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drastically reducing its volume. Today, this is the only
technology that is used. One of the essential principles
of sustainable development is the ability to replace
ancillary (or ‘servant’) structures – i.e. secondary ele-
ments used for completing a work and equipment;
hence, the importance of being able to disassemble
them easily. They must be light, which means that
attention must be paid to concerns such as fire safety,
acoustics and vibration. And, as we have seen, the
search for lightness is closely linked to questions of
morphology. For example, a low building has fewer fire
safety problems, and limiting the length of floorboards
cuts down on vibration. The example of a car park for
GlaxoSmithKline in Wavre
(01-530, figure 59)
– made
entirely of removable elements – shows that when one
goes from
i
-beams to a latticework structure of numer-
ous very light elements, care must be taken to ensure
that the loss of an element does not mean the loss of
the whole by progressive collapse.
When creating a constant-temperature laboratory
building for the
az
-
vub
in Brussels
(01-409-2, figures
58)
, Philippe Samyn decided to create the greatest
thermal inertia possible by creating green facades; these
consist of a wall of concrete, to which are attached
wooden frames fitted with lattices for holding the
earth in place. Each new technology may require us
to rethink the way in which we express our needs; for
example, when we create textile foundations in which
the gravel is pre-stressed with fabric, we must check
that it is in compliance with fire safety regulations.
Despite willing efforts to make calculation standards
performance-based, some of them may impede the
search for light structures. Thus, when renovating old
buildings whose wooden floors were designed to resist
an evenly distributed load of 150 kg/m, we run into the
difficulty of complying with standards stipulating a load
resistance of 300 kg/m, if we wish to use the building
for offices.
26
For Philippe Samyn, these standards must
be reviewed in order to adjust them better to specific
situations without an excess of safety precautions. In
the same way, the increase in the number of regula-
tions requiring an overall thermal insulation coefficient
of k, applied indiscriminately, can lead to unnecessary
expense. Since bedrooms need to be cooler and better
ventilated than living rooms, one must often remedy
the increased air-tightness of the envelope and the uni-
formity of temperatures in the rooms by enhancing air
purification measures. Regulations exist because there
are those who will do ‘any old thing’ and against whom
society believes it should take precautions in the form of
safeguards. Regulations are the expression of a culture
at a given moment, and are the lowest common denomi-
nator for a consensus among all interested parties.
27
Standards are clearly very useful as a common reference
tool. They are necessary, but they do not diminish the
responsibility of the person who applies them; it can be
very dangerous to transform them into regulations, so
that thought is dispensed with and an attitude that ‘if it
is in compliance, it must be alright’ prevails.
Excessive regulations can hinder the technical design
of a project. This is why Philippe Samyn has questioned
why Belgian fire regulations forbid wooden facades
for new buildings (except when the exterior surface is
treated and therefore non-flammable) while it allows
it for homes and existing buildings, and that such
regulations are not found in Scandinavian countries. As
construction-related requirements are the responsibility
of individual Member States, there are considerable
discrepancies between countries.
28
According to
Philippe Samyn, the renewed importance of sustain-
able construction will oblige our public authorities – and
anyone who contributes to standardisation and regula-
tions – continually to take new requirements into con-
sideration, and to make sure that they are expressed
coherently, and in relation to their philosophical and
cultural context.