Building research

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By building research refers to the scientific and analytical study of buildings . There are two areas that are designated with this term and which differ from one another in terms of their methods and goals: general building research and historical building research . Under General Construction refers to the scientific, technical, functional and analytical or rational construction-examination of homes or buildings and their design, terms of use in detail or structural, spatial or urban context. The Historical or archaeological building research deals with the history of a building as a predominantly engineering and design, or art historical building history .

General building research

term

The general building research serves the purpose of the structural improvement of the living and living conditions by rationalization of the building processes, introduction and testing of new construction types and methods, introduction and testing of new and innovative building materials and their application possibilities. It is commonly referred to only as "building research".

Content and story

The General Building Research has essentially the reduction in construction costs and the rationalization in housing construction , for some time even when considering the ecologically oriented and energy-saving construction and healthy living as a priority orientation.

The beginning of scientific building research in Germany was the founding of the " Working Group for Economic Building " in 1920, from which the " German Academy for Building Research " was to develop, which only briefly after the war, until the reorientation of building research by the state resolution became active once. At the same time, on the initiative of Marie-Elisabeth Lüders, a member of the Reichstag , the " Reichsforschungsgesellschaft für Wirtschaftlichkeit im Bau- und Wohnungswesen eV ", established in 1927, was dissolved in the economic crisis in 1931 and converted into the foundation for the promotion of building research . In 1942, the German Housing Association (formerly the German Association for Housing Reform ) emerged as the German Academy for Housing , which is located at the Reich Housing Commissioner and which, between 1941 and 1945, also developed extensive activities in the field of building research. All institutions together formed the basis for post-war development.

1949 is considered to be the year of the beginning and the realignment of building research after the Second World War in Germany. In the Federal Republic of Germany, three institutes were recognized as building research institutions of the Federal Republic of Germany by the Conference of Building Ministers of the German States in 1949. These were the working group for contemporary building e. V. in Kiel , the Institute for Building Research in Hanover and the Research Association for Building and Living in Stuttgart . All three institutes were appointed in 1950 by the Federal Minister for Housing as representatives of the special building research institutions in the permanent " Advisory Board for Building Research at the Federal Minister for Housing ".

The first two institutes mentioned are still working in the field of scientific and applied building research. Numerous other building research facilities have been added since the 1980s. One of the most important institutions for building research is the Fraunhofer Information Center for Space and Construction . Institutions such as the Institut Wohnen und Umwelt IWU in Darmstadt or comparable semi-public or private institutes have been set up for special aspects of building research, for example energy-efficient construction .

Building research is funded in Germany. The building research funding is based on the law on the reform of housing construction law (§ 43 WoFG). The Working Group for Building Research (AGB) was founded for this purpose. The working group for building research is a voluntary association of funding institutions for building research. It wants to provide an overview of the research projects in the construction industry in Germany and enable mutual information and coordination of the members. The working group uses the specialist information services of the Fraunhofer Information Center for Space and Construction (IRB) as well as its own presentation of construction research results on the Internet and in its own newsletters. An office was set up at the Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning (BBR).

In Switzerland , the research partners in building research are brought together under the umbrella of the Swiss building industry: " bauenschweiz ". These are the funding agencies for building research and the research institutes at universities and technical colleges that are relevant for building research, including the Federal Materials Testing and Research Institute EMPA, the ETH Zurich , the Platform Future Construction or EPF Lausanne.

In Austria , as in Germany, building research is linked to housing subsidies . The Federal Government has an " Advisory Board for General Building Research and Technical Experiments ". The Research Society for Living, Building and Planning in Vienna plays a further central role . The research company for housing was founded in 1956 as a specialist group of the Austrian Association of Engineers and Architects and has been an independent research company since 1969. The main research areas were and are the improvement of the quality of living, structural research, the standardization of building law, urban and village renewal and housing subsidies. Building research played an important role in Austria, especially in the 1970s and 80s. In the period from 1968 to March 1987, the Austrian Federal Ministry for Buildings and Technology funded a total of 685 research projects in building research with just under 1.1 billion schillings from funds from housing research. Due to the decentralization and distribution of the tasks of housing construction to the federal states, the building research landscape has also been distributed in the region.

Areas

The building research deals with the questions of

and all questions of

  • Functionality and usage and boundary conditions.

Sociological and urban planning issues are also part of the canon of classic building research, such as the implementation, support and evaluation of test and comparison buildings.

When carrying out building research, a distinction is usually made between theoretical and practical building research. Complex research topics are usually assigned to both fields.

Purpose, purpose and use

The aim of general building research is

  • Optimization of technical possibilities
  • Improvement and further development of constructions
  • Development and support of innovations in construction
  • Improvement and rationalization of construction processes
  • Avoidance of structural damage and construction defects
  • Improvement of the conditions of use (especially in residential construction) of buildings
  • Development of tools, methods or systems for planning or assessing buildings or settlement contexts
  • Research, support and advice on the structural, social and organizational aspects of sustainable forms of living: Housing advice

The requirements for energy-saving and energy-efficient, sustainable and ecological building are to be defined and further developed. At the same time, the aspects of accessibility , user-specific, for example age-appropriate or intergenerational building and living, must be taken into account in the context of scientific and applied building research.

Building research is an obligatory accompaniment to funding programs, for example in social housing or in experimental housing and urban development to optimize funding processes, evaluate results and prepare, support and evaluate pilot and demonstration building projects (since 1949 until today).

Building research must be involved in the preparation and implementation of legal, ordinance or standard procedures and in the evaluation of their results.

Historical building research

The founders of historical building research include Wilhelm Dörpfeld and Robert Koldewey . It deals with the structural or art and architectural history of individual buildings , and on a larger scale with urban ensembles . In addition to archival work, the focus is often on technical means that are used for the purpose of documentation and later with the aim of interpreting them based on verifiable facts. Depending on the planned degree of accuracy, she strives for the most complete knowledge of the building history. This includes the original construction and completion, conversions and additions, decay, rebuilding, repairs, renovations and the history of use.

The historical building research is carried out in the classical archeology , architecture and art history and monument preservation ; the methods of documentation and evaluation come from archeology: Since in archeology the findings are destroyed as the excavation progresses, meticulous methods were developed here to document and interpret as much information as possible at the same time. Gert Mader has made a significant contribution to introducing these techniques to the preservation of historical monuments. The Koldewey Society sees itself as a professional association of academics working in this field.

term

In the historical sciences of monument preservation, archeology, and the history of art and architecture, one usually speaks simply of building research, but what is meant is only "historical building research". When researching the post construction method , for example in a specialist hall building , one speaks of structural research.

process

Historical building research takes a step-by-step approach to precisely and scientifically recording, in particular, technical aspects of a historical object or structure.

The research of a building begins either with archive and source research or (also at the same time) with a building inspection, which records the general situation and defines the aim of the investigation. At the beginning of the technical work there is usually a construction survey , i.e. a measurement and the creation of a true-to-scale, mostly even deformation-accurate drawing . The photogrammetry also makes it possible elevations create. Measurement and photogrammetry differ in that the drawing of the outline on site selects the facts to be represented and interprets them through the drawing, while photogrammetry is a technical imaging process that is characterized primarily by true-to-scale rectification.

The components of the building are recorded in a room book and sorted by room. The building is documented in as much detail as possible through drawings, photos and notes. Inside the rooms, the materials and condition of walls , ceilings and floors are recorded, as well as individual components and findings. What is important is the systematic structure that enables the documentation to be accurate as required.

An important step is to study the sources in archives. The original architecture and construction drawings can - if available - provide information about the original condition after completion. Old documents of all kinds help the building researcher to put together the history of the building.

In addition, there are other methods available to the building researcher for more detailed research:

  • Age determination using scientific methods, such as B. Dendrochronology , C14 method , thermoluminescence dating .
  • Layer analysis of the surface and the masonry to identify the original structure. Investigation of the sequence of layers for the determination of Stratigrafi and Malabfolge by creating a finding window , also be replaced by the window , search steps , exposure steps or transverse section called.
  • Chemical analyzes to identify listed restoration methods
  • Reality / material history (material types, formats ...) to limit the time frame for the construction stages
  • Architectural history - comparisons with other buildings

After collecting all relevant facts, they are documented. Based on the researched facts, the history of the building should be reconstructed. This often requires an interpretation of the findings.

Use

After a building has been researched, the findings can be used in many ways.

  • Assessing which parts are of historical importance, and finally:
  • Assessment of the historical value of a building
  • Recognizing the conservation problems and the shape of the building as the basis for upcoming renovation measures , like this:
  • Precise static knowledge of the historical construction in order to avoid the substance-damaging recalculation according to today's standards, as well as:
  • Possibility of avoiding serious structural errors during modernization through detailed knowledge of the building
  • Preservation of knowledge for posterity through documentation
  • Diverse knowledge for the history of architecture

Construction researcher

The term "building researcher" refers to a person who deals professionally and with knowledge of recognized methods with classical or historical building research. Building researchers are typically architects, town planners, sociologists, building physicists, art historians, and consulting engineers.

Construction researchers learn their profession through in-depth courses or in practice. Some universities offer specializations or postgraduate courses for historical building research.

The Koldewey Society is a German specialist society for excavation science and building research.

literature

To general building research

To historical building research

  • Introductory Manuals:
  • Antiquity:
  • Middle Ages:
    • City of Regensburg (Hrsg.): The Deggingerhaus in Regensburg. Munich 1994.
    • Jascha Philipp Braun: In the footsteps of the Middle Ages: Gödersheim Castle in the focus of building research, in: LVR Office for the Preservation of Monuments in the Rhineland (ed.): Yearbook of the Rheinische Denkmalpflege Volume 46, Petersberg 2018, pp. 215-227.
  • Modern:
    • Norbert Huse (Ed.): Mendelsohn. The Einstein Tower. The story of a repair. Stuttgart 2000.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ see also: Law on the Reform of Housing Construction Law of September 13, 2001 - § 43 Measures to Reduce Building Costs - Definition of the tasks of building research
  2. ^ "Contributions to the theory and practice of housing construction", dedicated to Arnold Knoblauch as a commemorative publication for his 80th birthday; 1959; in: Stefan Jokl, Committed to Home Ownership - 30 Years of the Bonn Urban Development Institute, series of publications by the ifs Institute for Urban Development, Housing and Building Societies e. V .; Volume 51, 1994 p. 1
  3. ↑ Working group of the ministries responsible for building, housing and settlement in the federal states of the united economic area (ed.): “Measures for rationalization and price reduction in housing”, Frankfurt am Main 1949
  4. ↑ Brintzinger, Ottobert: "Building research and building practice", in: "50 years of the working group for contemporary building e. V. Kiel “:, Kiel 1996, p. 45
  5. ↑ Brintzinger, Ottobert: “From the beginnings of housing policy”, in: “50 years of the working group for contemporary building e. V. Kiel “:, Kiel 1996
  6. ↑ Jacky Beumling: Possibilities and limits of the assessment of the monument - procedure and case studies of colored architectural decoration, p. 47ff, article in the publication "Color findings on the monument: meaning - methodology - impact", documentation for the 26th Cologne discussion on architecture and monument preservation in Cologne, May 7, 2018; Messages from the LVR Office for Monument Preservation in the Rhineland - Issue 32; LVR Office for the Preservation of Monuments in the Rhineland, Rhineland Regional Association

Web links

general building research:

historical building research:

See also