Energiesprong UK's two-day deep retrofit hackathon aims to catalyse an open-source repository of net-zero concepts for UK housing archetypes - using digital media to showcase them in innovative, engaging ways. 

We are looking for students and professionals with multi-disciplinary experience who can help:

For reference: https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/

Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

What definition of net zero carbon are we working to and what building performance criteria should we be targeting? On the ‘Performance standard and useful resources’ slide in your information packs, you’ll find links to the Energiesprong performance specification as well as the LETI climate emergency retrofit guide and resources from PassiveHaus Trust. 

We’d like you to design to the Energiesprong specification but please do draw the other resources too as they are all closely aligned. For example, similar to Passivhaus, Energiesprong doesn't stipulate specific U-values. However, the LETI Climate Emergency Retrofit Guide sets out useful guide U-values that align with the general level of U-value you might expect to need to meet the Energiesprong spec.

Should we be aligning proposals to the current Part L regs or those due to be published in June?

We suggest teams consider the practicalities of meeting all parts of the UK Building regulations relevant to retrofit in their proposals, including Part L (either current or upcoming). As you should be targeting the Energiesprong performance specification, you will likely find that that you’ll be exceeding the minimum requirements of Part L in a range of areas. Part B (fire safety) is another key part of the regulations to consider at an early stage. 

Is there a standard approach to energy modelling for this hackathon that we should use? We are not prescribing an approach to energy modelling. However, we suggest you use a robust and widely-used software such as PHPP and use the archetype data where possible. We will also have coaches with experience in energy modelling who can support you. 

How much detail and/or accuracy is expected for cost analysis? When considering the second ‘prompt’ we have outlined on slide 5 of your information packs (Optimising solutions for archetypes), we suggest that this requires fairly accurate costing. 

We understand that other prompts ie inter industry innovation may be trickier to cost at the moment and therefore indicative costing is fine. We have a coach who can help with/sense check costs on day 2 of the hackathon. 

What area of the UK should the costs be based on? This is up to you – you may have better cost information/rates for a particular area and we invite you to use these and detail which area you have chosen. If you’re not sure where to pick, use Nottingham as there are existing Energiesprong projects there for benchmarking. 

Can we propose a digital technology concept even if we as a team are unable to implement it? Absolutely, as long as it has a convincing route to market and is clearly drawing on technology and innovations that already exist.  

Due to limited time are partially functional digital demos acceptable for proof of concepts? Definitely!

 

Must all digital demos developed, and their corresponding project files be submitted? (as opposed to solely being for demonstration purposes) We are encouraging teams to take an open-source approach to the hackathon outputs and encourage you to submit working project files as well as finished/compiled demos. Anything you want reviewed by the judges for the hackathon judging session you should include in your final presentation. 

 

But we encourage you to consider it a live, ongoing project and welcome you to develop and add to your ideas after the hackathon (especially if you’ve been invited to present at Futurebuild and want to add to your ideas). 

 

Process, presentations and post-hackathon

Will we have the chance to see other teams’ work during the hackathon? Yes! We want the hackathon to be collaborative – we firmly believe that shared learning is key to scaling up retrofit. During the check in sessions we will be inviting all teams to share ideas and insights, challenges and questions on this shared Miro board. 

You are all working on different archetypes with different challenges, but there are common problems to solve too.  If useful during the event, we can help connect teams who want to share specific solutions or ask questions of another team.

How long will we have for presentations? Each team will have approx. 10 – 12 mins for their presentations. 

Will teams have a chance to carry on working on ideas post hackathon (before Futurebuild 2022)? The judging and prizes will be awarded at the end of the hackathon on Tuesday 22 Feb. However, all teams are welcome to carry on working on their ideas post-hackathon.

If you are invited to speak at Futurebuild, you will need some availability to prepare for this as well as need to be available for the session itself on 1 March (13:15 – 14:00). We will be inviting winning teams to propose specific individuals for the Futurebuild session as we won’t have time for everyone to speak. 

What is the commitment post-hackathon for winners? Other than the Futurebuild session, this is mostly up to teams and their availability. The idea is that the designs will be open source to get them out there and help scale up net zero retrofit. We want more people in the sector to help innovate so if you have the time and resource to take your ideas forward, we strongly encourage this!

If there is a particular idea that is promising and requires incubator support or further funding, we are happy to explore how we could support this. Our judges will also be invited to share their advice with you about progressing any of the solutions.