For quite some time, BedZED has held the top slot in our unofficial ranking of the hippest, greenest residences around. Completed in 2002, Beddington Zero Energy Development excelled not only in terms of sustainability but in terms of livability and aesthetic appeal.
Recently, the development hit some rocky ground and sent green geeks wondering whether better buildings were possible (or whether the ones we idealized were perhaps falling short). Fortunately for BedZED's developers, the shaky press they received was offset by the fact that they are among the very people formulating better possibilities.
The next thing emerging from these cutting-edge creators is Z-Squared, "a 2,000 home zero carbon zero waste mixed-use community. It will be a One Planet Living Community for the UK, providing homes and employment for up to 5,000 people, with retail, leisure, health and education facilities nearby." BedZED became something of a launching point from which Z-Squared could pursue greater goals. These were guided in large part by the ZEDStandards, a comprehensive guideline for sustainability in housing developments spearheaded by Bill Dunster Architects' ZEDFactory. The ZEDStandards mirror the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED codes for neighborhood design to some extent. The two were given a side by side comparison here last year, but since LEED for neighborhoods (LEED-ND) has yet to be officially implemented, we're still comparing built environments to concepts. For now ZED's got the evidence and they're showing fast improvement on their own innovations.
Some of the measurements and experiments Bioregional used to establish Z-Squared can be seen here.
