• Energy Research

Abstract Specification by central government of the heating levels which are to be maintained in British school buildings has recently been altered. This paper is concerned with examining the nature of changes that have been made by comparing present requirements with their counterparts during the preceding one hundred years. Attention is focused on the apparently contradictory implications of these changes for those charged with responsibility for maintaining heating levels in school buildings while, at the same time, conserving fuel. It is suggested that the new statutory requirements present those who are responsible with a duty which may, in practical terms, prove difficult or costly to discharge. Although discussion is specifically restricted to British school buildings, issues are raised which are pertinent to attempts to integrate regulation of heating with control of fuel consumption in other types of non-domestic buildings both in Britain and abroad.

Abstract This commentary on government publications covers the period 1974 to 1979. It is intended as an introductory text aimed at two overlapping audiences. First, it is addressed to those who are interested in the reasoning which lies behind the Government's technical arguments on energy policy in general and on energy conservation in buildings in particular. Secondly, it is directed towards those who seek to understand the social implications and consequences of these two areas of government policy. Not all the extracts brought together here represent official statements of policy. Some, indeed, are prefaced in their originals by specific disclaimers to this effect. Rather, they should be read as examples of arguments concerning energy policy—and conservation in buildings—voiced by a variety of individuals and groups capable of informing, influencing, or making decisions that affect this field of government activity. Those whose thinking is represented here range from a Prime Minister, Secretaries of State for Energy, other government ministers and departmental officials to outside specialists called upon by the Government to offer advice on particular aspects of its energy and conservation policies or programmes. The commentary which follows is unreal in several senses. Most obviously, perhaps, no such statement of government thinking is currently to be found in any one publication. Instead, it has had to be woven (and in some cases welded) together from extracts culled from thirty or so different documents. These have been published, for the most part, by the Stationery Office or under the auspices of the Department of Energy. Further, although the commentary is presented here as both sequential and continuous, it should not be supposed that the arguments which it contains are necessarily consistent or coherent. Instead, in some cases at least, they seem incompatible and may even be irreconcilable. And perhaps this is to be expected, given that the source material is drawn from such a wide variety of documents with such a range of authors. Neither is the commentary offered as exhaustive, as representative of all aspects of government thinking in this area. For example, documents published by the Department of the Environment—which also has responsibility for conservation in buildings—have not been cited, simply for the sake of brevity. A separate and complementary commentary could probably be constructed from such documents alone. In the preparation of this commentary, the chronological sequence in which statements were published has been maintained where this has seemed particularly pertinent or especially significant. And, in order to render the commentary realistic and the reportage faithful, an attempt has been made, where practicable, to retain—without the intrusion of external comment or criticism—the concepts, vocabulary and forms of expression used in the original extracts. Accordingly, the guiding principle underlying the compilation of this overview of government thinking has been to allow the statements drawn from government publications to speak for themselves.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, there was growing interest in designing healthier neighbourhoods. Adopting this perspective brings attention to how conditions in neighbourhoods (directly and indirectly) affect their inhabitants’ physical health and mental wellbeing. However, considerably less attention has been paid to how to alleviate such conditions through integrated interventions designed to operate specifically at the neighbourhood scale. To address this gap, this paper introduces the term “unhealthy neighbourhood syndrome” (UNS). The conceptual clarity and practical utility offered by using this term are critically examined. The paper contains a rigorous review and critical analysis of academic and grey literature on what are held to be the relationships between key features of the built environment and people’s health and wellbeing. It also examines literature offering advice on how urban designers should make neighbourhoods healthier. It illustrates the complexity of the range of issues involved and the complicated web of top down, bottom up and middling out actors that need to be involved in making decisions about them. Despite having inherent weaknesses, the term “unhealthy neighbourhood syndrome” is judged to be useful. It illustrates how seemingly separate issues operate in urban design, promoted for tackling specific symptoms of ill health, need to be addressed jointly through an integrated programme of parallel work streams operating at the neighbourhood scale. The paper is innovative in identifying the wide cluster of symptoms used to describe unhealthy neighbourhoods in the literature as being a “syndrome”. Its significance lies in its injunction that this syndrome needs to be tackled through integrated streams of remedial action drawing on experience and expertise that lie beyond those offered by the traditional membership of urban design teams.

Abstract This paper is focused on background issues which currently underlie attempts to reconcile comfort with reduced consumption of fuels in buildings in Britain. Two specific topics are considered; first, developments which have taken place in environmental design and, second, those which have occurred in comfort research in this country over the past thirty years. Developments in both these fields are presented as having contributed to making the idea of habitable spaces in buildings in Britain synonymous with the notion of consuming finite fossil fuels. Physiologically-grounded, orthodox comfort theory is questioned as an adequate basis for understanding how people judge internal environments in buildings they occupy since social issues, concerned with what constitutes an acceptable environment, are also identified as significant. environment, are also identified as significant.

Abstract In this paper, the bases of the theory and practice of energy management in non-domestic buildings are examined. The focus of interest is divided into three related sections. First, the present British government's thinking on the management of energy is set against its formulation of energy policy as a whole. Then the types of measures that are currently being implemented to reduce and regulate fuel consumption in non-domestic premises are reviewed. And finally, attention is addressed towards two of the current government's favoured solutions for bringing about the management of energy—the introduction of ‘energy managers’ and the application of micro-electronics to monitoring and controlling the use of fuel. The principal objectives pursued in the paper are to provide both an introductory overview and a critical appraisal of what is being said and done in Britain in the name of managing the consumption of fuel in non-domestic premises.

Abstract Like my previous paper in this journal this commentary is focused on government statements published during the period 1974 to 1979. It is intended as an introductory guide aimed at two overlapping audiences. First, it is addressed to those interested in the reasoning which lies behind the Government's technical arguments on energy conservation in buildings. Secondly, it is directed towards those who seek to understand the social implications and consequences of this area of government endeavour. Not all the statements examined in this commentary represent official expressions of government policy. Some, indeed, are prefaced in their originals by specific disclaimers to this effect. Rather, they should be read as examples of arguments voiced by a variety of individuals and groups who are capable of informing, influencing or making decisions that affect this field of government activity. It should not be supposed that the government statements brought together in this commentary are necessarily consistent or coherent. Instead, in some cases at least, they seem incompatible and may even be irreconcilable. But, given that the source material is drawn from a wide range of documents with a broad range of authors and was published over a number of years, the extent of their unanimity is remarkable. As an introductory guide, this commentary is not offered as exhaustive, as representative of all aspects or shades of government thinking on this subject. On the contrary, only statements published in documents emanating from, or associated with, the Department of Energy have, for the most part, been cited. For the sake of brevity, statements published by other government departments with responsibility for the conservation of energy in buildings—such as the Department of the Environment—have not been drawn upon.

Abstract Local education authorities in Britain currently find themselves being expected to act on two specific fronts by central government. They are being urged to curb their expenditure by explicitly ‘managing’ the consumption of fuel in the buildings they own. They are also being asked to prepare the teachers they employ for a new task, teaching children to be pro-energy conservation. This paper contains an exploration of these two areas of proposed activity in the context of one specific English education authority. Connexions are sought between technical and non-technical measures taken by the Authority to cut its energy costs and its employees' perceptions of their primary duty, teaching. To this end, attention is focused on the intermediary role which buildings can play between employees and those for whom they work. It is concluded that local government officers, who are charged with responsibility for managing energy, cannot assume that it is a consensus issue—either as an abstract idea or as a set of practices. Hence the social acceptability of energy management cannot be taken for granted. Instead its approval and consent are problematic. They have to be earned. The criteria by which and the context in which employees judge the conservation and management of energy may make acceptance and co-operation difficult to achieve. But failure to do so may also influence their reactions to introducing energy studies into the curriculum.

This paper provides a historical context for the Probe studies reported in this special issue by describing the stalled development of post-occupancy evaluation (POE) in Britain since the 1960s. It charts 40 years of continuing academic, professional and commercial neglect of POE as a mainstream activity in the procurement of buildings in Britain. It notes the current resurgence of interest in the ‘customer care’ focus of the Egan Report. And it closes by identifying a re-emerging research agenda for POE in Britain. This could include its use for benchmarking progress in the transition towards more sustainable production and consumption of the built environment. Cet article rappelle le contexte historique des etudes d'evaluation Probe faisant l'objet de cette publication speciale en decrivant l'evolution stoppee de l'evaluation de la fontionnalite de bâtiments apres emmenagement (POE) en Grande-Bretagne depuis les annees 1960. Il retrace 40 annees de negligence continue, aux niveaux academique, profession...