Climate change and rapid urbanisation have meant there is increasing pressure on water supplies in human settlements in Africa. This has led to increasingly unreliable water supplies and outages in many drought-stricken areas. It is therefore important to understand how … Continue reading An Alternative Rainwater Harvesting System Design Methodology
Neighbourhoods often appear complex. It is difficult to ascertain how they can be assessed in terms of sustainability performance and to identify what needs to be done to improve them. Green precinct and urban assessment tools offer some insight but … Continue reading How do you develop sustainable neighbourhoods?
In my presentation on ‘Circular buildings as an opportunity for innovation, jobs, and local growth’ as part of the Technical Expert Review on mitigation (TEM M) – built environment for the UNFCCC and the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction … Continue reading Circular Buildings as an Opportunity for Innovation, Jobs, and Local Growth
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the questioning of many aspects of how we work and live. This includes how facilities management needs to change to respond to changing user demands. With the pandemic, many people enjoyed the benefits of … Continue reading How will COVID-19 change Facilities Management?
Water supply in an increasing number of rural and peri-urban communities in South Africa can be described as marginal. This means that it is subject to failure, becoming unaffordable or increasingly difficult to access. This can be caused by a … Continue reading New Paper on Water Marginality
There has been an increased interest in an emergency or temporary housing as a result of COVID-19. Emergency housing is developed to accommodate people displaced by flooding, fire, social unrest and COVID-19 mitigation programmes. The National Housing Code developed by … Continue reading A Sustainability Specification for Emergency Housing
Climate change and rapid urbanization have meant there is increasing pressure on water supplies in cities and towns in South Africa. This has lead to water shortages and unreliable supplies. It is, therefore, becoming increasingly important to understand whether there … Continue reading Making Houses Water Resilient
The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) indicates that ‘multiple synergies will be required to achieve the goals of sustainable development, including climate adaptation and mitigation, poverty eradication and reducing inequalities’. So what might these synergies by? This is explored … Continue reading What are ‘Multiple Synergies’?
Just presented two case studies on COVID-19 spread in buildings as part of the MRC-CSIR COVID-19 and Facilities Management series of lectures. The research includes the following findings: Space: In a crowded indoor space with poor ventilation it appears that … Continue reading COVID-19 Spread in Buildings: Space, Time and Ventilation
Many projects are not managed well, overspend and take longer than planned. Sometimes, there are good reasons for this. However, often, the reason for poor performance is a lack of structure and standardised systems. To help address this, I have … Continue reading Effective Project Management
I was asked to prepare a series of lectures that covered the key issues Architects needed to know about sustainable built environments. This was conceptualised as 7 videos. With Lockdown, instead of the videos, I have been able to present … Continue reading Seven Sustainable Built Environment Lectures
Despite increasingly scarce water resources and sometimes unreliable municipal supplies, there is limited guidance on alternative water sources such as rainwater. Some of the guidance that is available is inaccurate or misleading. Therefore to understand rainfall and how it can … Continue reading A new methodology for rainwater harvesting design
The SBAT Residential tool and manual has been updated and a new online course developed. The Sustainable Building Assessment Tool can be used to assess and improve the sustainability performance of residential buildings, such as houses and apartments, and their … Continue reading New online course on the Sustainable Building Assessment Tool
These are some COVID-19 (Coronavirus) resources I have found for built environments. They may be of interest to researchers, facilities managers, building owners, building cleaners and occupants and visitors of buildings. As knowledge about the virus, and how to reduce … Continue reading COVID-19 Resources for Built Environments
We now know from the World Health Organisation that we need to move quickly to reduce the spread of the Coronavirus. As people spend most of their working and living hours in buildings, developing measures that help reduce the spread … Continue reading Preparing Buildings for COVID-19
In developing some new guidelines on ‘Design for Climate Change’ I was reminded of the work I did sometime back on design for energy efficiency. The guidelines for the City of Johannesburg aimed to enable designers develop designs which maximise … Continue reading Design Guidelines for Energy Efficient Buildings in Johannesburg
The Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is spreading very rapidly and disrupted many aspects of life.While people live and work in buildings where they may be infected by Coronavirus there is limited practical guidance on what can be done to reduce the … Continue reading Coronavirus in Buildings
I was invited to give a keynote on Circular Built Environments in Asia, Africa and Latin America at the World Urban Forum 10 in Abu Dhabi. My talk was on circular built environment actions that can be implemented in developing … Continue reading Circular Built Environments: World Urban Forum WUF 10
This podcast interview is on the Circular Economy in Africa in the Build With Care series organised by the One Planet Network. Interesting points discussed include the need to recognise the value of circular approaches in indigenous building materials and … Continue reading Build With Care Podcast on the Circular Economy in Africa
This new paper explores alternative approaches to addressing climate change and implementing the Sustainable Development Goals. It is based on a neighbourhood-driven approach which enhances sustainability performance through creating local facilities, installing sustainable technologies, creating new organisational and governance structures … Continue reading Capable Neighbourhoods
Jeremy Gibberd 