From A to ZED
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From A to ZED With its origins in an apple orchard, Bill Dunster’s zero carbon journey so far has been long and fruitful, taking in architecture, product design, urbanism and sustainability along the way ROGER HUNT discovers more about ZED Factory’s.latest projects and what the future holds Bill Dunster arrives for our interview in a LEAF electric car. Soon he has me riding one of his battery powered ZEDbikes. ZED stands for Zero (fossil) Energy Development and we ’ are meeting at his ZED Factory office within BedZED in south London, the UK's largest mixed-use, near-carbon-neutral development, which he designed for the Peabody Trust in 1998. In short, Dunster is committed to all things zero carbon and housing in particular: his services to sustainable housing design were recognised with an OBE in the 2010 Birthday Honours. A doctor's son from the south London suburb of Molesey, Dunster describes his early life as totally unremarkable although, as he explains, one event was to shape his future. "We used to play in a beautiful field with an apple orchard and large horse chestnut trees, which were cut down by a property developer and turned into executive homes - little noddy boxes. It so infuriated me that I thought there's got to be a better way of designing and working out a way of living that doesn't involve this environmental destruction." Dunsterwas 12 or 13, "just old enough to get angry" Later, his A-levels included design. "I spent a lot of time in the workshop learning to make things'! He Went on to graduate as an architect from Edinburgh ►

. above Jingdeihen Ceramic Centre, a large mixed use scheme in China below The ZED Pavilion at Shanghai EXPO 2010, an exemplar building showing can be achieved in the . Chinese climate University where he met Sue, his future wife, who was studying fine art and architecture. She is now a director and the office manager at Zed Factory. For 14 years Dunster worked at Michael Flopkins and Partners on projects specialising in low energy and sustainable development, such as the Jubilee Campus at Nottingham University and Portcullis House in London. His first experimental ZED project was Hope...

homes are built using a hybrid modular, laser-cut, galvanised-steel, powder-coated structural ring beam with timber studs and OSB structural boards. This enables one floor to be built every two days with all the timber coming from the UK. The concept is, according to Dunster, at a pointwhereak.it of parts for a Zero Bills Home could be available from "pretty well any builders' merchant" On the roof is a ZED Factory-designed building-integrated PV solar roofing system which provides a durable roof with electric generation and optional solar loft conservatory. Along with this comes a battery...

BELOW BOWZED: a block Ol 4 tl9s in east London that generates as much energy from renewable , Sources in a year as it consumes BELOW RJGHTBedZED BOTTOM ZEDpod Jingdezhen Ceramic Centre, which will be "one of the best global examples of low carbon urbanism applied to an interesting and diverse public realm" Here a large solar farm forms the translucent ventilated glazed roof that shelters the main circulation routes, creating pedestrian-friendly streets in all weathers. Recently,ZED Factory launched the ZEDPod for which the first planning applications will be in shortly These affordable...