Ecobuild was great. It was really good to meet up with so many readers (and advertisers) in such a positive atmosphere – I’ve put a selection of comments from exhibitors in our Ecobuild Review. The mood was very upbeat, with a lot of optimism for the coming year.

And Glenigan, the market analysis experts, forecast a gradual recovery over the course of 2010 as private sector confidence grows. But they consider that government spending cuts will remain a drag, and that limited mortgage availability is expected to restrict the pace of recovery in new house sales. New non-residential projects continue to be particularly weak due to low confidence in the private commercial and industrial sectors. What do you see in your sector? Let us know!

So what do we have in this month’s issue? In Design & Desire architect David Long explains how to mix the old with the new, building ‘Chestnut’ in a road of traditional Edwardian and Victorian architecture. ‘Aqua’, showcased in Architectural Focus, really caught my eye! We don’t usually feature projects from outside of the UK, but when I saw this Chicago sky-scraper I had to show it to everyone!

The UK feed-in tariff comes into effect in April 2010, meaning that homes or businesses will be paid for each unit of electricity they generate. It’ll be interesting to see how this affects the uptake of sustainable energy production products, there’s a great range to choose from. This month’s Greenhouse shows that energy efficient design is not limited to new build; retrofitting is an ideal example of reusing the existing building fabric and structure, and communities are not broken up as in the case of mass housing demolition. Architect Mark Elton shows us how it’s done in their joint Retrofit & Replicate project, with Hyde Housing.

Hope you enjoy!