Halfway to heaven

When some 700 people throng the auditorium at Earl’s Court to hear a debate about whether eco houses are ugly, then a frustrated tree-hugger like myself may feel that we are halfway to heaven, not that I plan to share my Elysium with Germaine Greer in ranting mode if I can avoid it.

When some 700 people throng the auditorium at Earl’s Court to hear a debate about whether eco houses are ugly, then a frustrated tree-hugger like myself may feel that we are halfway to heaven, not that I plan to share my Elysium with Germaine Greer in ranting mode if I can avoid it. Her views on domestic architecture, like those of most radical intellectuals, seem to be strictly bourgeois and conventional, so that, despite her passion for this particular campaign, she is becoming the Jeremy Clarkson of architectural criticism.

Greer was opposed in the debate by the architect Bill Dunster, designer of the pioneering housing complex, BedZED, at Hackbridge, Surrey, for the Peabody Trust, and several (but not nearly enough) subsequent projects of lesser size. Dunster and his firm, ZEDfactory, deserve to go all the way to the green heaven, whether or not some people are upset by the shapes and colours of the wind cowls on their buildings. His projects do not just maximise the use of solar energy by the simplest means, they also aim to ease the Clarksons of the world into a lifestyle where the right choices become the canny ones, since by living in a ZED (Zero Fossil Energy Development), life becomes cheaper, healthier and more enjoyable. The ecological footprint of the average Briton is the equivalent of three planets, the measure of how far our consumption of resources and production of waste extends beyond our share of the global surface.