Working to reduce whole life carbon from the earliest design stages
Architect, Space Architects and KTP associate, Northumbria University. Part 1: 2017, Part 2: 2020
Early intervention is crucial for whole life carbon (WLC) reduction according to Catherine Sinclair, who is on a mission to bring WLC analysis to the forefront of the design decision-making process.
Through a knowledge transfer partnership (KTP) between Northumbria University and Space Architects, she is developing a digital analysis tool that can analyse the WLC of design decisions from the earliest stages, including location, form and structure. This enables WLC analysis to be treated as a core rather than specialist activity within architecture.
‘Design decisions that are made at the start of a project define, often unknowingly, the whole life carbon of a project,’ she says. ‘A design-analysis-base tool removes the inaccuracy of early stage embodied carbon prediction.’
Her referee, Northumbria University associate professor Zaid Alwan, praised her ‘huge contribution’ to addressing WLC across the RIBA project stages.
‘The systematic approach designed by an architect, for architects, integrates embodied carbon of materials, analyses design decisions and analyses both operational and embodied carbon from the earliest stages of a design project,’ he said.
Judges were similarly taken with Sinclair’s dedication to WLC reduction, and the potential impact of the research.
‘She’s an innovator in bringing whole life carbon analysis into design, which is crucial to tackling the challenge of climate change,’ said James Purkiss.
What piece of architecture or placemaking do you most admire and why?
The work of Yasmeen Lari and the simple approach of using three readily available materials is inspiring as well as being zero carbon, zero cost, zero waste and zero poverty. The innovative design, tackling poverty and creating self-sufficient communities, shows the huge impact architecture can have. It creates motivation to continue to work towards change within the built environment, using resources that are available to us whilst creating beautiful architecture that has a positive impact on the inhabitants’ wellbeing and quality of life.