Editorial

Citation

Hoxley, M. (2005), "Editorial", Structural Survey, Vol. 23 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/ss.2005.11023daa.001

Editorial

For the first time since its inception in 1995, the RICS Construction and Research Conference (COBRA) has been held outside the UK. Held in conjunction with the Australasian Universities Building Educators Association Conference, this year’s event was hosted by Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. I have attended every COBRA Conference, apart from the initial one in 1995, so really could not miss the Brisbane event. I am pleased to say that the Conference lived up to its usual high standard, with some excellent papers being presented by delegates from all around the world. There were, of course, many Australian-based delegates, but amongst the 128 delegates there were a fair number of UK-based academics in attendance. The themes of the conference were:

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  achieving best value for clients;

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  bridging the skills gap;

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  information technology and construction;

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  innovation in design and construction;

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  legal and commercial relationships;

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  real estate and property;

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  research and education; and

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  sustainability – new ways for new times.

Brisbane is a fine city, and as with many Australian urban centres, has an interesting blend of modern developments and heritage buildings – often standing side by side. Interesting street scenes result from a low-rise heritage building being sandwiched between two skyscrapers. The conference dinner was held in the city’s historic Customs House. Having endured a 21-hour flight both ways I had to stay on for a holiday, the highlights of which were snorkelling off the Great Barrier Reef and seeing Gilbert and Sullivan at the Sydney Opera House!

Papers in this issue

While I was away, London was enduring its first suicide bombings. One of the papers in this issue follows on directly from the 9/11 Twin Towers attack in New York and looks at improving the design of tall buildings in Singapore. Ling and Soh have carried out a survey of practitioners in Singapore and one of their conclusions is that one cannot possibly legislate for such horrific scenarios in the way that we design buildings. This message is one that we all need to send to the terrorists – they will not succeed in their attempts to change the way that we live and work. Paul Chynoweth presents the second in a series of three papers on rights to light, and in a well-researched paper calls into question the whole basis upon which modern practice is conducted. Similarly, Brian Wood’s paper suggests that we need to, and indeed are, moving on in our attitudes to building maintenance. Hassasnain and Hafeez provide a review of the fire safety evaluation of restaurant facilities, mainly based on a review of current practice in North America and the UK. Finally, Sommerville and Craig outline how buildings and their management are being changed by the adoption of radio frequency identification devices. Overall a theme of this issue is “change” – but it is change that is being brought about by innovation and new technology, not change imposed upon us by those wishing to destroy our way of life.

Mike Hoxley