C O N T E X T 1 4 5 : J U LY 2 0 1 6 5 Letter Cause and effect From John Fidler, Marina Del Rey, California Matthew Champion (‘Hidden impacts of HGV vibrations’, Context 144, May 2016) makes a good point when he states that new research is required into the effects of traffic vibration on historic buildings following the increases in axle weights and vehicle movements since the 1988/89 TRRL reports I–III. While Champion states that the previous work was officially inconclusive, he does not state the reasons put forward in the documents for this state of affairs. The fact is that neither the researchers, nor the English Heritage engineers involved in the studies, could distinguish sufficiently between traffic-induced structural deterioration and previously occurring damage caused by poor construction, settlement, inadequate maintenance and natural weathering. This research dilemma is not limited to engineering studies of historic buildings.Work by the Building Research Establishment (now BRE) in the 1990s on pollution impacts on cathedrals found the same problem: how to distinguish one complicated phenomenon from others that contribute to or exacerbate common symptoms. The usual scientific response is to create a new mock-up of the phenomenon under study that eliminates some of the other factors. But for historic building impacts, the whole point is to attempt study of historic construction, that is, less-thanperfect materials and structure, warts and all. The skill of the researchers is to find a modern proxy for historic fabric that will replicate the damage functions accurately enough to draw conclusions. The German and Swiss standards for the maximum threshold value of peak particle velocity near vibration-sensitive historic buildings is 2mm per second. This threshold has been copied around the world, including here in California by the state’s department of transport. John Fidler ‘IF GOVERNMENT and its regulatory agencies are serious about reducing antibiotics on farms, they should take early action to repair local authority planning processes, which have become progressively more clunky in recent years… ‘Keeping livestock in new buildings dramatically reduces the need for veterinary interventions, yet pig farmers in particular are finding it increasingly difficult to get planning permission to replace worn-out buildings.’ The trade body the National Pig Association complaining that pig farmers are finding it increasingly difficult to get planning permission to replace ‘worn-out’ buildings.This, it says, is leading to an overuse of antibiotics. ‘THE ROOF of the building was leaning over the street, the corner of the road was cordoned off and they weren’t letting anyone near it. I spoke to a police officer outside and she told me next door had been evacuated. As she understands it, all of the internal walls have been removed. ‘These building are nearly 100 years old and even though some partitions appear to be nonloadbearing, some of the partitions become part of the whole building.’ Local architect Ted Aston quoted in the Daily Telegraph after aVictorian house that was being renovated in Lewisham, south-east London, collapsed during building work. ‘A TEAM of five young architects was appointed by chief architect Derek Walker in 1970 to create central Milton Keynes on a bean field. They were into Stonehenge, the pyramids, ley lines. Chris Woodward hired a campervan and went to see Hendrix and Dylan; Ken Baker wore tight trousers tucked into his boots and strutted around London’s UFO club, where the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band played. ‘It was an era of blackouts, strikes and oil price shocks, and these young mystics created a city centre with 23,000 parking spaces. “We were designing Milton Keynes sometimes in the dark and sometimes when we weren’t supposed to work because it was a three-day week,” remembered Baker. “Someone would have said in 1972, what do you need all those parking spaces for? We thought we were making historic moves of the pen.We weren’t trying to satisfy the demands of that day.”’ Patrick Barkham writing in The Guardian ‘IN LONDON’S last great rebuilding, in the mid-20th century, many mistakes were made — urbanism delegated mainly to traffic planners, terraces needlessly demolished, poor-quality social housing, grim commercial canyons. ‘But there was also an idea that the city was being rebuilt for the benefit of its inhabitants as visionary public projects such as the Southbank Centre, the Festival Hall, National Theatre and the Barbican emerged. Social housing, from Ernö Goldfinger’s Trellick Tower in the west to his Balfron Tower in the east, with a landscape of fine-quality council housing in the middle, facilitated a genuinely socially integrated city. The 1964 GPO Tower shot from the West End like a rocket, a revolving restaurant at its top — a self-conscious symbol of the Labour government’s embrace of the “white heat of technology”. ‘By the mid-1970s, south London’s skyline was dominated by the 34 storeys of Guy’s Hospital Tower, the tallest hospital building in the world — a resolutely public structure. There were commercial blocks too — including the once notorious Centre Point — but most buildings sticking up above the city’s skyline were council housing towers, public assets giving the poorest the finest views over London. ‘Now, hospital buildings are giving way to investment pads at Barts Square (part of the site of the city’s earliest hospital, founded 1123) or the former Middlesex Hospital now Fitzroy Place. Public to private.’ Edwin Heathcote writing in the Financial Times
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjgyMjA=