The new cycle hire scheme in London will officially begin next Friday, July 30. I think it’s great to encourage cycling as it is a wonderful form of inner-city transport: environmentally friendly, healthy, convenient, quick and cheap. But unless there is investment in the necessary infrastructure for bikes in London, this city will not radically transform itself into a cycle-friendly city straight away.

The car (and other 4-wheeled motorised transport) remains king in London while bicycles and pedestrians have to tought it out in the margins of the roads, leading to countless daily confrontations between members of these two groups and risk of injury to both from motorised vehicles.

Surely a good integrated transport planning regime would protect cyclists from cars and pedestrians from cars and bicycles. However, even the new so-called ‘Cycling Superhighways‘ provide only very limited protection — there is a painted lane but no physical barrier between bikes and cars. I have always felt that a more radical solution is necessary to separate the two types of traffic and so prevent more people from being killed on the road.

Cycling has become more and more popular in the last decade and with the new cycle hire scheme I anticipate that numbers will rise at an even greater rate. I hope that this increase in the numbers of cyclists will create more pressure to radically and imaginatively overhaul London’s road system (e.g. ‘cycle lanes in the sky — see pic below) to at last make it more friendly for non-motorised transport and less friendly for cars.

The Carbon Footprint Fetish: Architecture and Climate Change

It would be disingenuous of me to say that I went along to this talk in Clerkenwell last night with a completely open mind: I clearly have a position in terms of architecture responding to the environment. But the convener of this debate: the irreverent, provocative, pseudo-iconoclastic (I’ll come back to this later) Austin Williams (pictured) had certainly intrigued me with his commentary on the so-called green building movement. Williams, the director of the Future Cities Project, has a talent for stinging invective, and touches on many of the unappealing aspects of environmental architecture. He describes the green movement in general as ‘misanthropic’ and ‘non-aspirational’; he challenges the puritanism, lack of humour, self-righteous smugness, herd mentality, anti-intellectualism and bureaucratic social control that he sees as being implicit in all efforts at sustainability. And in fact, he seems to view that word – sustainability – as the cancer that is devouring architecture in general.

I enjoyed his sparky banter –- for about ten minutes –- but ultimately left feeling that Williams had defeated his own paordy of an argument far better than had any of the panel, which consisted of Mayer Hillman, Ken Yeang, Craig White and Charlie Peel (all firmly against Williams’ views).

It was an evening of some emotion. Professor Philippa Howden-Chapman, director of the New Zealand Centre for Sustainable Cities, shouted from the back that she thought the whole event was ‘disgusting’ and walked out, followed by another New Zealander who shouted at Williams that ‘you’ve got a very weak style of argument’ as he left. A guy on the front row said that Mayer Hillman was speaking ‘Malthusian bollocks’. Hillman said that he ‘wished I hadn’t had such a middle class background as I wouldn’t have to be so polite.’

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I am, of course, talking about Charlie, who seems to have a knack for dividing opinion. Take his latest speech, for example: the 2009 Richard Dimbleby lecture, in which he reasserted his already well-known credentials as the royal poster-boy of environmentalism and everyone’s favourite posh greenie. Last year he came out top of a Country Life survey to find out who people saw as the ‘guardian of the countryside’ and Time magazine has called him ‘one of the world’s leading conservationsists’. Many people with an environmental agenda themselves evidently think that he is well-intentioned and also that his position outside of parliamentary politics and interest groups gives him a refreshingly non-partisan voice.

In his speech he stressed the need to ‘maintain balance between keeping the earth’s natural capital intact and sustaining humanity on its renewable income’.

‘We are not separate from nature’, he argued, ‘like everything else, we are nature.’

This is the kind of sentiment which wins Charlie praise from environmentalists. But his attitude to architecture in particular as represented in this speech is revealing, and relates to his recent clashes with one of the more prominent members of the architectural establishment.

He said, for example, that ‘I have talked long and hard about this for what seems rather a long time – but it is yet another case where a rediscovery of so-called “old-fashioned”, traditional virtues can lead to the development of sustainable urbanism.”

It’s the ‘old-fashioned’ part of this which  is most interesting. There’s no doubt that there is a lot to learn from the building methods and ways of life of the past. But I contend that Charles is interested in sustainability mainly in the sense of sustaining his own interpretation of what England is: a green and pleasant land of noble princes and toiling peasants, a land of village cricket greens and housing styles named after royals of the past few centuries: Tudor, Queen Anne, Georgian and Victorian. This sense of continuity, after all, supports his own standing as a member of the monarchy. And Charles was even keen to praise King Henry VIII as an environmentalist in his speech just to make plain to any of the less enlightened plebians that may have been listening that the royal family have a long and noble tradition of caring for nature.

The bizarre historical pastiche of styles at Charles’s pet project of Poundbury is what he would like to see in new housing developments across the country. Yet it is clear that modern, experimental technology and methods as well as far more ancient, vernacular building techniques can both play a significant role in creating better homes for people and the natural environment in the twenty-first century.

The Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment has been working on an interesting Passivhaus-based design at the Building Research Establishment (BRE) recently which suggests that even Charlie can see that there is a requirement for innovation. Yet the overall aesthetic impetus behind his thinking on architecture - a kind of fudged, nostalgic, conservative classicism - is surely an impediment to change towards better housing rather than a catalyst.

And if you’re not part of the solution, as the saying goes, you’re part of the problem.

This is an opportunity that won’t come around too often.

The first earthship holiday home in Europe is up for sale. I wrote an article about ‘Perrine’, built in the heart of the tranquil Normandy countryside, for the Guardian last year.

It’s a three-bedroom, single storey building in the small but well-equipped village of Ger. The natural peace and quiet of the area is enhanced by the metre-thick tyre walls which insulate the building from the elements: a very relaxing place.

Kevan and Gillian Trott, who currently own the earthship, have decided to spend more time building up their new business, Earthbuilds Europe. They are planning to use the business to continue the evolution of the earthship idea more specifically for European conditions, which in general are very different from those of the arid New Mexico plains where the concept was first developed.

So if you fancy owning your very own ’ship then this is your chance.

This is an interesting and informative map application which Oliver Blake Swann at Natural Homes told me about. The map gives an overview of more than 250 different green building projects around the world, with different icons representing the different building materials and construction techniques used. There are straw bale homes, earthships and various other types of earth-based construction listed, among others, mainly in Europe and the US, but also with other projects in Africa, Australia, South America and Asia. Click on each individual icon to find out more about the project.

What is your idea of the cities of the future? Utopian or dystopian? Full of happy people, singing birds and flowering trees or possibly as completely human-less deserts of degrading concrete.  It’s tempting to think of London in particular in terms of imagined dystopias such as those in the fairly recent films of 28 Days Later (2002) and Children of Men (2006). The cities of the present can be grim places too, though. Full of fumes and devoted to worship of the car. ‘Nothing but beats and grey concrete’. I’ve already begun to make plans to leave for a rural idyll.

But perhaps I’m giving up on the city too soon. How about working to try and diminish the impact of cars on cities, reduce the carbon emissions from buildings in cities, create more green space, wildlife corridors and urban forests? After all, the exodus from countryside to city is ongoing and cities are going to continue to be where most people in the world continue to live.

This is what really made me think about this: the idea of greener cities and investment in green infrastructure was the subject of a fascinating conference called Park City on March 24 and 25. It was organised by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) and Natural England and it focused on turning cities into greener places. I was there to interview Wade Crowfoot, the director for climate protection initiatives for San Francisco, a city which appears to be making remarkable progress in reducing carbon emissions from buildings and transportation, and coming up with some ingenious and original schemes to help them achieve this. For example, the city authority organises a free collection of their waste oil and grease from restaurants in the city and recycles it to create biodiesel, which in turn powers the municipal bus fleet.

Another innovative idea is a web-tool which has been developed between the city government and a solar installation company. It uses Google Earth to measure the roof space of people’s homes and calculates how much a solar system would cost and how much it would save people in terms of their energy bills. This is backed up with clever tax rebates and subsidies to encourage people to make a positive choice.

Klaus Bondham, the mayor of environmental administration in Copenhagen, said that changes they have made to road junctions in the city to make them more friendly to cyclists and pedestrians had resulted in 50 per cent fewer traffic deaths at those junctions. It shows that green infrastructure is not just the fluffy dreams of environmentalists: investment can create all kinds of value for communities. Copenhagen’s ambition is to be the world’s first completely carbon neutral city by 2025. But that’s a long way off and in the mean time most scientists seem to agree that the consequences of climate change will exert a more and more powerful effect on the cities of the world. So adaptation to the changing climate is also important. Keeping cities cool. Protecting them from rising waters and torrential rain.

OK. So San Francisco and Copenhagen, two of the most notoriously liberal cities in the world are getting their act together. Big surprise. But what about the really filthy centres of money and capitalist greed? Like London, for example. Or New York. Well, there was an inspirational figure from New York at the conference called Majora Carter, who you can watch give a talk here.

And in London there does seem to be a major shift in attitudes. One speaker suggested that CABE simply would not have organised a conference like this just a couple of years ago. And Peter Bishop, group director for design, development and the environment at the London Development Agency (LDA) implied that instead of spending 28 million pounds pounds a mile widening the M1 (grey infrastructure), the government should invest that money in green infrastructure instead.

There are far too many issues which came out of this conference to condense into this one post. But on a personal level it has made me reconsider whether cities are indeed the doomed sepulchres which modern cinema is so fond of portraying. With vision and investment, and the energy and determination of people like Majora Carter, Wade Crowfoot and Klaus Bondham, perhaps a brighter urban future really is possible.

I have recently completed a series of four articles for Green Building Magazine following the eco-refurbishment of Nicholas Worsley’s detached 1960 home (pictured) in the village of Ripe in East Sussex and writing about it as it happens, step-by-step: a bit like Grand Designs but without the TV cameras. The final article appears in the spring edition of Green Building Magazine.

Eco-refurbishment or retrofitting has to be important if any kind of dent is going to be made on carbon emissions from UK buildings. There is a general focus in the media on new buildings, I guess because they’re largely more exciting and photogenic, but the reality is that the majority of the homes built now will still be standing in 2050. In fact, according to the Sustainable Development Commission, of the 21 million houses in Britain now, more than 18 million of them will be inhabited in 2050. That’s a pretty stunning statistic in my view. It means that new build can only have a very litmited impact on the total carbon emissions, hence the need to take retrofitting seriously.

Nicholas wanted to provide an inspiration to homeowners throughout the country with his refurbishment project, which is why he asked me to follow the whole the whole process. He employed the Lewes-based architects BBM Sustainable Design to transform an ugly and energy inefficient home into one that looks good and has a minimal space heating requirement. Nicholas spent a lot of money on structural and design changes, but the main efficiency savings were achieved simply from improving the insulation, in this case externally with 140mm of recycled woodfibre. And Nicholas’s advice for other homeowners trying to make their buildings more energy efficient is to ’spend your money on insulation and buy the most sustainable space heating solution you can afford.’

The government has been slow to provide a lead on retrofitting, despite the overwhelming statistics that suggest intervention is necessary. Gordon Brown recently announced the launch of a competition called ‘Retrofit for the Future.’ According to New Builder, ‘the competition will encourage companies to bid for a share of £10m in government funding to develop innovative solutions to improve the environmental sustainability of existing buildings, dramatically increase performance and reduce costs.’

Yes, that’s £10m, which seems like a tiny amount of money, and which is also destined to end up in the pockets of housebuilders. But more recently still, Ed Miliband suggested that more somprehensive policies will be developed by the government, something that he called ‘The Great British Refurb’.

Until the government comes up with something to match the rhetoric, it’s down to individuals to dig deep and invest in their homes. It may well be worth it too: with energy prices likely to remain volatile in the medium to long term, investing in insulation seems like a good financial move.

Channel 4’s Grand Designs recently showed an episode featuring ‘The Brittany Groundhouse’. This is what the owner of the home, Daren Howarth, called ‘an earthship-inspired’ building, though he is careful not to call it an earthship. More on this below. This was an interesting programme for me because I have met Daren a number of times, co-wrote a book about earthships (which you can now buy on Amazon) as well as writing Grand Designs Abroad with Kevin McCloud. I also wrote an article for the Guardian on the first earthship holiday home in Europe, built in Normandy.

The question of the name of the building is an interesting one. It seems as though you need the blessing of the godfather of earthships, Mike Reynolds, before you can call it such. ‘Groundhouse’ is less poetic, perhaps, but arguably more accurately descriptive.

Although Kevin McCloud wrote the foreword to the book about earthships, I know from personal conversations with him that he has always been somewhat of a sceptic about them, particularly from an aesthetic point of view. Earthships can seem rough-and-ready and aesthetically post-apocalyptic but their beauty really lies in the way they function, which is what comes first in their design. Not to mention the fact that Kevin’s love of bourgeois modernism and authentic rusticity is not everyone’s cup of tea and certainly is far from being the last word in good design.

That all sounds a bit critical but I’m glad that Kevin chose to feature an earthship on the programme as well as other ecological buildings. It will certainly help, I think, to persuade people that sustainable architecture is not really radical and ‘pioneering’. Rather it should simply be regarded as being far more common sense than the type of housing that has been commonplace in this country; housing that is poorly sited, poorly insulated and poorly designed. Housing, in other words, that is plain stupid.

I have just been appointed to the editorial panel for the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE). More on this soon.