Third Annual Facilities Conference — Make your building work

Abstract

A growing maturity Facilities subscribers continue to be drawn from the senior ranks of the profession — from those who have been around long enough to separate the new from the novel. And although it was not entirely composed of our subscribers, that maturity of outlook was everywhere apparent in the Café Royal audience on 30 October, when a selection of thoroughly professional delegates resisted a series of interpretations of facilities management — as a branch of sociology, architecture, building economics, business systematising and even design — and insisted on its right to a unique, independent existence of its own. The information provided by the speakers — the expertise laid before the delegates by architects Frank Duffy and John Worthington, building economist Bernard Williams, journalist Martin Pawley, computer systematiser Tina Rich Walden and design consultant Peter Gorb — was eagerly snapped up: the comprehensive documentation gathered up and taken away for reference. But this was as predicted: the quality of information should have been no surprise to anyone. What was heartening — and needed a forum such as this to find expression — was the quality and assurance of the prominent facilities managers present, and in particular the members of the panel and the facilities manager speaker. To a large extent the sensitive and enquiring chairmanship of John Nicholas was responsible for an atmosphere of generosity and exchange. Each member of the panel accepted with both hands the distilled wisdom of those other professions — but held firm for the autonomy of their own. And it was our strong impression that their demeanour proved their point: a body of people that can produce such stars — articulate, informed, visible and accountable — and from such a wide variety of backgrounds, from local authorities to multinationals, can no longer sensibly be regarded as an offshoot of some other body.

Citation

(1986), "Third Annual Facilities Conference — Make your building work", Facilities, Vol. 4 No. 11, pp. 4-5. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb006380