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An Act to make further provision for securing the health, safety and welfare of persons at work, for protecting others against risks to health or safety in connection with the activities of persons at work, for controlling the keeping and use and preventing the unlawful acquisition, possession and use of dangerous substances, and for controlling certain emissions into the atmosphere; to make further provision with respect to the employment medical advisory service; to amend the law relating to building regulations, and the Building (Scotland) Act 1959; and for connected purposes. [31st July 1974]

This paper presents an approach where a survey study is combined with energy and indoor environment auditing in the built environment. The combination of methods presented in this paper is one way to obtain a wider perspective on the indoor environment and energy use and also let the people in the building voice their comments on the indoor environment. This is arguably even more important in historic buildings where many of the physical properties are to a higher degree unknown when compared with conventional buildings. The purpose of the paper is to report the experiences from this research project.

A combination of energy and indoor environment auditing and standardized occupant surveys.

The main findings in the paper are related to the good agreement between results from standardized occupant surveys and physical measurements. The possibility to triangulate problems related to poor indoor conditions was shown to be one main advantage of the combined methodology presented in the paper. A standardized survey approach also allows benchmarking, in this case with two groups representing “average” buildings as well as a group representing well-functioning buildings. The use of records from building key cards was also shown to be an effective way of keeping track of activity in the building and thereby distribute internal gains. In addition, the paper reports a linear correlation between activity level and electricity use.

The paper shows an effective way to investigate the performance, in terms of energy use as well as indoor environment, of historic buildings in use. This type of approach could benefit property owners, as it both allows benchmarking as well as investigating individual properties before, e.g., a refurbishment.

This work is initiated under the premise that reliable evaluation methods are necessary to ensure investments in energy conservation, and the purpose of this paper is to contribute to that literature. It describes some pilot changes and their impact in an actual field study oriented toward upgrading municipal public housing (MPH) units.

The research for this paper was connected to an MPH refurbishment project situated in northern Sweden. The overall energy efficiency goal within the project was a 40-50 percent reduction in the supplied energy for central electricity, domestic hot water and space heating. In order to evaluate if these goals were feasible, a measurement system was installed in a pilot building and in a neighboring building used as a reference. The evaluation was conducted by comparing the post-retrofit performance of the pilot building with the performance of the reference building when it was kept in its initial state (a comparison possible because both buildings had initial similarities).

Impacts could be quantified insofar as a reference (control) building in the same environment was sustained for comparison purposes. A 43 percent improvement was observed in energy utilization in the pilot building compared to its reference companion (99.8 vs 174.5 kWh/m² per year). When the approach described herein was applied to new construction, the present goal of 65 kWh/m² was approached as measured by Swedish standards.

Results should be of interest to academics in the housing field, professionals involved in refurbishment and residents themselves, renting MPH flats.

This study is unique in the following ways: first, it really was a field experiment with a control, thus it did not have any exogenous interference in interpreting results. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study of its kind. The second interesting characteristic was that results were subsequently used in the refurbishment of other buildings in the complex and in the construction of others. The major value of the paper may be associated with its timing. It comes at a time when the Kyoto agreement has raised concerns about sustainability, but also at a time when many buildings are facing a need for refurbishment.

This paper aims to conceptualize corporate reference management as a strategic signaling activity in business networks. While research has extensively outlined how firms develop and maintain social capital through business-to-business (B2B) relationships, less is known about how they signal their participation in business networks to develop this social capital. Therefore, this paper conceptualizes B2B references, in particular corporate online references (COR), as a tool through which firms “borrow” attractiveness from their business network. Through the lens of structural social capital theory, COR is shown to capture advantages related to interconnectedness between firms.

The paper reports on a two-step qualitative and quantitative research design. First, the authors undertook a qualitative study that reports on the COR practices of senior business managers. A quantitative study then uses social network analysis (SNA) to audit a digital business network comprising 1,098 firms in a metropolitan area of the UK, referencing to each other through their corporate websites using COR.

The analyses find that COR practices contribute to building structural social capital in networks through strategic signaling. Firms do so by managing B2B references to craft strategic signals, using five steps: requesting, granting, curating, coding and decoding references. While the existing literature on business marketing portrays reference management as a routine and operational management practice, this investigation conceptualizes reference management, in particular COR, as a strategic activity.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to use SNA to represent B2B references in the form of COR as a network, which overlaps with (but is not entirely identical to) the business network. Further, the study re-conceptualizes reference management as a strategic signaling activity that leverages the firm’s participation in business networks to build structural social capital by borrowing attractiveness of prestigious business partners that leverages existing structural social capital. Finally, the paper coins and conceptualizes COR as an exemplar of referencing management and offers propositions for further research.

An Act to consolidate, with certain exceptions, the provisions of the Local Employment Acts 1960 to 1971. [10th February 1972]

The purpose of this study is to highlight special characteristics of building services systems and investigate how practitioners view reliability and maintenance. These characteristics include energy‐hungry services systems, operating modes, maintenance types, the relationship between procurement costs and maintenance costs.

The practitioners' viewpoints on reliability and maintenance are explored through a workshop. The authors wish to draw the attention of researchers in the reliability and maintenance community and furthermore emphasise the difference between building services systems and systems in industries other than construction.

It is shown that a lack of failure data and maintenance data is the main problem from both academic researchers' and industrial practitioner's points of view. The paper suggests that there exists no fixed cost ratio available to apply to building services systems; the analysis of RAMS (Reliability, Availability, Maintainability and Safety) should include duty cycles and the environment; and clients of the construction industry would benefit from mandating a LCC to be applied to the build.

The gap between academia and practitioners should be bridged through better understanding each other's needs. Accurately estimating the ratio between procurement and maintenance costs is needed from a whole life costing perspective.

This paper is a good reference for building designers, facility managers and maintenance staff of building services systems. It also offers reliability researchers references on special characteristics of building services systems.

Energy use in buildings needs to be reduced to meet political goals; however, reducing energy use can conflict with heritage preservation objectives. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate a method that combines quantitative and qualitative analyses of the potential of energy savings in an historic building stock. Specifically, this study examines how requirements of historic building preservation affect the energy saving potential on a building stock level.

Using the World Heritage Town of Visby, Sweden as a case study, this paper illustrates a step-by-step method as a basis for implementing energy savings techniques in an historic building stock. The method contains the following steps: categorisation of a building stock, definition of restriction levels for energy renovation scenarios and life cycle costs optimisation of energy measures in archetype buildings representing the building stock. Finally, this study analyses how different energy renovation strategies will impact heritage values and energy saving potentials for different categories of buildings.

The outcome of the study is twofold: first, the method has been tested and proven useful and second, the results from the application of the method have been used to formulate differentiated energy renovation strategies for the case study.

The study shows that it is possible to integrate techno-economic analysis with assessment of heritage values in a given building stock in order to facilitate a strategic discussion balancing policies and targets for energy savings with policies for the preservation of heritage values. The findings will contribute to sounder policy development and planning for historic building stocks.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a set of affordable retrofit packages that can be applied to existing residential buildings in hot-humid regions to improve occupants’ thermal comfort and reduce energy consumption.

A critical review of relevant literature to identify passive design strategies for improving thermal comfort and reducing energy consumption in hot-humid climates with focus on the building envelope was conducted in addition to a simulation study of an existing building typology in study area.

There is enormous potential to reduce energy costs and improve thermal comfort through building retrofit packages which is a recent concept in developing countries, such as Nigeria. Analysing the results of the retrofit interventions using building energy simulation helped in developing affordable retrofit packages which had optimum effect in improving indoor comfort temperature to the neutral temperature specified for hot humid Nigeria and further down to 3°C less than that of the reference building used. The use of passive design strategies to retrofit the building might help homeowners reduce their annual energy consumption by up to 46.3 per cent just by improving the indoor thermal comfort.

In addition to improving thermal comfort and reducing energy consumption, this research identified affordable retrofit packages and considered its cost implications especially to low-income earners who form a larger population of Lagos, Nigeria, as this was not considered by many previous researchers.

The provision of an accessible and inclusive built environment is both a common regulatory requirement for architects and facilities managers, and a critical issue of equitable access for people with disability. Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE) is key to ensuring appropriate building accessibility is provided and maintained. Improved Building Information Modelling (BIM) integration with Facilities Management (FM) will enable more effective POE over time. This study aims to define and demonstrate the practicability and utility of a particular configuration of emerging BIM and related digital technologies, applied in the field.

A field study approach is applied to investigate the practicability and utility of the technology configuration and POE procedures. A proposed technology configuration is applied to evaluate 21 accessible bathrooms across three university buildings in Sydney, Australia. First, a checklist of technical functionality for a POE of accessible bathrooms particular to the field study FM context is established. The checklist is based on a review of recent literature, relevant standards, best practice guidelines, expert opinions, and the organisational requirements. Then, a technical and procedural approach to POE and BIM integration with FM is defined and applied in the field. Finally, a quantitative analysis of the results is presented and discussed relative to both the particular and general FM contexts.

The use of low-cost BIM and related technologies can usefully be applied in the field to promote a more progressive integration of BIM with FM and provide enhanced baseline models for ongoing POE. A rudimentary risk assessment of key accessible bathroom features (in the context of this field study) identified that the Toilet: toilet rolls location is unsatisfactory across all bathrooms surveyed and represents an immediate and high-risk failing. Other high-risk issues highlighted in this study included: Approach: access; Entrance: door fittings and security; and Layout: hazards.

This study offers a blue-print for building practitioners to adopt and progressively integrate low-cost BIM and related technologies with extant FM systems. The study also promotes an improved approach to effective POE practice in general, and to the assessment of accessible bathrooms in particular.

Recent reviews highlight key barriers to BIM integration with FM and significant limitations to current POE practice. Proposals for BIM integration with FM tend to focus on the comprehensive use of BIM. This study demonstrates the practicability and utility of a more progressive approach to BIM adoption and integration with FM in general. The study is also novel in that it shows how low-cost BIM and related technologies can be used as a baseline reference for ongoing POE. Building practitioners can adopt and adapt the technology configuration and approach to support a range of POE applications. This field study has identified immediate and high-risk potential failings of the accessible bathrooms provided on one university campus in Sydney, Australia.

Expected rates of biodeterioration in heritage buildings under historic conditions are well known. Deteriorating organisms will benefit from a warmer and wetter climate, giving faster and less predictable rates of deterioration. The Directorate for Cultural Heritage in Norway has requested development of a programme for long-term monitoring of climate change impacts to historic buildings. The development process and resulting monitoring system are previously described. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

An initial conditions survey is performed, and reference points are chosen in each building. Two microclimatic biodeterioration monitoring panels (MBM panels) are mounted in every building. The MBM panels monitor temperature, relative humidity and wood moisture content, and have standard wooden blocks for investigation of mould growth. The panels will show both the influence of outdoor climate on microclimate inside the building, and the connection between microclimate and activity of degrading organisms.

High competence and multi-disciplinary approach from the personnel involved are essential to balance flexibility and rigidity and decide the damages that are probably influenced by climate change. Extensive knowledge and experience in surveys of biodeterioration damages in heritage buildings is necessary to distinguish “normal” biodeterioration from biodeterioration caused by climate changes. The MBM panels are essential for possible establishment of causality between damages and climate change.

The authors believe that the methods described give the best possible grounds for future evaluation of damages and microclimatic conditions in buildings compared to changes in regional climatic conditions. Establishment of causality between climate change and development in biological deterioration is still a challenging task.