Editorial

Citation

(2013), "Editorial", Structural Survey, Vol. 31 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ss.2013.11031baa.001

Editorial

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Structural Survey, Volume 31, Issue 2.

In this editorial I will not discuss any pressing issues in the Building Surveying arena. Instead I think it is only fitting that we allow Dr Alan Forster pay tribute to the passing to a colleague and good friend of his James Douglas who sadly passed away at the end of December 2012.

I would like to dedicate this issue of the Journal to James Douglas.

James Douglas, BSc (Hons), MRICS, MBEng FHEA (1952-2012)

James Douglas was born in Edinburgh and served an apprenticeship as a joiner with Ford and Torrie in the early 1970s, after which he developed his interest in building investigation and repair and maintenance through employment with the Property Services Agency in Edinburgh, with Cumbernauld New Town Development Corporation, the Bank of Scotland and Edinburgh District Council. All this experience made him ideally suited to educational roles in which he could pass on his knowledge and understanding to the next generation of professionals. Having graduated from the College of Estate Management, Reading, with a First Class Honours Degree in Building Surveying by distance learning study in 1984, he became a Chartered Surveyor in 1986. As a member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) he was an advocate for maintaining the high standards expected by the institution.

After a short period teaching at Telford College in Edinburgh, James was appointed to a lectureship at Heriot-Watt University in 1988, with the specific task of establishing a Building Surveying degree. He achieved this with distinction and the first graduates emerged in 1992, with the programme achieving accreditation from the RICS, the Chartered Institute of Building and the Association of Building Engineers, and being consistently one of the highest ranking courses in the UK with an annual output of about 20-30 graduates. Over nearly 30 years as a university lecturer James taught many of the country's current building surveyors and became a highly regarded figure in the building surveying sector. He was an early adopter of many of the pedagogical techniques that we now see as routine, becoming a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and at the time of his retirement was working on a PhD thesis concerned with documenting their use in building surveying. Having gained his own degree by distance learning, he was also a keen supporter of the College of Estate Management and eventually set up a distance learning MSc in building surveying at Heriot-Watt, to complement the successful distance learning MSc in building conservation.

A keen communicator, James's research and teaching focused on the core building surveying activities of building adaptation and refurbishment, building pathology, building inspection and maintenance. James published several text books that have in many cases become essential reading by students and practitioners. His most well-known titles include “Building Adaptation”, “Dampness in Buildings” (with Alan Oliver and Stewart Stirling), Building Surveys and Reports (with Edward Noy) and “Understanding Building Failures” (with Bill Ransom). With Alan Forster he received the Emerald Literati award for the Outstanding Journal Paper of 2010 for a paper on survey and repair of masonry. He spent many years as a member of the editorial board of Structural Survey and published several papers on defects diagnosis.

In 2005 he began to experience problems with balance, walking and speech, which after extensive investigations by specialist neurologists were diagnosed as multiple system atrophy – Cerebellar type and this led to his early retirement at the end of 2009. This tragically cut him off from the university work that he really enjoyed, but despite finding communication increasingly frustrating he remained cheerful until being admitted to hospital with a chest infection at the end of 2012. He is survived by his wife Gloria, whom he met while on a study trip to Ghana in 1991, and children Errol and Estelle.

Dr Alan Forster

Papers in this issue

This issue sees the publication of a mixture of paper types. There is a “Case Study” paper, a “General Review” paper and three “Research Papers”.

In the Case Study paper Hassanain and Tashrifullahiuse “A simulation model for emergency evacuation time of a library facility using EVACNET 4”. In the paper they discuss how the model was used to determine the optimal egress time for the main library at the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. The paper finds that there is a difference of 49 seconds in the optimal times when the EVACNET 4 and FPETool's are used. The paper is aimed at all parties in the industry to highlight the importance of egress times and how much they can change with minor alterations to the design and layout of buildings.

Paper 2 in the issue is classified as a General Review paper. It has been written by Stephen Donahoe and describes the implications of the findings from the Jones V Ruth case on the construction industry. Not being a legal expert I would not like to try and summarise the paper in a few lines, instead I will let you the reader make up your own mind on this!

Paper 3 is the first of the research papers. The paper is titled “Motivations for energy efficiency refurbishment in owner-occupied housing” and is written by Squires, Organ and Proverbs. The paper discusses how the existing housing stock needs substantial adaptation to meet national and international carbon reduction targets. Using a comprehensive review of literature a model is developed that describes the motivational factors for energy efficient refurbishment in such owner-occupied housing. The model shows that such factors can be categorised into economic, social and environmental, but they will be mediated by the individual.

Paper4 is from Tugba Inan, and is titled “An investigation on daylighting in educational institutions” and primarily investigates natural illumination properties of a classroom within the School of Architecture at Izmir Institute of Technology in Turkey. Using a piece of software called Velux the variable lighting factors of the classroom is assessed. By changing the characteristics of the openings of the classrooms in the software the optimum daylighting for the room can be determined. This should influence the design of future classrooms to take advantage of natural daylighting in such rooms.

The final paper in this issue has been written by Delgado, Freitas, Guimaraes and Ferreira and is titled “Controlled relative humidity in crawl spaces: a new treatment methodology”. In the paper different methodologies are presented to the identification of micro-organisms and fungi in an historic building in Estarreja, Portgual. An experimental campaign was conducted with continuous monitoring of the relative humidity and temperature of the crawl spaces being recorded. From this an analysis of suitable treatment activities and the characteristics of rehabilitation solutions in order to control the hygrothermal behaviour are discussed. The results show the importance of crawl spaces with good ventilation to avoid mould growth is needed, and they suggest that controlled mechanical ventilation is preferable to strong continuous mechanical ventilation in such spaces.

Once again all five papers show the diverse range of activities/issues that face buildings and their management. The journal is proud to continually support the efforts of industry and academia in reporting their interesting findings within the journal.

Dr Mark Shelbourn