This paper draws on the seminal research by the Building Performance Research Unit (BPRU), implemented on 48 comprehensive schools in central Scotland, opened between 1958 and 1966. Headed by Thomas Markus, this unit from the University of Strathclyde, brought an innovative modus operandi to school building appraisal. This research project provided the framework to pre post-occupancy studies in schools, later widely taken as mandatory.

The work of Thomas Markus is well-known for the book Buildings & Power from 1993. Its contents reveal a critical synthesis of several methods of interpretation, but it also underlies a blend of references, of which some are strictly analytical (e.g.: graph methods), while others are almost philosophical and Foucaultian. Hence, the theoretical stance of Markus will be traced, concerning an early approach on the research programme on ‘building performance’, launched at the University of Strathclyde and early sponsored by the MPBW and RIBA. 

The Building Performance Research Unit was founded in 1967 and led by Markus, along with his team of researchers: P. Whyman (architect), D. Canter (psychologist), T. Maver (operational research scientist), J. Morgan (physicist), D. Whitton (quantity surveyor) and J. Flemming (systems analyst). The theoretical models and outputs of this research team, applied to the comprehensive schools Scotland, were then published profusely – at the same time encouraged and criticised –, as the title of an article on the Architects’ Journal in 1970 unravels: ‘Tom Markus is alive and well…’ (p.538).

Additionally, this paper also brings previous and parallel research efforts on this environmental paradigm, as Peter Manning’s studies at the Pilkington Research Unit. Hence, the research path and interests of Markus, right from the second half of the 1960s reveal how different ontologies of architectural research were evolving, in-between the two cultures announced by C. P. Snow (1961). On the one hand, Markus was close to the Glasgow arts centres, where music and drama for children was produced, and where he played the cello. On the other hand, he was a critic of building research, which still missed evidence and logic in its methods and outputs. The environmental research was, in fact, an output of those interrelating experiments, attempting “bridges with other faculties” (March, 1976), while architecture became a recognised discipline within University. 

Finally, this paper argues that the contemporary interest on environmental issues, as proven by the subject matter of many interdisciplinary research projects at the present –  known to be highly fundable –, is actually a restating of some pioneer proposals around catch words as ‘environment’ that triggered some funded research programmes, like the one from Markus and his Building Performance Research Unit. 

It is expected that today’s knowledge, might help to critical (re)situate the values of BPRU’s research agenda, but also its irresolvable shortcomings for the time. This seminal background, we claim, might bring added value for the current plethora of educational studies on learning environments and the relationship between pedagogy and space, increasingly ubiquitous and diverse.

This paper resorts to different sources to ponder on the revisiting of the “research performance” of the Building Performance Research Unit, namely related to the appraisal of school buildings – “the why and the how of research in ‘real’ buildings” (Markus, 1974) – here related to five main milestones: 1. The implementation of theoretical models in architecture, discussed by Marcial Echenique, in 1968. This gives us the adequate methodological starting point to analyse what, how, and why BPRU’s framework models were specifically adapted to the programme of learning spaces; 2. The BPRU’s research agenda. On the one hand, this paper draws from primary sources of available outputs produced by the BPRU as experimental research, working papers, within diverse research projects, which provides sufficient information to devise its broader modus operandi. On the other hand, institutional entanglements, as well as researcher’s subjectivities (e.g. Thomas Markus), provides complementary sources, bringing light to the architectural science ethnography and particularities of that time; 3. The analysis of the BPRU’s research endeavour on the comprehensive schools. This is done twofold, from the inside perspective and the outside outlook. First, by delving into the methods, the field studies, and the overall synthesis achieved. Then, by reporting the peers’ reactions, who reviewed thoroughly the unexpected study for the time in journals, such as the RIBA Journal and the Architects’ Journal; 4. The focus on St Michael’s Academy, in Kilwinning, as the main case study between the 48. Here its appraisal resulted from listening to the stakeholders: the architects, Reiach and Hall; their clients, Ayshire County Council, the building users, St Michael’s Academy, but also the responsible for the education policies, as the Depute Director of Education. The latter brought crucial information on the policies’ constraints, as the religious segregation still underway in schools - a fact here considered highly relevant for the 2023 ECER’s main theme; 5. The critical review of the research methodology then implemented at St Michael: ethnographical analysis of pupils’ routines, according to weekdays, complemented by a scientific measurement of environmental data, envisaging the average daily gains or energy losses in each month.

The following criteria of the BPRU for choosing the 48 schools gives us sufficient arguments to list expected outcomes from our paper: “In the present case the Unit’s interest in developing an understanding of, and techniques for, building performance appraisal led to the need to select a building type in which a large number of similar examples could easily be reached, in which background information on the buildings could be readily obtained and in which there was some hope of assessing the actual product of the organisation which the building housed. From a social viewpoint we felt that a building type of which many examples were likely to be built in future years would provide the possibility of research findings actually being incorporated in future designs. All these considerations pointed to schools […]” (Markus and Building Performance Research Unit, 1972, p.52) Hence, from the above citation, it is argued that the outcomes from Markus’ research can feedforward school building design, which could potential be incorporated in a “research type”, from which many current post-occupancy studies in schools seem to pick up. If considered as open-ended in definition, this research type can also be fuelled when revisiting this experience, taking in mind both potentialities and shortcomings of BPRU’s seminal studies.

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