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Building pathology in the Netherlands – main problems and
results through research and practice
Report for CIB W086 Building Pathology Commission meeting in Sao Paulo 02-09-2014
André Thomsen
OTB Research Institute, Delft University of Technology, NL A.F.Thomsen@tudelft.nl
1. Introduction
This report is dedicated to the main problems of building pathologies in the Netherlands and the main solutions through research and practice as questioned by the CIB W086 Building Pathology
Commission for its 2014 meeting in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Objective is to contribute to the Research Roadmap 2014-2016 as communicated in January 2014. The content is based on a quick scan of Dutch practice in the field of building pathology and interviews with some key experts.
Building pathology can be defined in several ways. The (1993) defines building pathology as the systematic treatment of building defects, their causes, their consequences and their remedies. Harris (2001) defines building pathology and diagnostics as addressing the deterioration and the demise of buildings and their component systems. Watt (2007) defines building pathology - both as a term and as an overall concept - as the holistic approach to understand buildings and consequently building
diseases and deficiencies. And 20 years after their first State-of-the-art report the CIB W086 Building Pathology Commission (Peixoto de Freitas, 2013) redefines building pathology as providing a systematic scientific approach to discovering what has gone wrong in a failed building.
As this overview shows, the focus of building pathology is gradually shifting; from a single-sided technical defect targeted to a more holistic approach including behavioural aspects i.e. the conduct and performance of designers, owners, users, government and market parties; from a remedy directed ex-post analysis to a broader cause and prevention oriented methodology combining ex-ex-post and ex-ante knowledge; and from a mainly empiric technical practice to a more interdisciplinary theory based scientific field.
A is shown below, this development is clearly visible in research and practice in the Netherlands.
2. Building pathology in the Netherlands
In the Netherlands, building pathology is not formally organised nor acknowledged. There is no professional organisation or platform and the field has no specific scientific or scholarly representation in the Dutch academic system. This may be partly due to the strong predominance of new construction in the post-war era. Despite the strong decline of new construction, the new existing stock directed building paradigm got only recently its break-through when the worldwide economic crisis caused an almost standstill in new construction.
2.1. The Dutch building stock: Main problems and challenges
After an unprecedented growth after WW-II, annual new construction has dropped below 0,5% of the existing building stock, which is now - though rather young and qualitative good - ageing fast. Combined with the necessity to accommodate changing demands and new needs first and foremost in the existing stock results in an adaption and transformation task for which pathological knowledge and skills are indispensable.
More recently earth quakes, caused by intensive natural gas extraction and older disused coal mines are a new phenomenon in the Netherlands, boosting building damage assessment etc.
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2.2. The Dutch practice: Organisation and structure
Due to the absence of organisation general data about size and nature of the Dutch professional practice in building pathology is not available. To nevertheless gain some insight for this paper information was collected by a Google search and interviews with key experts.
The Google search on the Dutch words for building and pathology or pathologist resulted in only 18 hits, of which 2 universities, 1 national research institute and 15 consultants, consisting of 4 larger companies and 11 architects and building engineers. A further division between research and practice resulted in 3 scientific research units: not surprisingly consisting of the 2 universities and the research institute (with a strong personal link to the universities). Noticeably in the scientific research is the strong emphasis on heritage restauration; only one university performs theoretical research. The 4 larger engineering and consulting companies combine applied research with innovative practice. All the units except the universities perform pathological praxis, mainly the traditional single-sided technical kind. Main tasks are diagnosis, remedy and liability. The type and complexity of problems is in line with size and skills of the unit: the small companies advertise with damp, moisture, cracking etc., the larger companies handle more complex problems and the research institute serves the top. Only two hits were related with education: one larger and one small consultancy company offer a building pathology course. A further search on the websites of all Dutch universities and polytechnics resulted in 2 hits related to the aforementioned university research; the polytechnics returned none. Not surprisingly the Dutch participation in the CIB W086 conferences is almost absent.
The rather poor result of this search may be due to the fact that the term building pathology or its Dutch equivalents are not widely known nor used.
Starting from the definition, a quick scan on other relevant keywords (building and diagnostics, deficiencies, and more general: condition, quality assessment) disclosed a much larger range of research and consultancy practices within or strongly related to the field of building pathology, varying from pure pathological diagnoses, fact-finding and liability analyses to pathology based building condition and performance survey and research. The first part consists mainly of the same and similar research institutes, larger consulting companies and small specialists as were found in the first scan. The latter part includes practices with a wider scope within or related to professional real estate portfolio management, in particular housing associations and commercial property managers of housing estates, offices, shopping centres, hotels etc. and related consultancy and maintenance suppliers. The practices include condition assessment, reinvestment and market analyses of which pathological diagnoses combined with life cycle costs and sustainability are an essential component. A rather new and flourishing practice is building quality assessment and inspection for owner-occupiers before the purchase of an older dwelling or after discovering hidden defects.
The widening scope to building quality assessment is mirrored in research and education. As part of real estate portfolio management, pathology related issues are more or less part of the course and research programs of 3 universities and at least 3 polytechnics.
2.3. Results
Results in the field of building pathology can be extracted from several sources: international scientific publications, Dutch professional publications and practical proceedings.
A search for publications encounters the same limitations as above. Using the same key words in the Dutch academic repositories and Google Scolar resulted in a limited number of recent international scientific publications by Dutch authors directly linked to building pathology (Straub 2012; Thomsen 2012, 2013; Thomsen & Van der Flier 2011, 2014; Van Hees 2014). The analytical model of Thomsen & Van der Flier (2011) opens perspectives on holistic analyses on the interrelations between building and environment and between technical defects and behavioural causes.
A further search on related entrees disclosed a wide variety of mainly practice based articles in professional journals and similar sources.
3 Figure 1 Analytical model Thomsen & Van der Flier
Also these sources illustrate the tendency to a more holistic approach by connecting technical deficiencies to human behaviour and to apply pathology based knowledge and practice in the wider context of real estate management.
2.4. Conclusions, challenges and perspective
In the Netherlands, building pathology is not a formally acknowledged separate discipline nor profession and the term building pathology or its Dutch equivalents are not widely known nor used. Explicitly labelled pathological practice, research and education is very limited and mainly applied on heritage conservation and legal liability assessment. As a consequence, knowledge dissemination is weak and fragmented.
On the other hand, pathology based knowledge combined with life cycle costing and sustainable adaptation has become an essential part of nowadays professional real estate portfolio management. Since new construction in the Netherlands has dropped to a marginal level, tomorrow’s needs and changing demands have to be accommodated in a fast ageing stock. Combined with increasing requirements regarding energy efficiency and sustainable life cycle extension, the adaptation and improvement of the building stock will be a huge task and the need for integrated holistic pathology based knowledge and skills will keep growing.
References
CIB W086 Building Pathology Commission, (1993). A State-of-the-Art Report on Building Pathology. CIB. Rotterdam.
Hees, R. van (2013). Building Conservation Publications 2012. Delft University of Technology. Peixoto de Freitas, V. (ed.), (2013). A State-of-the-Art Report on Building Pathology. CIB W086
Building Pathology Commission. CIB. Rotterdam
Straub, A. (2012). Maintenance and repair. International Encyclopaedia of Housing and Home., Elsevier Science. Oxford. 3: 186-194.
Thomsen, A. (2012). Housing Pathology. International Encyclopaedia of Housing and Home., Elsevier Science. Oxford. 3: 550–558.
Thomsen, A. (2013). Housing Pathology: a new domain or just a new name?. ENHR Conference “Overcoming the Crisis, Integrating the Urban Environment", ENHR, Tarragona.
Thomsen, A.F. & Flier, C.L. van der (2011). Understanding obsolescence: a conceptual model for buildings. Building Research and Information 39(4), 352-362.
Thomsen, A.F. & Flier, C.L. van der (2014). Analysing obsolescence, an elaborated model for residential buildings. (forthcoming).
