William Robert Dunster OBE (born 9 July 1960 [1] ) is a British architect.
Prior to forming Zedfactory, Dunster worked for Hopkins Architects for over 14 years specialising in low energy and sustainable development.
While an associate at Hopkins he worked on Nottingham University's Jubilee Campus. As project architect in charge, he took the scheme from the initial competition bid through to completion. Opened in December 1999 by Elizabeth II the campus has since been awarded the RIBA Sustainability Award 2001.
Before Nottingham he developed the environmental strategy and detailed façade design for Portcullis House. This work followed four years of research in the European Union funded Joule Research Project, collaborating with the leading environmental consultants in Europe, including Arup, CSTB Nantes, Christian Bartenbach and Conphoebus.
In 1995 he built his own house, Hope House which is a prototype low energy live/work unit in which he and his family now live. Dunster was educated at the University of Edinburgh and is an honorary graduate of Oxford Brookes University. He has taught at the Architectural Association, Kingston University, Harvard University and EPFL (Switzerland), University of Westminster and University College London.
He founded the architecture practice Zedfactory in 1999. Zedfactory specialise in the field of zero-carbon design and development. Zedfactory's most notable project is bedZED, winner of 2003 Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Sustainability Award,[3] and shortlisted for the 2003 Stirling Prize.
In 2009 Zedfactory won the UK Green Building Council 'Sustainable Development of the Year Award' for projects under £2million, for their RuralZED development in Upton Square, Northampton. This project was also the first commercially available housing development awarded the Code for Sustainable Homes, Level 6.[5]
He co-authored the ‘ZEDbook’ with ecological footprint expert Craig Simmons and building physicist Bobby Gilbert. The book is a manual for achieving zero carbon development at different densities and scales. In 2008 it won the RIBA Research Award. [2]
Dunster was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2010 Birthday Honours. [3]
An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that have human occupancy or use as their principal purpose. Etymologically, the term architect derives from the Latin architectus, which derives from the Greek, i.e., chief builder.
Sir Michael John Hopkins was an English architect.
Beddington Zero Energy Development (BedZED) is an environmentally friendly housing development in Hackbridge, London, England. It is in the London Borough of Sutton, 2 miles (3 km) north-east of the town of Sutton itself. Designed to create zero carbon emissions, it was the first large scale community to do so.
The Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) is an eco-centre in Montgomeryshire, Powys, Wales dedicated to demonstrating and teaching sustainable development. CAT, despite its name, no longer concentrates its efforts exclusively on alternative technology, but provides information on all aspects of sustainable living. It is open to visitors, offers postgraduate degrees as well as shorter residential and one day courses; and publishes information on renewable energy, sustainable architecture, organic farming, gardening, and sustainable living. CAT also runs education programmes for schools and sells environmentally friendly items through its on site shop, restaurant and mail order department.
The Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment, also known as The Bartlett, is the academic centre for the study of the built environment at University College London (UCL), United Kingdom. It is home to thirteen departments that have expertise in individual subfields, including the Bartlett School of Architecture, Bartlett School of Planning, Bartlett Development Planning Unit, and the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis. The Bartlett is consistently ranked the highest in Europe and the UK and among the highest in the world for the "Architecture and the Built Environment" category in major rankings. It is currently ranked the first in the world for the year 2023.
A Zero-Energy Building (ZEB), also known as a Net Zero-Energy (NZE) building, is a building with net zero energy consumption, meaning the total amount of energy used by the building on an annual basis is equal to the amount of renewable energy created on the site or in other definitions by renewable energy sources offsite, using technology such as heat pumps, high efficiency windows and insulation, and solar panels.
B+H Architects or BH Architects is a Canadian architectural and engineering firm headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. The firm was founded in 1953 by Sidney Bregman and George Hamann.
Hopkins Architects is a prominent British architectural firm established by architects Sir Michael and Patricia, Lady Hopkins.
The University of Nottingham operates from four campuses in Nottinghamshire and from two overseas campuses, one in Ningbo, China and the other in Semenyih, Malaysia. The Ningbo campus was officially opened on 23 February 2005 by the then British Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, in the presence of Chinese education minister Zhou Ji and State Counsellor Chen Zhili. The Malaysia campus was the first purpose-built UK university campus in a foreign country and was officially opened by Najib Tun Razak on 26 September 2005. Najib Tun Razak, as well as being a Nottingham alumnus, was Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia at the time and has since become Prime Minister of Malaysia.
Dean Hawkes is a British architect and award-winning academic. Born in 1938 he studied at Regional College of Art, Manchester and Clare College, University of Cambridge. His career combined practice, teaching and research:
Grimshaw Architects is an architectural firm based in London. Founded in 1980 by Nicholas Grimshaw, the firm was one of the pioneers of high-tech architecture. In particular, they are known for their design of transport projects including Amsterdam Bijlmer ArenA railway station, Waterloo International railway station and the award-winning Southern Cross railway station which was the recipient of the Royal Institute of British Architects Lubetkin Prize. Grimshaw is behind the design of the Sustainability Pavilion, an innovative net-zero building, for Expo 2020. The firm currently has offices in Los Angeles, New York, London, Paris, Dubai, Melbourne and Sydney, employing over 600 staff.
Rick Mather was an American-born architect working in England. Born in Portland, Oregon and awarded a B.arch. at the University of Oregon in 1961, he came to London in 1963 and worked at the architectural firm Lyons Israel Ellis for two years. He became a leading figure at the Architectural Association in the 1970s, and in 1973 founded his own practice, Rick Mather Architects.
Both the public and private sectors in the United Kingdom promote green building. Presently, there are already regulatory mechanisms in place that establish Britain's commitment to this kind of building construction. The government, for instance, set out a target that by 2016, all new homes will have zero carbon emission and it also includes a progressive tightening of energy efficiency regulations by 25 percent and 44 percent in 2010 and 2013, respectively. The UK Building Regulations set requirements for insulation levels and other aspects of sustainability in building construction.
Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios is a British architectural design firm, established in 1978, with offices in Bath, London, Manchester and Belfast. The firm is known for its pioneering work in sustainable design and social design agenda.
Cundall is a multi-disciplinary engineering consultancy established in 1976 by Michael Burch, Rick Carr, Geoff Cundall, David Gandy, and Bernard Johnston. Founded in Newcastle and Edinburgh, Cundall now has United Kingdom offices in London, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Belfast, and Manchester, with Australian offices in Sydney, Perth, Melbourne, and Adelaide; Asian offices in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Singapore; Middle East and North African (MENA) offices in Dubai, Doha, and Tripoli, and European offices in Dublin, Bucharest, Paphos, Madrid, and Wroclaw.
Sigurd Max Fordham OBE RDI FREng FCIBSE Hon FRIBA was a British designer, engineer and pioneer of sustainable design and environmentally friendly engineering. He was the founder of building services engineering firm Max Fordham LLP.
David Lloyd Jones AA DIP, RIBA, FRSA is a founding partner of Studio E LLP, an architectural practice established in London in 1994. He has been described as "a godfather of the sustainable architecture movement in the UK". Lloyd Jones has been heavily involved in both promoting 'green' design and demonstrating it in practice. He has been responsible for a series of seminal bioclimatic buildings, including the National Farmers Union and Avon Insurance Head Office at Stratford upon Avon; the Solar Office Doxford International near Sunderland; Beaufort Court Zero Emissions Building at Kings Langley; Grange Park Opera House and the current new campus for The British College in Kathmandu. His book, Architecture and the Environment, was published in 1998. He is a founding member and chair of the charity Climate Change All Change.
Andrew David Whalley is an architect registered in the United Kingdom and United States of America. His speciality is ecological design. In 2011, he was named Deputy Chairman of the international architecture firm Grimshaw Architects. He became chairman in 2019.
Justin Bere is a British architect based in London. He is founder of his own practice bere:architects and has developed a specialism in low energy passive house (Passivhaus) buildings, resulting in the first certified passive house building in London in 2010. In 2012 he was named one of the most influential people in UK sustainability by Building Design magazine.
Elsie Owusu is a Ghana-born British architect, a founding member and the first chair of the Society of Black Architects. She is also known to have co-led the refurbishment of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in 2009 and worked on Green Park tube station. She has been an elected Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Council member since 2014, and vice-chair of the London School of Architecture.