PFM March 2005

News - Costs affected by building size and shape, report says....

A new research report sheds new light on the effects of shape and size of buildings on the building services within them taking many top experts by surprise. Called 'Whole-Life Economics of Building Services', the report is written by Ron Hurst, Bernard Williams and Malcom Ley and it took over 3 years to research.

Published by International Facilities and Property Information Ltd, the report casts serious doubt on the validity of published data on cost benchmarking for maintenance and life-cycle replacment of building services, none of which takes into account the dramatic effects of building geometry and scale on the costs of these operations per sq.m of floor area. It also exposes that energy costs per sq.m follow a similar pattern, and this calls into question some of the official energy targets put forward as best practice guidelines because they take little account of the shape and size of buildings on energy consumption per sq.m.