"Largest wooden building in Iceland" to occupy landfill site in Reykjavík

Architecture studios Jakob+MacFarlane and T.ark have designed a low-carbon cross-laminated timber building called Living Landscape that will transform a landfill site in Iceland's capital city.

Slated for completion in 2026, the 26,000-square-metre mixed-use building is set to become the "largest wooden building in Iceland" once complete.

Living Landscape has been developed by French studio Jakob+MacFarlane and local studio T.ark to give new life to the polluted landscape and offer a prototype for similar future developments in Reykjavík.

"The project recreates a fragment of authentic natural landscape on top of polluted land to compensate for years of pollution and heal the man-made damage to what has once been a beautiful coastal landscape," Jakob+MacFarlane told Dezeen.

Project is a Reinventing Cities winner

Once complete, the project will contain a mix of housing for students, elderly people and families, alongside workspaces, daycare facilities and local shops.

It is among the 49 winning projects of the Reinventing Cities competition, which was organised by global network C40 Cities to encourage the transformation of underused urban spaces into "beacons of sustainability and resiliency".

The projects strive to help urban areas meet the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change by minimising carbon emissions.

Above: Living Landscape will be a low-carbon cross-laminated timber building. Top image: it will transform a landfill site in Iceland

The Reinventing Cities programme encourages projects to minimise both embodied carbon – emissions generated during material production and construction – and operational carbon, which are emissions caused by the building's usage.

Jakob+MacFarlane and T.ark are aiming for net-zero emissions, which involves eliminating all possible emissions and offsetting any that cannot be eliminated by removing carbon from the atmosphere.

CLT will reduce embodied carbon "by almost 80 per cent"

According to Jakob+MacFarlane, this will be achieved in part by using a prefabricated cross-laminated timber (CLT) structure.

"The CLT construction reduces the embodied carbon of external walls by almost 80 per cent compared to a typical concrete structure used in Iceland," the studio explained.

"The [remaining] embodied emissions will be offset through either wetland recovery or forestry, making the building effectively carbon neutral."

Among the other materials used in the building will be Panoblocs, a type of prefabricated and insulated wall panel with a wooden exterior, which can be easily removed and adapted.

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Living Landscapes' operational carbon emissions are expected to be minimal, due to high levels of insulation and use of waste-heat recovery systems and thermostat-controlled underfloor heating.

However, the energy it will require will be sourced from an existing district electricity and heat network powered by renewable hydropower and geothermal energy sources.

Nature to be reintroduced to site

Reintroducing nature to the old landfill site will also be a key part of the scheme. There will be an undulating roof garden and farm, alongside a large central courtyard designed as a communal park for the residents.

"The idea of living with and around nature is key to our project," said Jakob+MacFarlane.

The courtyard will be modelled on Icelandic landscapes, incorporating a mix of rocks, water and plants, which is hoped to encourage insects and birds to occupy the site.

"We aim to enable a fully functioning local ecosystem composed of earth and rocks, water and plants, insects and birds," the studio explained. "Protected from freezing by geothermal heat, this green oasis will develop its own microclimate and, hopefully, become a new generator of life."

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Living Landscape is now being continually developed by Jakob+MacFarlane and T.ark with landscape architects Landslag and environmental experts EFLA.

Another winner of the Reinventing Cities competition was architect Arney Fender Katsalidis, who is developing a low-carbon neighbourhood in Rome. The mixed-use project will transform a disused railway site, make use of biomaterials and will feature reversible buildings.

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Explaining the difference between net-zero and carbon neutrality "is a challenge" says The Carbon Trust

Companies wanting to achieve net-zero carbon emissions are being hampered by confusing jargon and inaccurate information, according to UK organisation The Carbon Trust.

"We recognise making this accessible is a challenge, but equally this is a technical area and there is a risk of oversimplifying," said Diane Millis, communications manager at The Carbon Trust.

In particular, companies are struggling to understand the difference between net-zero and carbon neutrality, she said.

"Many companies and organisations are only just beginning to understand [that] net-zero is fundamentally different to carbon neutrality so there is a lot of information out there that isn’t accurate, unfortunately."

"Net-zero and carbon neutrality are quite different"

The Carbon Trust helps businesses, governments and organisations reduce their emissions.

Millis wrote to Dezeen after reading its guide to carbon, which included simplified definitions of both net-zero and carbon neutrality.

She said the statement in the guide that the two terms meant "more or less the same thing" was incorrect (the guide has since been updated).

"Net-zero and carbon neutrality are quite different," she wrote. "Net-zero is considered the benchmark standard for decarbonisation."

No internationally recognised standard for net-zero

Net-zero has become a global rallying cry in the race to tackle climate change.

"Put simply, net-zero means we are not adding new emissions to the atmosphere," says the United Nations, which is coordinating the global Race to Zero campaign.

"Emissions will continue, but will be balanced by absorbing an equivalent amount from the atmosphere."

However, there is no internationally recognised standard for net-zero, whereas carbon neutrality is defined by the PAS 2060 standard.

Race to Zero aligns with scientific targets to put the world on track to meet the climate goals set out in the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement. This aimed to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

To achieve this, the entire global economy will need to become net-zero by 2050.

Net-zero considers emissions generated by the entire value chain

Net-zero is harder to achieve than carbon neutrality. One key difference is that net-zero involves eliminating indirect emissions generated by the entire value chain, which includes all suppliers and customers.

These emissions are known as Scope 3 emissions and include emissions generated by purchased goods and services, third-party distributors and "use of sold products", which means the emissions generated when customers use a company's products.

To become net-zero, a company must eliminate these emissions on top of its Scope 1 emissions, which are emissions it is directly responsible for, and Scope 2 emissions, which are emissions generated by "purchased electricity, heat and steam".

These emissions must be reduced on a timeline that is compatible with the 1.5 degree Celsius target of the Paris Agreement.

By contrast, carbon neutrality only covers Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions.

Offsetting must permanently remove atmospheric carbon to achieve net-zero

A second key difference is that under net-zero, any residual emissions – emissions that prove impossible to eliminate – must be eliminated by purchasing greenhouse gas removals (GGRs) that permanently remove an equivalent amount of carbon from the atmosphere.

This can include afforestation "providing the trees remain in the ground for around 100 years," Millis said. It can also include "direct air carbon capture and storage, where emissions are physically removed from the atmosphere".

Carbon neutrality, by contrast, allows residual emissions to be dealt with by purchasing offsets that lead to carbon reductions or efficiencies.

"There is work to be done to raise general knowledge in this area so people are better able to identify meaningful action and targets," Millis said. "It may not be easy to simplify entirely, so hence we need to explain what terms mean."

Companies that have set net-zero targets include Danish furniture brand Takt, which expects to achieve the benchmark within two or three years.

Earlier this year, the Intenational Energy Agency said achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 is "the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced".

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Carbon revolution

This article is part of Dezeen'scarbon revolution series, which explores how this miracle material could be removed from the atmosphere and put to use on earth. Read all the content at: www.dezeen.com/carbon.

The sky photograph used in the carbon revolution graphic is byTaylor van Riper via Unsplash.

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Polestar's aim to produce a climate-neutral car is a "moonshot goal" says sustainability head

Plans to produce the Polestar 0 electric car without creating any carbon emissions is a challenge comparable to putting a man on the moon, according to Fredrika Klarén, the brand's head of sustainability.

The carmaker is aiming to eradicate all CO2 emissions from the entire supply chain of the vehicle, which is due to launch in 2030.

"This is truly a moonshot goal," Klarén told Dezeen.

"Just like JFK, we don't know how to land on the moon but we know that we need to do it," she said, referring to US president Kennedy's 1961 speech that pledged to put a man on the moon within a decade.

"Building the roadmap as we go"

"We're putting the goal out there and then we're building the roadmap as we go along."

Polestar will take the next nine years, starting from when the project was first announced this April, to develop the Polestar 0 and its production process so that it generates zero carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions.

This forms part of Polestar's wider goal of reaching climate neutrality by 2040.

The electric carmaker, which was founded in 2017 by Volvo and Chinese car brand Geely, has committed to undertaking lifecycle assessments of all new vehicles starting with the Polestar 2 model launched in 2019.

Above: the Polestar 2 is the brand's current electric vehicle. Top: Polestar visualised the emissions associated with its different components in a video made by Wang & Söderström

"We will declare this for all of the coming models," Klarén said. "And when we get to Polestar 0, you will see clearly that it has zero carbon footprint."

The production of the electric Polestar 2, which sold just over 8,700 units in the last half of 2020, creates 26.2 tonnes of CO2 emissions while a comparable petrol car generates only 16.1 tonnes, the brand claims. The next step is to get this down to zero for the Polestar 0.

Electric battery responsible for most emissions

Higher emissions in EV production are largely due to the manufacturing of the sturdy steel-and-aluminium platform that houses the heavy battery as well as the lithium-ion battery itself, which contains metals such as cobalt and nickel that have to be mined and refined.

"With the Polestar 2, it's the battery and the big chunks of aluminium and steel that stand for maybe 70 per cent of the CO2 footprint," Klarén said.

"It is the raw material extraction and the processing of these three areas that are really the biggest culprits."

The battery pack of the Polestar 2 contains emissions-intensive metals

"We also have direct emissions stemming from aluminium production, for example, that will have to be eliminated or captured either through carbon capture or changing processes somehow," she added.

The lifetime emissions of an electric vehicle are highly dependant on the energy mix of the area where it is being charged and how much of it comes from renewable sources.

Hence the Polestar 0 project focuses only on eliminating emissions generated from cradle to gate – meaning from the sourcing of the raw materials to the time the finished car leaves the factory.

Recycling metal from scrapped cars

Polestar 2's life-cycle assessment, which is published online, is being used by the company's R&D department as a baseline for the Polestar 0 model to help them tackle the most carbon-intensive stages of creating a car.

As well as transitioning its entire supply chain to renewable energy, Polestar will minimise the number and quantity of raw materials used in the Polestar 0, Klarén said.

The team is also looking into reusing materials such as aluminium from scrapped cars.

"If you look at a car, you have a very high recyclability but somehow we are not completing the loop," Klarén explained.

"We don't have a large recycled content today in cars so that would be a challenge going forward."

Polestar is partnering with UK blockchain company Circulor to audit the emissions generated by the supply chains of metal components.

Circulor's technology works by creating a digital representation of the material in question, known as a digital twin, which serves as the material’s real-time counterpart so it can be traced on its journey from mine to factory.

Every transport or refinement step along the way is recorded on the blockchain. Here, the information cannot be altered or tampered with, so it can be used to hold suppliers accountable.

"We are setting hard targets for climate emission reductions and use of renewable energy," Klarén said. "The same goes for recycled content."

Using recyclable over bio-based materials

While the R&D department is investigating new materials and processes, Polestar's design team is looking at ways of decarbonising the surface materials and finishes that will be used in the Polestar 0.

"In terms of impact, these things are not as big as the mining and refining," said the company's head of design Maximilian Missoni.

"But if you want to really get to zero, at the last stage they become extremely crucial."

Polestar 0 aims to emit zero tonnes (0t) of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e)

Here, the team is prioritising materials with a high degree of recyclability such as Econyl, a kind of regenerated nylon made from plastic waste that generates 50 per cent less emissions in its production than virgin nylon.

The company is also investigating the possibilities of flax-fibre composite panels created by Swiss company Bcomp, which Missoni says can rival the strength and lightness of carbon fibre but is recyclable.

"Everything generates emissions; even natural fibres," Missoni said.

"Sometimes you think if you use natural materials it must be better. But what we've learned is that if you use materials that are recycled and can be recycled, that can be a better solution from an emission point of view than if you use natural materials."

Unavoidable emissions will be offset

Polestar aims to cut out emissions from the production of the Polestar 0 entirely but says it will use offsets as a fallback to cover any potential gaps that might remain.

Klarén hopes that over the next nine years, direct air capture (DAC) technologies such as those pioneered by Climeworks will be scaled up and made more affordable, which would allow Polestar to pay to have unavoidable emissions removed from the atmosphere.

The carmaker will display life-cycle assessment results prominently in dealerships

But the company will only use permanent, reliable offsetting methods rather than afforestation, which it regards as a less secure form of sequestration.

"When we are in 2030, hopefully, there will be direct capture methodologies to capture CO2 that might remain from some processes but we will not offset something that has too weak a link," Klarén said.

"So hopefully we will see capture technologies being developed and implemented because I think that they would be needed. But we will aim for zero regardless."

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Carbon revolution

This article is part of Dezeen'scarbon revolution series, which explores how this miracle material could be removed from the atmosphere and put to use on earth. Read all the content at: www.dezeen.com/carbon.

The sky photograph used in the carbon revolution graphic is byTaylor van Riper via Unsplash.

The post Polestar's aim to produce a climate-neutral car is a "moonshot goal" says sustainability head appeared first on Dezeen.

#carbonrevolution #interviews #all #transport #design #technology #cars #electricvehicles #polestar #carbonneutraldesign