BSRIA and Designing Buildings Wiki are launching an open competition calling for ideas that will make buildings perform better.

Simple to enter, the competition organisers are just looking for ideas, which might only take a paragraph or even just a sentence to explain.

Simple to enter, the competition organisers are appealing for ideas to improve the performance of buildings in use. Whether through the adoption of smart technology, better regulation, on-site generation, monitoring and feedback, or more drastic measures such as carbon rationing or contractual obligations for buildings to achieve design standards. The more innovative and far-reaching the better.

The winner will receive £500 worth of BSRIA membership, training or publications, and along with four runners-up, will be featured in the July edition of Delta T and on Designing Buildings Wiki.

Buildings in use continue to consume far more energy than is predicted during design. The latest figures from Innovate UK’s Building Performance Evaluation Programme found the average total carbon emissions of 76 homes assessed was 35.3 kgCO2 per square metre per year, 2.6 times higher than the design estimates. Even more alarmingly, the average total carbon emissions of non-domestic buildings was 75.2 kgCO2 per square metre per year, 3.8 times higher than the design estimates.

BSRIA information manager, Jayne Sunley, said: “BSRIA is delighted to launch this competition with Designing Buildings Wiki. BSRIA has been a sponsor of the Wiki for just over a year now and we’re excited to take this partnership one step further in finding ways in which we can ensure a sustainable built environment. BSRIA’s mission statement is ‘making buildings better’ and we feel strongly about enabling the industry to enhance the value of the built environment.

She continued: “In terms of better building performance we’ve worked hard to develop and promote our Soft Landings process to change industry best practice and ensure performance of a building is at the forefront of the project from the very beginning. We’re hoping this competition will lead to similar industry-changing processes.”

The competition closes on Wednesday 18 May. For more information and to enter click here Wiki make buildings better competition