Anna Beckett

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Articles

What’s stopping us from designing for biodiversity?

Nov 7, 2024 | bdonline.co.uk | Anna Beckett

As the construction industry grapples with embodied carbon, the impact on biodiversity is often overlooked, writes Anna Beckett After several years of measuring the embodied carbon on our projects, we’re all starting to feel reasonably confident about it. We know we need to use less, we know we need to reuse materials where we can, we know which materials have a terrible carbon footprint.
What’s stopping us from thinking differently about retrofit?

Oct 16, 2024 | bdonline.co.uk | Anna Beckett

If we are going to build less, does that mean we need to maintain more, asks Anna Beckett I recently read an article about the oldest pub in the UK, or to be more specific, ten or so pubs that all try to claim this title. All of these buildings are several hundred years old, but most of them claim to be much older for a variety of reasons. One in particular claims to date back to 793, but also has a plaque inside the building that describes how it was “rebuilt after the flood of 1599”.
What’s stopping us from building less?

Aug 8, 2024 | bdonline.co.uk | Anna Beckett

If we are going to build less, does that mean we need to maintain more, asks Anna Beckett As the longest running sporting tournament of all time, the Olympics has set the standard for what an international sporting event should be. Every four years 11,000 athletes representing 206 different countries compete in over 300 different events, and coverage is streamed around the globe.
What’s stopping us from losing our skills?

Jul 9, 2024 | bdonline.co.uk | Anna Beckett

Has the centrality of two-dimensional representation in the built envirionment professions had its day, asks Anna Beckett When was the last time you looked at a map? Not your phone or a satnav but an actual paper map. A map where there’s no little blue dot and you have to consider your surroundings to work out where you are? Unless you’re a keen hiker or a cartographer, it’s probably been a while.
What’s stopping us from reducing carbon on every project?

Jun 10, 2024 | bdonline.co.uk | Anna Beckett

Measuring and reducing our embodied carbon is still the best tool that we have to limit our impact on the planet, but it shouldn’t be the only factor that we’re considering, writes Anna Beckett Earlier this year we passed a key climate change milestone; for the first-time global warming exceeded 1.5ºC for an entire year. It’s an important and somewhat terrifying point in history, that we knew was coming but have failed to take big enough steps to prevent.
What’s stopping us from looking beyond embodied carbon?

May 7, 2024 | bdonline.co.uk | Anna Beckett

Measuring and reducing our embodied carbon is still the best tool that we have to limit our impact on the planet, but it shouldn’t be the only factor that we’re considering, writes Anna Beckett Towards the end of last year, the children’s toy manufacturer Lego announced that they had abandoned efforts to make their bricks out of recycled plastic bottles after research showed that the embodied carbon of the bricks would be higher than if they continued to manufacture them from ABS...
What’s stopping us from rebuilding?

Mar 5, 2024 | bdonline.co.uk | Anna Beckett

The sorry story of the Crooked House pub tells us that sometimes maybe we have to let a building go, writes Anna Beckett Following a court hearing, the owners of the ill-fated Dudley pub “The Crooked House” were last week ordered to rebuild. In case you’ve missed the story, the pub caught fire last summer after a change in management and was hastily demolished once the fire was out. The series of events was a little questionable to say the least.
What’s stopping us from being more inclusive?

Feb 1, 2024 | bdonline.co.uk | Anna Beckett

If we want to attract a more diverse workforce into the industry, then we have to make sure everyone is included, writes Anna Beckett Inclusivity is quite an interesting word. I think most of us would be reasonably confident that we know what inclusivity means - it’s about making sure everyone’s voice is heard; making sure that everyone is included. And while that’s true, it doesn’t necessarily mean we should treat everyone the same.
Don't Move, Improve! Colour Casing

Jan 15, 2024 | dontmoveimprove.london | Anna Beckett

by Anna Beckett Last year's juror Anna Beckett, Associate Director at Buro Happold, discusses how Colour Casting successfully exemplifies an achievable low-carbon and structural solution to a standard extension.
What’s stopping us from reusing materials (two years later)?

Dec 11, 2023 | bdonline.co.uk | Anna Beckett

We need to change the way we work as an industry to make material reuse the norm, writes Anna Beckett Just over two years ago I wrote my first column for BD online about the reuse of materials, in particular the reuse of steel. At that point steel reuse still seemed like something we could be doing but weren’t, and while we’ve been reusing steelwork in-situ within buildings for years, deconstructing steelwork to reuse in other buildings seemed liked an ambitious concept.