Usable Buildings timeline

Usable Buildings timeline

1998 Usable Buildings started with the website www.usablebuildings.co.uk . It distributed documents as PDFs, replacing post. This remains its prime purpose, although the coverage has somewhat widened.

2001 A review of the first sixteen Probe (Post-occupancy Review of Buildings and their Engineering) studies, summarised in five papers in a special issue of Building Research & Information journal. The review and studies were 50% funded by the UK Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions. UBT also attempted to lead the UK’s contribution to the international Green Building Challenge in 2002: and funding via the Building Research Establishment had stopped once its privatisation was complete. After much effort we had to abandon the attempt - in an economic downturn we could not find the cash to match the Government’s proffered contribution.

2002 Offered a donation to assist our work, we sought charitable status, in 2002 becoming the Usable Buildings Trust. UBT’s objectives are primarily educational - to help close the feedback loop from studies of building performance in use, back to those that can make a difference; and to help reduce what is now much better known (but still poorly dealt with) as the Performance Gap between design intent and practical reality. UBT’s audience includes clients, government, builders, manufacturers, built environment professionals, project and facility managers, and undergraduate and especially postgraduate students.

2002 We edited the CIBSE Guide to Building Services in Historic Buildings.

2003 A feedback system for construction clients and the industry, supported by the Department of Trade and Industry, the Confederation of Construction Clients, UBT and an industry group – the first of such groups convened by UBT. Outputs included the Feedback Portfolio on our website, which shows techniques suited to particular building types, at each stage of procurement and use. We also contributed to research into Soft Landings – a process that allows client, design, building and management teams to produce buildings with more focus on in-use outcomes, in particular changing handover from the end of a project to the middle of a “finish” stage, with performance review and fine tuning continuing for three years. In 2007, Mark Way, its originator, donated Soft Landings to UBT.

2004 Commitment Agreements for ABGR, the Australian Buildings Greenhouse Rating system (now NABERS Energy), where a developer signs up to procure a new office building that performs in use in accordance with its design intent. This allows its predicted performance to be benchmarked against comparable buildings in operation, giving confidence to developers, investors and tenants; and allowing the value put into design, construction and facilities management to be properly realised. UBT was external examiner for the first batch of candidates seeking to undertake Design Reviews, and actually referred all of them back for re-submission before final assessment.

2005 Onto the Radar with the Sustainability Forum. This explored options for collecting information, reporting and benchmarking for the Display Energy Certificates (DECs) required for public buildings by the EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, based on actual building energy use in operation. The approach was used in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and some other EU countries, notably Germany. With architect Bill Gething, UBT also developed a Rapid Assessment Checklist for Sustainable Buildings, funded by the Pilkington Energy Efficiency Trust and the Carbon Trust. We developed prototype sustainability and energy reporting forms and tested them to assess candidates for the RIBA Sustainability Award 2005. The findings were published in Building Research & Information.

2006 A Sustainability Framework for Commercial Buildings. This brief scoping study was undertaken with the British Property Federation, BPF, as part of the Department of Trade and Industry’s Sector Sustainability Challenge, The objective was a common approach by property market players, with more emphasis on in-use performance. In 2006 we also advised the Australian government on lessons from Europe that might influence a policy it was considering of Mandatory Disclosure of NABERS in-use energy performance ratings: this was implemented in 2012.

2007 Benchmarks for Display Energy Certificates, for CIBSE. The approach was accepted by DCLG, the Department of Communities and Local Government, and subsequently developed by CIBSE with industry consultation into the system which in October 2008 became mandatory for public buildings of over 1000 square metres floor area.

2007 Controls for End-users, with the Building Services Research and Information Association, BSRIA and the Building Controls Industry Association, BCIA, funded by the Carbon Trust. We researched room controls and their user interfaces and prepared simple guidance in a report published by BSRIA on behalf of the whole team.

2008 LES-TER: Landlord’s Energy Statement and Tenant’s Energy Review, undertaken with the British Property Federation and funded by the Carbon Trust, with in-kind contributions by BPF members, UBT and consultancies. This allowed Display Energy Certificates (DECs) to be extended to rented commercial buildings – starting with office buildings, in which there were clear divisions of responsibility between landlord and tenant. It was to underpin the Government’s proposed roll-out of DECs into commercial buildings - which in the event never happened – and was supported by guidance documents and local software in Excel, with the facility to upload into a central database.

2009 Soft Landings Framework published with BSRIA, the Building Services Research & Information Association. The document built on the 2003 draft Scope of Service, and was reviewed by the User Group convened by BSRIA. It was revised in 2014, coordinating it with the new 2013 RIBA Plan of Work. We plan to rewrite it in 2019, to take account of the 2020 RIBA Plan of Work and the findings of the Hackitt Report into the Grenfell Tower fire.

2010 UBT assisted the California Energy Commission in proposing options for implementing the State’s policy for energy performance rating of commercial buildings. The system came into use in 2015. UBT also worked on the Energy IQ non-domestic building energy benchmarking system with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
2010 Soft Landings for Schools. Case studies of strengths, weaknesses and difficulties and opportunities in applying Soft Landings to projects in the Government’s Building Schools for the Future programme, extracting strategic and detailed findings. It was funded by the Technology Strategy Board, with in-kind contributions of time by UBT and the design and building teams involved, and some of their clients. From In 2008-10 we also assisted the Technology Strategy Board (today called Innovate UK) with feasibility, planning and design of its £ 8 million Building Performance Evaluation programme: undertaken from 2010-14, this included in-use performance studies of 50 new non-domestic buildings and 50 housing projects - ranging from individual dwellings to large sites.

2011 BUS Methodology agree that the BUS Occupant survey may be offered under a free licence to postgraduate students working under supervision. The scheme to be operated by the Usable Buildings Trust.

2011 Display Energy Certificates and the Carbon Reduction Commitment. UBT was active on the UK Green Building’s Task Group which produced a report advocating the extension of Display Energy Certificates to commercial buildings. As a result, commercial DECs were included in the 2011 Energy Bill and supported in its First and Second Readings, but were struck out of the Energy Act at the last minute, reportedly by the Treasury.

2012 Responsible Retrofit. UBT contributed to research into the information available to clients, designers and builders regarding the energy-efficient refurbishment of traditional buildings, especially solid-walled buildings. Its report was published by the newly-formed Sustainable Traditional Buildings Association, STBA. The study found that the information base was shaky, and warned of unintended consequences from the government’s proposed Green Deal and other projects affecting the existing building stock. While the Department of Energy and Climate Change contributed to the costs of the work, the advice went mostly unheeded. A few years afterwards, major problems are emerging, in particular in relation to moisture, toxic mould, timber decay, poor air quality and occupant health. In the worst cases, insulation has had to be stripped off. Some houses have even had to be evacuated.

2013 Responsible Retrofit Guidance Wheel., developed with STBA. A user-friendly web interface that draws upon information from the STBA Responsible Refurbishment report and elsewhere to help identify and manage the risks associated with energy-efficient alterations and refurbishments of traditional buildings. It uses principles UBT developed with English Heritage in the so-called Triage system prototype, in which proposed measures could be classified as safe, risky or dangerous and tracked and managed over time, using an Excel workbook.

2013 New Professionalism. In 2008, UBT began to advocate a new professionalism from built environment professions, and in particular more engagement with in-use outcomes. We claimed that a failure to do so breached a professional’s duty of care to the public, with particular respect to sustainability. This led to a number of discussions and presentations – including an Edge Debate and a keynote at the biennial International Sustainable Buildings conference 2011, in Helsinki. UBT was then invited to edit a Special Issue of Building Research & Information on the topic, published in early 2013. Since then, the subject has been pursued by UBT and others, particularly the Edge, which held another debate, set up an Inquiry into the professional institutions, published as Collaboration for Change in 2015. An Edge member subsequently wrote a book on the history of these institutions.

2015 Landlord’s Energy Rating (LER), Feasibility Study and Case Studies, with the Better Buildings Partnership (BBP) and Verco. When the government did not mandate Display Energy Certificates in the commercial sector, UK property investors and landlords sought their own rating for the energy efficiency of landlord’s services in rented buildings. Inspired by the success of NABERS Energy in transforming the market for energy efficiency of prime offices in Australia, they wanted an investment-grade rating: UBT’s low-cost Landlord’s Energy Statement developed with BPF was not authoritative enough, and large prime offices could afford a more expensive system. A suitable rating was devised, but studies of individual buildings showed that it could not be applied readily in the UK because – unlike in most of Australia - landlord’s gas and electricity supplies are not separately metered. Nor are the building services in most offices organised in such a way that effective metering can be retrofitted at an affordable cost.

2016 From 2014-18, key UBT members suffered major health problems, making little new research possible. Work on the Landlord’s Energy Rating continued, particularly on the potential for a Commitment Agreement protocol to eliminate the “performance gap” between design predictions and in-use outcomes for new office buildings and major refurbishments, following the success of this approach in Australia.

2018 Design for Performance feasibility studies, with the Better Buildings Partnership and Verco. This tested the idea of a Commitment Agreement on a selection of UK office projects being briefed, designed, under construction, before handover, and in occupation. Thanks to an anonymous donation, UBT was able to assist this project, both with our own input and by funding advice from the experts who designed and continue to support the NABERS Energy system in Australia, and the people who now run it. The report was launched to a packed audience in October, with a re-run with the British Council for Offices in a larger venue in Feb 2018. Nine major property companies have signed up to Pioneer projects, where they will apply the protocol to at least one future development.

2019 Usable Buildings hosts an archive of the Building Performance Evaluation case studies funded by the UK's then Department of Business Innovation and Skills between 2010 and 2015, and carried out under the Technology Strategy Board (later Innovate UK). Thanks to Roderic Bunn.

UBT’s work has been recognised in several awards to our members, in particular an honorary fellowship of the RIBA in 2001, an honorary fellowship of CIBSE in 2007, CIBSE’s very first low-carbon pioneer award in 2008, a medal for the best technical contribution to the UK Green Building Council in 2011, and an OBE in 2013.

This all indicates that UBT has made a significant contribution to building performance analysis worldwide. The academic websites Google Scholar and ResearchGate list thousands of citations to UBT publications, many written for professional journals and not primarily academic. Growing academic interest in this work may have downsides, with focus on real-world performance lost to introspection. UBT is also frustrated by a reluctance of funding bodies to support routine feedback, preferring blue-sky innovation to learning from experience and sharing the results.

More important than all of this is climate change. Serious scientific warnings in the 1980s led to Margaret Thatcher’s addresses to the Royal Society and the United Nations in 1989, initiating more than a decade of strong UK leadership. Sadly, in the 21st Century, ideology and short-term self-interest has prevailed. While UBT can be seen as successful in the terms it set itself 20 years ago, radical change has become necessary - the need to Do It Now.
UBT Trustees 2002-2019 (alphabetical) Denise Bennetts, Roderic Bunn, Sir Andrew Derbyshire, Joanna Eley, John Field, Jim Meikle.

Significant supporters and contributors (alphabetical)
Barry Austin, Paul Bannister Bill Bordass , Mike Buckley, Roderic Bunn, Isabel Carmona, Robert Cohen, Kate Morley, Adrian Leaman, Richard Lorch, Neil May, Roger McMeeking, Mark Standeven, Fionn Stevenson, Sara Turnbull, Mark Way.

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