The new issue of IHBC’s members’ journal, Context – No. 182 – examines ‘heating and ventilation’ because ‘Is anything more important to historic building conservation…’, and that’s just the start of our CPD journey that includes Alec Clifton-Taylor, Gus Astley and more!
The IHBC writes:’…Some words of comfort’
Is anything more important to historic building conservation than heating and ventilation? They may be the key to making buildings comfortable, livable, affordable and resource-efficient. In this issue Jonathan Taylor (page 15) considers how to reduce the approximately 17 per cent of the UK’s carbon emissions produced by space heating and cooling of buildings, while recognising that most traditionally-constructed buildings are unsuited to the high levels of insulation required to meet current building regulations. Robyn Pender, Amy Graham and Katie Steele (page 21) propose a ‘people-first approach to retrofit’, warning of ‘the destructive paradigm of air temperature and fabric-first retrofit’. The climate is warming, people are freezing in their homes and, since Grenfell, we know some of the costs of unsafe cladding. How can we make sense of this? It is not as though the world does not offer plenty of examples of how to build and operate buildings to be comfortable and healthy, without using more energy than we can afford.
Stepping back to the early 19th century with Esmé Coppock (page 25), we see Sir Walter Scott investigating the best forms of heating and ventilation to make his garden hothouse – its design based on medieval siege tent, it has been suggested – fully productive of exotic produce. We go on to the later 19th century with Faye Davies and Lawrence Williamson (page 29), and find the enterprising people of Torquay investing in their own form of indoor climate change, by building a Winter Gardens that would extend the tourist season. The project was a commercial failure. A few years later we see that same huge building, dismantled, being shipped round the coast to Great Yarmouth (not a single pane of glass was broken, it was claimed), where today’s ingenious restorers are finding how to make the best use of its space at the least cost to the world’s climate. As Davies and Williamson write, ‘As originally designed, the great glasshouses are among the least sustainable constructions imaginable.’ The challenges of heating and ventilation are as intriguing as ever.
This Context’s themed articles include:
- Sustainable heating for listed buildings, Jonathan Taylor
- A people-first approach to retrofit, Robyn Pender, Amy Graham and Katie Steele
- Researching and restoring Abbotsford’s hothouse, Esmé Coppock
- Restoring Great Yarmouth’s Winter Gardens, Faye Davies and Lawrence Williamson
Access the online archive and see the issue online
Reading Context helps IHBC members develop their skills across all of the IHBC’s Areas of Competence, and so is a critical baseline in addressing priorities in Continuing Professional Development (CPD)
See more IHBC background and guidance on IHBC CPD and on how you might use past, current and future issues of Context
See the formal guidance paper on IHBC CPD (scheduled for update)
See more on the IHBC Competences and Areas of Competence
