09 THE NEXT... URBAN PLANNING
CARBON-ZERO LIVING

BY 2015 the world’s first zero-carbon, zero-waste city, Masdar, will be up and running. Home to 50,000 residents, as well as the International Renewable Energy Agency, Abu Dhabi’s €22bn after-oil edifice will be the vanguard of an age of new cities conceived for a zero-carbon future.

Others are emerging. Babcock Ranch, in Florida, has been designed to introduce Americans to a greener lifestyle; Freiburg, in Germany, has been reshaping itself as Europe’s low-carbon champion since 1992; and Auroville, in southern India, aims to heal your spirit as well as the planet.

But business and regulators have expropriated the search for green living once monopolised by the brown-rice-and-sandals brigade. The EU has issued a directive that from 2019 all new buildings in its 27 member countries will generate as much power as they consume.

Worldwide, Green Building Councils promoting sustainable building standards, such as LEED in the US, BREEAM in the UK and France’s HQE, have bloomed. Already architects are slotting low-carbon creations into cities. More importantly, they are rediscovering building lore cast aside in the post-1960s rush to turn every capital into an identikit collection of glass towers; adopting solutions from before the era of cheap energy, but using 21st-century technology. Cities may even start to look distinct again as buildings become increasingly shaped by the local climate.

When it comes to sustainable building, solar panels and windmills are little more than window dressing. The real challenges lie in aspect, design and insulation to create a building that needs minimum power to heat and cool it, otherwise known as passive design, and in finding ways to share energy services between buildings to create efficiencies.

For example, in northern Europe a passive-designed building will have large windows on its north side, horizontal shading on its south, and a blank wall to the west to avoid horizontal sunlight at the hottest time of day. An open-plan interior allows air to circulate, heating and cooling comes from air drawn through underground pipes, and openable windows replace air conditioning. Sharing energy with a neighbouring building balances surplus heat in one and demands for energy in another.

In these ways, 60%–80% of building energy consumption is avoided. Solar panels and wind turbines will merely provide the 20% of consumption that can’t be avoided.

Protecting the planet is one thing, but zero-carbon living will also tackle rising fuel bills. We have nothing to lose – except our cars?

CARBON NEUTRAL The WWF Netherlands headquarters, built in 2006

10 THE NEXT... HOME ENTERTAINMENT
3D TELEVISION

WHEN THE film Avatar comes out this December, take note: the epic adventure, directed by James Cameron, uses new 3D technology and cameras to seamlessly blend real actors into an animated world, where large lizard-like beasts swish their tails toward the screen as the audience ducks and screams. And the best part is the 3D technology is already making its way into the home, thanks to products such as the NVIDIA 3D Vision, the JVC GD-463D10 3D LCD monitor, and the Viewsonic PJD6251 DLP Projector.

“The current crop of 3D monitors work by alternating lines left and right, with circular polarised filters on each line for a 1920 x 1080 high-def image,” says Rob Hummel, the CEO of Prime Focus Post Production and 3D expert. “The 1080 horizontal rows alternate: even numbered lines are polarised for the left eye; odd numbered lines are polarised for the right eye. The broadcast version will transmit two anamorphically squeezed images to the HDTV set, and when watched ‘normally’ will present two images squeezed side by side to fit the High Def frame. When a 3D set receives such a signal, it unsqueezes the images and directs them to rows of left and right pixels.”

While 3D technology is not new, the cost of producing 3D films is lowering. A growth in 3D movies will only drive demand for home 3DTVs.

11 THE NEXT... HIGH STREET SENSATION
SMILES ALL ROUND

 ONE VERSION of a recent ad campaign on London Underground, read: “Step into middle England’s best-loved department store, stroll through haberdashery to the audiovisual department where an awfully well brought-up young man will bend over backwards to find the right TV for you. Then go to Dixons.co.uk – the last place you want to go.”

The inference is that while the customer service at department store John Lewis may be pleasant, it’s price that counts. Yet, overall, the department store’s sales figures have been climbing since the advert appeared.

John Lewis attributes much of its success to customer service, a facet of the shopping experience currently separating retail’s wheat from its chaff. It is an uncanny fact that many of the sector’s recent major failures, think Woolworths in the UK, German department store group Arcandor, or perhaps US electricals retailer Circuit City, were as much to do with poor service as ranging deficiencies.

It’s a message not lost on the world of fashion, with brands such as Californian-headquartered Juicy Couture, which recently opened a London flagship, proving that with the right service, you can shift velour track-suit bottoms at €150 a pair.

And as retail’s next big thing, better customer service also carries the promise of being conducted by retailers at all levels. It is such an egalitarian value-add, yet it has taken a crisis to make people sit up and wonder why this hasn’t been done before.

As for DSGi, the owner of Dixons.co.uk, with like-for-like sales for the 16 weeks to 22 August down 6%, its history during 2009 so far has made unappetising reading.