100 years of CABE: Turning back the pages to 1976

CABE turns 100 years old this year. To mark this milestone, Building Engineer takes a look back at the journal through the years.

We look through the annals of the journal from 1976 to see what the hot topics of the day were, what was facing the industry and how CABE’s professional membership responded.

Architect & Surveyor spring 1976

The title for this earlier iteration of Building Engineer was perhaps already beginning to feel a little outdated. The journal notes that, for the first time in its history, its newly elected President Denis Walker is neither an architect nor a surveyor but a structural engineer. His address encourages the 5,000-strong membership to be generous in their knowledge and use the Association as a network to share their expertise with their peers.

With more of a newsletter feel, the journal has several pages of news and short features of interest. News stories cover a government circular to local authorities in England and Wales to support ‘self-build’ housing – “every encouragement should be given to people who are prepared to contribute to the solution of their housing problems by their own physical efforts” – a renters’ rights story and a code of practice revision for corrugated asbestos used on roofs and walls (there is clearly no notion yet of its hazards).

The short features include a profile of National Trust property Knole, the ionic theory in electro-osmosis (how materials react to rising damp), the annual Municipal Building Surveyors Conference (held at the Scarborough Grand Hotel and featured on the cover) and several pages of new product launches (though there is a note that the claims cannot be verified by the Association). In a Letters to the Editor section, it is noteworthy that the editor addresses his readers as ‘Gentlemen’ – a clear sign of the times.

The only feature of length covers heat pumps. These were featured in Building Engineer’s cover story last month (March 2025) because of the variety of types and the push for their greater use, but in 1976 they were a relatively new phenomenon. It is interesting to note that this piece was included because of significant member interest in a presentation on ‘using and saving energy’ at the annual Municipal Building Surveyors conference in 1975.

Written by the Building Research Establishment’s Dr Paul Freund, the feature covers the science of thermodynamics behind heat pumps and how they can be used to heat a domestic setting. The US seems to be leading the way on this technology (with an estimated million already in use) because of the greater prevalence of air conditioning units in homes. The piece does make the point that there will be some differences in adoption from the US to the UK because of the different climate, saying “a reversible heat pump [one that can heat and cool] will probably be a luxury in the UK where cooling is rarely essential”. It is shocking to read today that in 1976 climate change and extreme weather events were not such a pressing consideration, if a consideration at all. This is despite the 1976 heatwave being on the horizon at the time of publication, with its record-breaking temperatures.