Listening to Cassandra

Is our industry destined to extinction? We say yes, unless we start paying attention to good advice. Is our President, Terry Wyatt, a latter day Cassandra? She was the unfortunate soul granted the power of prophecy but, in the churlish way of the Greek gods, ordained never to be believed. The Olympians were so adept at both granting and simultaneously denying mortals, it is rumoured the civil service was modelled on them!

I have known Terry for 15 years – long enough to see many of his predictions come about and to cease doubting those 'in the pipeline'. What he mainly misinterprets is people's preparedness to react until it's too late.

So I suppose it is no surprise that his stark inaugural message in 'Adapt or die' appears to be posted in the industry's pending tray. His thesis was that systemisation would so marginalise our traditional roles that we ought to find other important things to do.

If I were a contractor who had heeded Terry, I'd be moving my firm into manufacturing. We'd probably start with ceiling systems and multi-service chilled beams – making and testing assemblies in our factory that would light, cool, provide acoustic correction and come complete with pa, fire alarms and sprinkler heads. We'd only venture to site to fit and plug them in at the last responsible moment. We'd leave it to others to provide the supporting m&e infrastructure – because we'd want to be out of that business by phase two of our business plan.

CIBSE president Terry Wyatt’s stark inaugural message in ‘Adapt or die’ appears to be in the industry’s pending tray.

We'd invest in two areas of product development. We'd standardise a range of plug and play products that a design and build contractor could confidently buy from our new catalogue without troubling an architect or engineer.

We would then find a stable 21-24°C eutectic/phase change 'fill' for our standard ceiling panels. By the time our second product hits the market, new offices won't need perimeter heating or cooling – they'll be designed to eliminate cold draughts off windows, and to make solar heat gains insignificant. Small power loads too will be negligible, as lap top technology supplants old donkey pcs, and ubiquitous flat screens will now licence low intensity, high efficacy lighting. Our phase change ceiling will behave more 'massively' than a medieval cathedral – smoothing heat flows to and from user space to obviate other forms of climate control.