Building services engineering: extending the client service offering

On 12 November 2023 CIBSE Scotland and the wider building services industry lost a dear colleague and friend, Dr Jeremy Cockroft. Prior to his untimely passing Jeremy was awarded the prestigious CIBSE Bronze Medal in 2023 for his exceptional contribution to our industry and in particular his contribution to the CIBSE Scotland region where he was Technical Meetings Convenor and organised a huge number of well-attended and educational technical seminars for the Scottish Region. To honour his contribution to our region, the CIBSE Scotland Committee decided to host an annual lecture in Jeremy's memory. To mark this inaugural event we are delighted to be joined by Jeremy's friend and former colleague Professor Joe Clarke, Emeritus Professor at the University of Strathclyde . Building Services Engineering: extending the client service offering Building services engineers have traditionally employed a range of assessment tools to ensure acceptable building performance. Because overall performance is contingent on complex, interacting factors, a meme slowly emerged that it is futile to attempt to optimise, in a piecemeal manner, a system that is dynamic (state variables change at different rates), non-linear (describing parameters depend on the system state), systemic (the different parts interact), and stochastic (events and influences occur randomly). To address this issue, computational tools for the holistic modelling and simulation of building behaviour began to emerge in the 1970s and have been under development ever since. Such tools allow practitioners to adopt a virtual prototype and test approach, with information on overall system performance supporting the selection of design solutions based on competing options. While significant progress has been made in improving predictive accuracy vis-à-vis reality, and aligning modelling and simulation functionality with user need, there remain barriers to the routine application of the approach in practice. These barriers stem from evolving client expectations, limited agreement on what constitutes a holistic performance assessment, an absence of standardised approaches to tool application, semantically incompatible user interfaces, fragmented user training, and a reluctance by the industry to mandate requirements. This talk will summarise the state-of-the-art in built environment modelling and simulation, identify emergent capabilities, and describe how the industry can take a proactive role in tool development to support a service offering that is wider in scope and deeper in content than presently available. This free event will be held in the Level 9 Executive Suite at the University of Strathclyde's Technology and Innovation Centre. Registration starts from 5:30pm onwards for a 6:00pm start. The event will last for approximately 1 hour. After the event there will be refreshments and nibbles in the foyer space on Level 9. We looking forward to seeing you all on Wednesday 2nd October 2024.