The Building Research Establishment (BRE) is a centre of

building science Building science is the science and technology-driven collection of knowledge in order to provide better indoor environmental quality (IEQ), energy-efficient built environments, and occupant comfort and satisfaction. ''Building physics, architec ...

in the United Kingdom, owned by charitable organisation the BRE Trust. It is a former

UK government ga, Rialtas a Shoilse gd, Riaghaltas a Mhòrachd , image = HM Government logo.svg , image_size = 220px , image2 = Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (HM Government).svg , image_size2 = 180px , caption = Royal Arms , date_es ...

national laboratory that was

privatised Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...

in 1997. BRE provides research, advice, training, testing, certification and standards for both

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

and

private sector The private sector is the part of the economy, sometimes referred to as the citizen sector, which is owned by private groups, usually as a means of establishment for profit or non profit, rather than being owned by the government. Employment The ...

organisations in the UK and abroad. It has its headquarters in

Garston, Hertfordshire Garston is a suburban village in Hertfordshire, England. Garston is contiguous with Watford and now, despite retaining a local identity, is effectively a suburb. It is within the Stanborough, Woodside and Meriden wards of the borough of Watford, ...

, England, with regional sites in

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

Swansea Swansea (; cy, Abertawe ) is a coastal city and the second-largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Swansea ( cy, links=no, Dinas a Sir Abertawe). The city is the twenty-fifth largest in ...

, the US, India, the Middle East and China.

Programmes

BRE is now funded with income from commissioned research, commercial programmes and by a number of digital tools for use in the construction sector. BRE's certification arm – BRE Global – is an independent, third-party

certification Certification is the provision by an independent body of written assurance (a certificate) that the product, service or system in question meets specific requirements. It is the formal attestation or confirmation of certain characteristics of a ...

body responsible for sustainability certification schemes such as BREEAM (for buildings and communities), CEEQUAL (for infrastructure), the Home Quality Mark (for housing) and LPCB certification (for fire and security products and services). BRE's training arm, the BRE Academy provides online and classroom courses on built environment related issues like sustainability, fire, resilience and building information modelling (BIM). BRE also carries out research and data generation in support of national and international standards and

building code A building code (also building control or building regulations) is a set of rules that specify the standards for constructed objects such as buildings and non-building structures. Buildings must conform to the code to obtain planning permission ...

s, including the UK building regulations. It also develops its own standards for responsible sourcing (BES 6001), and ethical labour sourcing (BES 6002). BRE's digital tools include

construction waste Construction waste or debris is any kind of debris from the construction process. Different government agencies have clear definitions. For example, the United States Environmental Protection Agency EPA defines construction and demolition materi ...

management tool SMARTWaste and construction health, safety and wellbeing tool YellowJacket. It also has

UKAS The United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) is the sole national accreditation body recognised by the British government to assess the competence of organisations that provide certification, testing, inspection and calibration services. It e ...

accredited testing laboratories, and a publishing business in partnership with IHS Press called the BRE Bookshop.

Ownership

The Building Research Establishment is owned by the BRE Trust, a registered charity that works to support research and education in the built environment. All of the profits accrued by BRE are passed to the Trust and are used to fund new research and education programmes designed to meet the Trust's goal of promoting safety and

sustainability Specific definitions of sustainability are difficult to agree on and have varied in the literature and over time. The concept of sustainability can be used to guide decisions at the global, national, and individual levels (e.g. sustainable livi ...

. Over the last 20 years the BRE Trust has funded 117 PhDs on a total research programme of £15m, with other funding levered into the sector as a whole from research councils and

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

research sources. The BRE Trust also financially supports five university Centres of Excellence. One of the first Centres established was at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

in 2004, a research and education programme on fire safety engineering. The other centres are in

Strathclyde Strathclyde ( in Gaelic, meaning "strath (valley) of the River Clyde") was one of nine former local government regions of Scotland created in 1975 by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 and abolished in 1996 by the Local Government et ...

(energy utilisation), Bath (construction materials),

Cardiff Cardiff (; cy, Caerdydd ) is the capital and largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Cardiff ( cy, Dinas a Sir Caerdydd, links=no), and the city is the eleventh-largest in the United Kingd ...

(

sustainable engineering Sustainable engineering is the process of designing or operating systems such that they use energy and resources sustainably, in other words, at a rate that does not compromise the natural environment, or the ability of future generations to meet ...

), and Brasilia (integrated and sustainable communities).

History

Operation Chastise (the Dambusters' Raid) 16 - 17 May 1943 C(AM)1603

BRE was founded in 1921 as the Building Research Board at East Acton as part of the

British Civil Service His Majesty's Home Civil Service, also known as His Majesty's Civil Service, the Home Civil Service, or colloquially as the Civil Service is the permanent bureaucracy or secretariat of Crown employees that supports His Majesty's Government, which ...

, as an effort to improve the quality of

housing in the United Kingdom Housing in the United Kingdom represents the largest non-financial asset class in the UK; its overall net value passed the £5 trillion mark in 2014. About 30% of homes are owned outright by their occupants, and a further 40% are owner-occupied ...

. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, it was involved in the confidential research and development of the

bouncing bomb A bouncing bomb is a bomb designed to bounce to a target across water in a calculated manner to avoid obstacles such as torpedo nets, and to allow both the bomb's speed on arrival at the target and the timing of its detonation to be pre-deter ...

for use against the

Möhne Dam The Möhne () is a river in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is a right tributary of the Ruhr. The Möhne passes the towns of Brilon, Rüthen and Warstein. There is a large artificial lake near the mouth of the river, the Möhne Reservoir, us ...

in the

Dambusters Raid Operation Chastise or commonly known as the Dambusters Raid was an attack on German dams carried out on the night of 16/17 May 1943 by 617 Squadron RAF Bomber Command, later called the Dam Busters, using special "bouncing bombs" developed by ...

of 1943 A small scale model of the dam used for testing can still be found at the Centre in Garston, Watford, today. BRE was a founding member in 1976 of

BSRIA BSRIA (it takes its name from the initial letters of the Building Services Research and Information Association) is a UK-based testing, instrumentation, research and consultancy organisation, providing specialist services in construction and bui ...

, the Building Services Research and Information Association and the

UK Green Building Council The UK Green Building Council (UKGBC) is a United Kingdom membership organisation, formed in 2007, which aims to 'radically transform' the way that the built environment in the UK is planned, designed, constructed, maintained and operated. The c ...

(UKGBC) in 2007. Having subsumed a number of other government organisations over the years, including the former Fire Research Station, and the

Princes Risborough Princes Risborough () is a market town in Buckinghamshire, England, about south of Aylesbury and north west of High Wycombe. It lies at the foot of the Chiltern Hills, at the north end of a gap or pass through the Chilterns, the south end ...

Laboratory, it was given

executive agency An executive agency is a part of a government department that is treated as managerially and budgetarily separate, to carry out some part of the executive functions of the United Kingdom government, Scottish Government, Welsh Government or Nort ...

status in 1990, before being

by the

Department for Environment, Transport and the Regions The Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions was a United Kingdom Cabinet position created in 1997, with responsibility for the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR). The position and department ...

on 19 March 1997. From 1 January 2013, BRE took over the management of the UK and Ireland chapter of

BuildingSMART buildingSMART, formerly the International Alliance for Interoperability (IAI), is an international organisation which aims to improve the exchange of information between software applications used in the construction industry. It has developed Indu ...

. In August 2016,

Constructing Excellence Constructing Excellence is a United Kingdom construction industry membership organisation created in 2003, the only such which draws its member organisations from across the industry supply chain, ranging from clients, through contractors and consu ...

merged with BRE, with BRE undertaking to maintain the CE's brands and functions. Since the

Grenfell Tower fire On 14 June 2017, a high-rise fire broke out in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower block of flats in North Kensington, West London, at 00:54 BST and burned for 60 hours. 72 people died, two later in hospital, with more than 70 injured and 223 escapin ...

(2017), BRE has been criticised for holding poor fire safety standards, all the while via reviewing cases like that of Grenfell.

References

Bibliography

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External links