Dissertation advice greatly appreciated.

[Anonymous]

Hi All,

I am in my final year of a BSc in Building Project Management and I am commencing work on my dissertation. My main interest throughout my degree has been sustainable development in construction (either new build or renovation) and in particular the Passivhaus standard.

As this area interests me the most I figure it is an ideal starting point for my dissertation topic. However I am struggling with narrowing things down to a succinct topic title/question. When you start to read around your topics of interest it becomes overwhelming and even harder to pin something down.

If anyone has any advice to give on built environment dissertations or good starting points, I would be incredibly grateful.

Thanking you in advance,

Alex

[Mark Siddall]

Alex
I've no answers, just questions. It strikes me that project managers are all about process.

What kind of project manager do you want to be?
How will your dissertation on something “sustainable” help you achieve employment?
Have you begun to consider what processes can assist or inhibit you delivering sustainable buildings? (It may be that you need to narrow the focus of your dissertation to a particular subject area but it will no doubt be important that you understand that narrower field from the view of your profession.)
Is there any particular aspect of processes that could be made more “sustainable” that interests you?
What are the most common failures/defects in process when creating a sustainable buildings? Is there one that looks interesting? (Perhaps use data on legal or insurance claims to help identify processes that go wrong?)

HTH,
Mark

[Anonymous]

Hi Mark and thanks for the response.

After hours of exhaustive reading and research I have been swayed in a slightly different direction. I have recently completed a building refurbishment of my own and it was clear there was no mandatory control over upgrading the thermal performance of the building (however I am aware that there are plans for any building with an EPC rating of E or below will not be able to be let out to tenants).

I don't know what the general consensus on here is regarding the Governments imminent Green Deal programme, but to me it seems to fall massively short of other European refurbishment standards; in particular the EnerPHit programme. My current (not final) title is 'An investigation into how the UK Government's 'Green Deal' programme compares to other sustainable refurbishment programmes available, in the context of reaching the 2050 UK emissions targets'

From here I would be hoping to evaluate the results of other schemes (EnerPHit, LEED et al.), looking into the hard figures of how successful they have been in terms of increased energy performance and question why our new scheme falls way short in comparison.

Don't know what this sounds like to an industry professional but I will be appreciative of any feedback.

Kind regards,

Alex

[KATE DE SELINCOURT]

Hi Alex

As David says, any number of topics could be addressed – so here's a random suggestion possibly less connected to your current thinking, but sparked by your studies to date…

Jonathan Davis of the Centre for Refurbishment Excellence is one of a number who have spoken about the need to *introduce* project management into refurb. I realise this might seem dreadfully dull and prosaic to you, but what a service you might be doing, if you could first quantify if / how much it pays in terms of cash and carbon saved (and perhaps more importnat than both, customer acceptability) to have separate project management , then tease out a way to make this work in the Green Deal/ECO for individual households.

This has been taken on by the voluntary sector ('professional' end eg CSE Bristol) in eg CESP projects – its isn't cheap, but what are the long term benefits?

Russell Smith (Parity Projects) is another enthusiast who does similar, and I think on a more private-sector basis.

Anyhow I can hear your quiet snores so I'll leave it at that!

Kate

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