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The Building Research Establishment (BRE) is an organisation that carries out research, consultancy and testing for the construction and built environment sectors in the United Kingdom. The BRE is headquartered in Watford with regional sites in Glasgow and Port Talbot. The phrase built environment refers to the manmade surroundings that provide the setting for human activity, ranging from the large-scale civic surroundings to the personal places. ...
Watford is a town and district in Hertfordshire, England, situated 34 km (21 miles) northwest of London and within the bounds of the M25 motorway. ...
Glaswegian redirects here. ...
Port Talbot (Welsh also Aberafan or Porth Talbot) is an industrial town in the traditional county of Glamorgan, south Wales, UK, with a population of approximately 50,000. ...
Among the BRE's areas of interest are participation in the preparation of national and international standards and building codes, including the UK Building Regulations. The organisation is now funded by income from its commercial programmes, the BRE bookshop, contracted work, and by bidding for research funding from government and the industries it serves. It is also a UKAS Accredited Testing Laboratory. A building code is a set of rules that specify the minimum acceptable level of safety for constructed objects such as buildings and nonbuilding structures. ...
The UK building regulations are statutory instruments that seek to ensure that the policies set out in the Building Act 1984 are carried out in the construction of buildings. ...
Programmes
The BRE also owns and operates the BREEAM and EcoHomes environmental rating schemes, and promotes the German Passivhaus ultra-low energy building standard in the UK. It also runs a number of training courses. EcoHomes is an environmental rating scheme for homes in the United Kingdom. ...
One of the original Passive Houses at Darmstadt, Germany One of the original Passive Houses at Darmstadt The term Passive house (Passivhaus in German) refers to the rigorous, voluntary, Passivhaus standard for energy use in buildings. ...
Generically, a low-energy house is any type of house that uses less energy than a regular house. ...
BRE's sister company, BRE Certification, provides product certification services.
Research Since privatisation there have been claims that the Blue Sky research for which the BRE was well known has been compromised by commercial pressures [1].
In 2005 the Select Committee on Environmental Audit expressed their concern that there was a lack of significant funding for research and development of sustainable construction methods in the UK [2], with funding for the BRE having been 'drastically' cut in the previous 4 years. As a result, many of the sustainable building materials used in the UK are imported from Germany, Switzerland and Austria, countries which have taken the lead in research in this area.
Ownership The Building Research Establishment is owned by the BRE Trust, a Charitable organization, which claims to be the largest charity in the United Kingdom dedicated to research and education in the built environment [3]. Trustees are drawn from seven groups: built environment professionals, contractors, material and product suppliers, housing, university departments, building owners, building managers and building users. A charitable organization (also known as a charity) is a trust, company or unincorporated association established for charitable purposes only. ...
The word trustee is a legal term that refers to a member of a trust, which can be set up for any of a variety of purposes, and is entrusted with the administration of property on behalf of others. ...
History BRE was founded as part of the British Civil Service in 1926 as part of an effort to improve the quality of housing in the United Kingdom [4]. Having subsumed a number of other government organisations over the years, including the former Fire Research Station, it was given Executive Agency status in 1990 before being privatised by the Department for Environment, Transport and the Regions on March 19, 1997 [5]. The British civil service is the permanent bureaucracy that supports the Government Ministers responsible to the Sovereign and Parliament in administering the United Kingdom. ...
An Executive Agency is a British public institution that carries out some part of the executive functions of the United Kingdom government, Scottish Executive, Welsh Assembly and Northern Ireland Executive. ...
MCMXC redirects here; for the Enigma album, see MCMXC a. ...
This article does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...
The Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions was a UK Cabinet position created in 1997, with responsibility for the Department for Environment, Transport and the Regions. ...
1997 (MCMXCVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
See also Domestic housing in the United Kingdom is currently one of the major obstacles to achieving the 20% overall cut in UK carbon emissions targeted by the Government for 2010. ...
The BRE Centre for Fire Safety Engineering is the research group at The Institute of Infrastructure and Environment, University of Edinburgh conduction research in fire, structures and environment. ...
The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1582,[4] is a renowned centre for teaching and research in Edinburgh, Scotland. ...
External links - BRE official site
- The role of the centre for construction innovation
- BRE evidence to the Select Committee on Environmental Audit
- PassivHausUK, operated by the BRE
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