the occupants of houses know better than we how to craft and fit-out their living spaces and that they would far rather have a well-proportioned, well-made building with a series of rooms and environments they can shape and design.

Sharing
It’s no secret that, in order to live within the planet’s means, how much we consume – as well as what we consume – must change radically. In the remarkable places we build, we intend to engender a sense of community that allows for the sharing of space, facilities, services, products and knowledge.

In practice, this can work in many ways – through the sharing of vehicles (as identified under Mobility) and, in shared living spaces, facilities such as laundry rooms, co-working spaces, equipment, tools and gardens. These measures will not only have a positive impact on the environment, by using space and energy cleverly and slowing necessary consumption, they will also help reduce isolation and encourage social interaction between people of all ages, generating a neighbourly, civil place.

Energy
We must build places using resilient, adaptable and long-life materials, but also consider energy efficiency and air flow in the buildings – affordable warmth in winter and cool in the increasingly warm summer months. There are wider and considerable capacity challenges that must also be addressed as the UK moves to an all-electric, zero emissions economy. In short: how do we power a green future?

At the Phoenix Project, our world-class environmental engineers Atelier Ten and supporting engineers are tasked with specifying how we address these challenges in both the energy system and building design. The company, which has worked on award-winning projects such as Gardens by the Bay in Singapore, is exploring groundwater generated heat as well as the radical use of community energy systems including off site solar farm and battery storage.

Waste
British households create over 26m ​​tonnes of waste each year – an average of 400kg per person. Of the 26m tonnes of waste produced in the UK, 12m tonnes are recycled, and 14m tonnes are sent to landfill sites. Our recycling rate is about 45 per cent – well behind the likes of Germany, Austria, and South Korea, where rates are between 60 and 70 per cent.

Although total food waste in the UK fell by the equivalent of 7 per cent per person over the past three years (up to 2020), households create 4.5m tonnes of food waste a year. Much more needs to be done to facilitate widespread changes. At the Phoenix Project, well managed shared spaces, which will include composting and recycling and other waste management facilities, upcycling and repair workshops, will enable it to move rapidly towards becoming a zero waste neighbourhood.

Food
The environmental impacts of growing, producing, transporting and storing of our food is considerable, both in emissions and effects on biodiversity – sometimes called a ‘foodprint’. Therefore, using locally sourced ingredients from small producers practicing regenerative agriculture can have an enormously positive impact. Meanwhile, community living and, by extension, the sharing of food can not only reduce waste but improve wellbeing: research shows that the more often people eat with others, the more likely they are to feel happy and satisfied with their lives.

At the Phoenix Project, we intend to facilitate the supply of high-quality local foods and drink. We will have an affordable Community Canteen, a green grocer and vegetable box scheme. Some of this food will be grown on site in our urban farm and on rooftops, but otherwise sourced locally from farms and smallholdings in the Downs and Weald working in pursuit of regenerative agriculture.

The crises in the climate and natural world mean that we need to reimagine how we build and how we live. Not only must we address the materials used in construction, but how neighbourhoods are planned, designed and managed, recognising that the decisions we make as residents – from waste and recycling to transport and food – are informed by our surroundings.

With land becoming an increasingly scarce resource, it is inevitable that neighbourhoods of the future will see us live closer together in tight-knit communities, where our everyday needs are met within a short distance. Sharing residential space is positive for both the environment and for personal wellbeing. We’re living through what has been called the Age of Loneliness with 45 per cent of adults in England reporting that they sometimes feel lonely. According to the Campaign to End Loneliness, 5 percent of adults in England report feeling “often or always” lonely – amounting to one in 20 adults.

Research points to the fact that social living alleviates loneliness and improves emotional health. In particular, there is a clear correlation between social eating and social bonding, with one study finding that 76 per cent of people believe sharing a meal is a good way to bring people closer together. However, a third of weekday evening meals are eaten in isolation, with an average adult eating 10 meals out of 21 alone every week. We intend to build a community canteen in the Phoenix neighbourhood, serving local food and drink, affordable and accessible for all.

Various studies have found that co-housing, a type of shared living that emerged in 1960s Denmark, has a positive impact on mental health, through the creation of social and emotional bonds. Jan Gudmand-Høyer, an architect and major proponent of the style, described cohousing as a link between ‘utopia’ and the ‘outdated single-family house’ back in 1968. But while the concept is growing in popularity over recent years – and is sometimes cynically deployed by developers – we have not seen transformatiion in the way neighbourhoods are planned. We plan to enable such a change. Shared living will be at the heart of the Phoenix Project, our sustainable neighbourhood in Lewes, East Sussex. It will include a diverse range of indoor and outdoor space – including courtyards, play areas, gardens, shared balconies and green roofs and streets – that encourage interaction between people of all ages. We are planning to work with local groups to explore the option of some co-housing that could include shared kitchens, laundries, storage, dining areas, care for the young or less-abled and elderly.

Across the wider site we intend to foster a culture of sharing – through services such as electric bike and car hire, a Library of Things – such as the one in Landport – and a centralised reception for parcels and deliveries, which can be collected or delivered by a neighbourhood freight service.

At the centre of the Phoenix will be a network of Foundry Yards: a series of public squares and spaces. Here, there will be an elevated pedestrian and cycle riverside route along the Ouse, opening up the riverfront and giving public access for small boats. In the buildings around the Yards, there will be an entertainment and arts space in the Foundry Gallery, a well sound-proofed music venue, a bakery and coffee shop, an artists’ hub, work and meeting spaces anda simple but stylish hotel.. These amenities will be just a short walk from people’s homes– a principle known as the five-minute neighbourhood.

Overall, it’s about creating spaces – both indoors and out – that are meant to be shared and enjoyed by the community, that encourage convivial, neighbourly interaction. You can read more about our plans for the Phoenix Project here.

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