Researcher returns from world review of green homes
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Researcher returns from world review of green homes
Posted: 19/11/2010
The green and affordable homes of four different continents have inspired a University of Leicester researcher to campaign for a change in planning and building of UK homes. Dr Jenny Pickerill, a Senior Lecturer from the Department of Geography at the University of Leicester, has recently returned from an intrepid solo three month Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship exploring how to make affordable eco homes a reality.
Dr Pickerill visited over thirty examples of low cost green housing in often remote parts of Spain, Thailand, Argentina and USA. She stayed in a huge variety of eco communities and with those who have self-built eco houses, often novel places not previously researched, in order to find out the best practice for building eco homes. She has now brought her findings back to the UK to prompt the building of more green British homes.
Through her Fellowship she was able to understand what social, political and economic conditions encourage or hinder low cost eco housing, finding that many people, in diverse places across the world, have found inventive and replicable ways of building cheaply while also producing beautiful and safe homes. Those places without planning laws and building regulations, in particular, produced successful and innovative eco housing.
Now that she has returned to Britain Dr Pickerill intends to use this knowledge to press for changes in the way the UK currently plans and constructs housing. She said:”While the numbers of eco houses has steadily increased in Britain in recent years it is important to ensure that environmentally friendly designs do not become the privilege of the wealthy, but can also be available to those on a lower income.
“There is a real danger that the rise in popularity of eco homes will cause more inequality and heighten the rich/poor divide. As environmental issues become more and more topical, we need to keep in mind the economic pressures people face. In the rush to find environmental solutions, we shouldn’t forget social justice.”
Green Building Press
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Article source: http://www.newbuilder.co.uk/news/newsFullStory.asp?ID=2886
