What can prototypes help us understand about the future?
Research through design for greener energy and construction.
In previous blog posts, we analysed the present state of energy and construction practices and created the vision of a preferable future that could act as a compass for Southwark council in the pursuit of becoming carbon neutral within 2030.
“Critical Design, by generating alternatives, can help people construct compasses rather than maps for navigating a new set of values”
(Dunne and Raby, 2013, p. 44)
With this in mind, we created a new service that could embody and reveal what this preferable future could look like in the context of Southwark. Our concept is an estate that generates its own energy supply locally through sustainable sources, such as the Sun and wind, and allocates it to its tenants.
We do already have the technology and buildings, right? So, what could be the obstacles that are preventing the development of this service today?
A similar scenario was explored by Martì Guixé in the project The Solar Kitchen Restaurant for Lapin Kulta (2011), where an entire restaurant business was run with the use of solar cooking technologies. The project revealed how, when the amount of energy is dictated by natural sources and not by human demand, customers needed to adapt and become flexible and forgiving, as a rainy day could be a plausible reason to cancel dinner.
This is where research through design comes in handy to understand how our concept would unfold more deeply and how it would interact with concepts like fuel poverty, demand side management and agency over energy usage by prototyping the tools that would characterise life in the Energy Independent Living Estate.
We identified four type of characters that lived in the building:
- The pioneer, a person who has lived in the building since the beginning of the experiment and who totally embraced this new way of living;
- The hacker, a person who struggled so much through the implementation of the independent energy living project that is always looking for ways to hack the system and access more energy;
- The newbie, a person who just moved to the estate and is trying to learn how to consume energy more efficiently;
- The busy bee, a person whose personal and professional life often get in the way of the new energy efficient lifestyle.
By acting out these characters and imagining their daily life, we were able to identify what tools the service would need to provide, as well as new behaviours and interactions that the tenants would develop.
Here is how it played out.
Energy Independent Living
It’s 2030, Southwark council has been counting the minutes to this moment: this is the year Southwark becomes a carbon neutral zone.
The pressure is high, as international laws now dictate the carbon emission goals for all countries around the World thanks to the enforcement of the Paris Agreement, which is now mandatory and legally binding for everyone.
A couple of years back, Southwark council found opportunity in its unique position as the biggest social landlord in London, a city where 70% of carbon emissions are caused by buildings and their energy consumption: they installed solar panels all over the roofs of the council estates in the area, therefore creating the first and biggest urban solar farm in the city.The energy produced is allocated to the tenants of the estates, as a green and cheaper alternative to the national grid.
As expected, this implementation went through a few hiccups.
Of course there was opposition from well established energy providers, angry about setting a precedent that may cost them quite a big slice of market, but international pressure to meet the zero CO2 emission goal helped develop the government’s policy in favour of the project.
The biggest obstacle actually turned out to be the tenants, who initially were thrilled about getting access to energy for free, but then struggled to upkeep the new solar infrastructure and adapt their energy demand to its availability.
As a response, in addition to establishing clear rules and guidelines for the equitable allocation of energy units to the tenants, the council has had to create basic energy consumption and generation training for all the tenants, in order to equip them to this new way of living.
What is it like to live in the first energy self-sufficient estate?
There is a lot of trial and error going on in the building, some tenants are over the moon about this opportunity to have access to sustainable energy more equitably and are eager to learn about how to adjust to this new way of living, others are struggling so much that they are looking for a new accommodation and in the meantime are looking for ways to hack the system.
Learning to live within a new limit of energy consumption is hard and easily causes some friction within families or even neighbours who find themselves stealing energy units from each other in order to cater to their habits.
Tenants take note of energy efficient habits and apply on their appliances stickers signalling their consumption rates, so that they can best plan their house chores within the energy units that they have.
Lastly, not being able to control the weather forecast, the tenants plan out their weekly activities while taking into account when most energy will be available: a sunny day in the middle of a cloudy week will become a much needed opportunity to do the laundry or invite a friend over for dinner.
Bibliography
Dunne, A. and Raby, F. (2013) Speculative Everything. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.
Martí Guixé (2011) Lapin Kulta Solar Kitchen Restaurant. Available at: http://www.guixe.com/projects/guixe_project_lapin_kulta_solar_kitchen.html (Accessed: 11/05/21).
