Department of Architecture

The building of the Great Exhibition of 1851 (1850-51) represents the earliest large scale experiment in the use of the horticultural glasshouse for exclusively human, non-horticultural purposes. It illustrates the  process by which Joseph Paxton applied the environmental design methods and criteria, previously  developed in the context of horticulture, to a building intended for human habitation. Paxton proposed a  sophisticated environmental design strategy by which he intended to achieve optimal lighting conditions for  the display of 10,000 exhibits and to maintain adequate indoor temperatures and sufficient levels of  ventilation inside a building occupied by up to 90,000 visitors at any one time. In order to assess the  buildings environmental performance the temperature inside the building was systematically monitored  during the period of the Exhibition. This was one of the earliest post-occupancy studies ever conducted  inside a building for exclusively human, non-horticultural use. The collected data was used in a final post-occupancy report published by the Commissioners of the Great Exhibition in 1852 which comprised a critical and scientific evaluation of the building’s environmental performance and provided insights which informed the design of Paxton’s second prototype, the Crystal Palace at Sydenham (1852-54).

The articles retraces the development of the first ventilation system in the British House of Commons, which was designed by the physician David Boswell Reid between 1847 and 1852. This was only operational for two years, before it was decommissioned and replaced with a new system. Reid, who was referred to as the 'ventilator' of the Houses of Parliament, worked closely with Barry's team of architects and civil engineers to apply his system to architectural plans that had been developed before his employment in Westminster. Various scholars have argued that Reid's limited technical knowledge and skills was a barrier to his ability to successfully collaborate with architects and engineers. He was trained as a physician not as an engineer or architect.

This critique, however, detracts from the significant influence that his distinctive scientific and medical background had on the unique concept behind the ventilation system or the empirical working methods used in its development. In this articles the original letters and drawings used in the communication between the two offices are used to show that Reid's contribution lies primarily in the development of the design of concept, underpinned by experiments inside temporary structures in Edinburgh and Westminster. In several textbooks Reid illustrates the science behind the natural movement of air induced by atmospheric pressure, gravity or thermal buoyancy, and also how it can be studied experimentally in the laboratory or applied in the context of ventilation. Moreover, he used research methods originating in the fields of chemistry and medicine to evaluate the performance of environmental technologies from the perspective of human physiology and perception. Reid's approach was distinctive through its focus on the human and environmental rather than the technical aspects, but Reid relied on engineers to fully develop his concepts. The drawings that Reid submitted to Barry's team were schematic, and the engineers in Barry's office fully developed his ideas on a technical level. This included the production of technical details and their incorporation into the working drawings. Reid provided skills and perspectives that were different from both engineers and architects and the challenge was the successful integration of different bodies of knowledge and sets of skills into architectural design process. His skills and perspective resembles more closely that of the modern environmental design consultant than that of building services engineers with their strong mechanical engineering focus. The design of the Palace of Westminster was cross-disciplinary endeavour which required a fundamental understanding of the role of each specialist discipline involved.

Building scientists have retraced the origins of modern post-occupancy evaluations (POEs) to the 1960s, but this paper shows that the use of POEs and their integration into the process of improving building performance has been a more longstanding practice. Focusing on the postoccupancy history of the House of Commons from 1854 until 1941 as a case study, this paper examines the nature and functions of these earlier precursors of modern POEs. A review of original archive material illuminates how POEs allowed Parliament as an organization to establish a large repository of knowledge on building performance, offering insights into technological, environmental and human factors. To understand the nature of these historic practices, however, it is critical to distinguish between POE functions that were embedded within the routine operational procedures, led by an in-house team of attendants, and those covered by several larger studies. The latter were more in-depth inquiries conducted by the Office of Works in collaboration with parliamentary committees, scientific researchers and in-house technical staff. These historic practices have also highlighted the role of institutional structures in enabling better collaboration between end users and facilities management in the process of operating, assessing and improving buildings in use.

The Palace of Westminster Restoration and Renewal Programme is faced with a fundamental question: how can the Houses of Parliament, a purpose-built building from the mid-nineteenth century, be transformed to meet modern standards? Henrik Schoenefeldt writes that, although requirements have changed, history offers an opportunity to reflect on how politicians were previously involved in the design of Parliament.

Between 1840 and 1846 the Scottish physician David Boswell Reid produced a scheme for a central ventilation system serving the Palace of Westminster. This scheme included a proposal for a sophisticated ventilation and climatic control system in the House of Commons. Although the plans for a central system were abandoned after six years, Reid was able to implement his idea within the confines of the House of Commons. Existing literature on Reid’s involvement in the design of the Palace of Westminster has focused largely on his difficult relationship with the architect Charles Barry, but his actual contribution to the design of the ventilation system has remained largely unexplored. Neither his unfinished early proposal nor his final design for the House of Commons has been studied in any depth before. This paper retraces the evolution of Reid’s original plans, and provides a systematic reconstruction of the ventilation system implemented inside the House of Commons between 1847 and 1...

Want to get experience? Want to get any ideas to create new things in your life? Read and after that now! By reading this book as soon as possible, you can renew the situation to get the inspirations. Yeah, this way will lead you to always think more and more. In this case, this book will be always right for you. When you can observe more about the book, you will know why you need this. When reading the PDF, you can see how the author is very reliable in using the words to create sentences. It will be also the ways how the author creates the diction to influence many people. But, it's not nonsense, it is something. Something that will lead you is thought to be better. Something that will make your feel so better. And something that will give you new things. This is it, the and after that. To overcome your daily problems, related to your jobs, this book can be read page by pages. Of course, when you have no deadline jobs, you will also need what offered by this book. Why? It serves something interesting to learn. When you really love to read, reading something, what you can enjoy is the topic that you really know and understand. And here, and after that will concern with what you really need now and you need actually for your future.

Paying particular attention to the relationship between the inhabitants and the physical performance of the environment they occupy and the factors shaping that relationship is believed to be fundamental when conducting building performance researches. This paper follows that approach in examining the management and control of the indoor thermal environment within a sample of socioeconomically distinct households based in Iraqi Kurdistan (KRI). This is undertaken through a close coupling of qualitative and quantitative investigations employing a combination of in situ measurements, observations, and in-depth interviews capturing inhabitant’s behavioural control actions with respect to the performance of their dwellings. The paper tends to develop a type of tentative hypothesis which can help structuring a framework to explore what the questions of thermal comfort and environmental control mean within the residential context of KRI. The investigations reveal how occupants’ engagement...

In The True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture, A.W.N. Pugin criticised the original competition entry for the Palace of Westminster for its classical character, but he also rejected the super cial or purely for- malist approach to the use of irregularity in Gothic Revival architecture, stressing that irregularly should always be a truthful outward of expression of internal arrangements or a building’s evolution. After 1840, however, the architectural form of the Palace was gradually modified to accommodate a stack ventilation system that had not been part of the early architectural scheme Pugin had criticised. Thee relationship between architectural form, composition and the functional requirements of the stack ventilation strategy became subject on extensive investigations, and the design development illuminates how this relationship manifested itself in the exterior of the Palace. Following the plans of the Scottish physician David Boswell Reid the existing architect...

The articles retraces the development of the first ventilation system in the British House of Commons, which was designed by the physician David Boswell Reid between 1847 and 1852. This was only operational for two years, before it was decommissioned and replaced with a new system. Reid, who was referred to as the 'ventilator' of the Houses of Parliament, worked closely with Barry's team of architects and civil engineers to apply his system to architectural plans that had been developed before his employment in Westminster. Various scholars have argued that Reid's limited technical knowledge and skills was a barrier to his ability to successfully collaborate with architects and engineers. He was trained as a physician not as an engineer or architect. This critique, however, detracts from the significant influence that his distinctive scientific and medical background had on the unique concept behind the ventilation system or the empirical working methods used in its ...

The Scottish physician David Boswell Reid was responsible for developing the ventilation of the British Houses of Parliament over a period of 17 years. Following the testing of his concept for a stack-driven ventilation system in a model debating chamber erected in Edinburgh and the two debating chambers of the Temporary Houses of Parliament  in Westminster, he had developed a master plan for the ventilation of the whole Palace. This master plan was abandoned in 1846 but Reid was able to implemented his original concept within the  Permanent House of Commons. His design for Permanent House had only been in use from February 1852 till Spring 1854, after which it was superseded by a different system by the physician and engineer Goldsworthy Gurney.  Previous studies on the history of the Palace, such as Cooke (1987), Riding(2000) Collins (1998), Port(1976) and Hitchcock(1955),  have provided a general overview of the development of the ventilation system, but do not explore Reid's...

The origins of lean production are reviewed and a claim made that it is a new form of production management, that is neither mass nor craft. Then the applicability of lean production in construction is considered and nature of lean construction discussed in comparison with current practice.