Built Forms and Building Types: Some Speculations

Abstract

A number of speculations are offered about the classification of building types and built forms, in the context of a project to build a database of the nondomestic building stock of England and Wales. This database will be used by the Department of the Environment to help assess national policy on greenhouse gas emissions and energy conservation. The speculations relate to the classification of building types by activities and forms; to criteria of room size and lighting for classifying built forms; to possible regularities in the relationships of wall area to floor area in forms so classified; and to the modelling of hybrid assemblies of different types of forms. Connections are drawn throughout to the land-use and built form studies pioneered by March and Martin at Cambridge in the 1970s, which have provided the starting point for many of the ideas put forward here.