R E A L L H o u s i n g R e s e a r c h
5
•
Are there new paradigms of ‘smart development’ where man and machines can
work side by side to automate, motivate and decarbonise economies while
maintaining standards of living and qualities of life?
•
People have been shown to be motivated by environmental concerns while also
holding strong material concerns which motivate them to purchase new products
and increase their environmental impact. Can the use of tools such as this to
“trade-off” gains and losses clearly demonstrate the effectiveness of solutions to
promote goals of long-term sustainability that would appeal to, and be adopted
by, local residents?
•
To what extent are people’s expectations of quality of life and comfort amenable
to modification with information and “ethical persuasion”?
The ambition for such tools is that they can be used to bridge that difficult gap between
people, buildings and their systems to interactively interrogate the responses of real
populations to design optimisation questions on a case by case basis. It can be used to
explore what are their core values and what they are willing to sacrifice in the bid to build
social and economic resilience in the face of rapid change. Pathways to deep emissions
reductions in commercial buildings require not only increased consideration of passive
and low energy architectural principles and renewable energy technologies but also the
buy-in of populations in doing so.
The development of the discussions around the capabilities of such complex tools may
well lay the foundations for new 21
st
century design paradigms but here, as with the
steady state and dynamic building performance models, the question arises of how do
we know that the models are right ? Our solution has been to develop the REALL
project as a world leading Standard Test Facility for Low Carbon Buildings and Lifestyles
to validate and inspire a new generation of research and researchers on these issues.
The REALL Aims
The Riccarton Eco-village And Living Laboratory will be a:
1. REALL Living Laboratory: Providing a Standard Test Facility for low carbon buildings
and lifestyles where credible and correct evidence can be created and related tools
tested and validated to inform better buildings, design, policy, regulations and
products.
2. REALL Network: Building a multi-stakeholder network with people from the
construction industry and professions, housing occupants and clients, governments
and the research community to support, exploit and work with REALL for the short,
medium and long term benefit of our economy, society and the environment.
3. REALL Database: Making REALL knowledge available to all via an on-line database
of public access research subjects with, where possible, the cost, life cycle cost,
carbon and environmental impacts are provides with directories of related
methodologies, local suppliers, developers, designers, construction firms and case
studies.
4. REALL KE Programme: Providing Knowledge Exchange channels to all stakeholders
using events, exhibitions, publications, under and post-graduate degrees, PhDs,
CPD, training, conferences and short courses, access to the houses for product
testing, bespoke research programmes etc. Central to this provision is the adjacent
REALL Visitor’s Centre, the Edinburgh Conference Centre and other Edinburgh
facilities.
