I'm Dr Henrik Schoenefeldt. I'm Senior Lecturer in Sustainable Architecture at the Kent School of Architecture and Planning and my current research project is based at the Houses of Parliament. 

Of course, we are all very familiar with this site of the Palace, but there's one aspect of the building that people are less familiar with. And this is a fact that its many towers which you can see here, including the Victoria Tower over there and the Clock Tower on this side, are not just architectural embellishments but they are functional features of a 19th century ventilation system. 

The primary aim of the project is develop a detailed and critical understanding of the original 19th century ventilation system and the way it had shaped the architecture. But what's significant about the Palace is the degree to which technology was allowed to influence its architectural design, both internally and externally. So we are currently inside the Lord's debating chamber which illustrates very clearly how these ventilation requirements have actually shaped the detailing of ceilings, floors and the galleries. 

So, when we are looking up on the chamber, we can see, for instance, that there is gild lettering around the edge of each of these square panels. They were actually carved to be permeable to air, because these were vents. These were used to extract the hot air from the House of Lords through the ceiling. 

And on the top of each of these panels, you might have noticed the small little Tudor roses. They are actually carved to allow fresh air to be injected through the coving of that gallery. So this is a really interesting essay of how the Victorians integrated utilitarian requirements within the architectural design of the interiors. 

Andrew Piper, Design Director, Palace of Westminster Restoration and Renewal Project: 
What Henrik's research really gives us is a complete insight into all the historic voids and that's important for us for many reasons. One of the driving things for the programme is to replace all the mechanical and electrical infrastructure - so that's everything that you need to keep a building running. Lots of that will run through all those old historic voids, so to have a complete map of where they all are is vital. 

Henrik: 
So here we have got a rare example of the original 1840s cast iron flooring. And studying and understanding their purpose will help us in the restoration and renewal programme, to understand how far we can actually work with, work with those historic features again. Will it be possible, for instance, to actually re-utilise these historic methods of air inlets in the new design of the Palace? The path of the research is to explore how a knowledge of these historic principles of environmental design can be used as a basis to develop a new sustainable approach to ventilation and climate control in the Palace. 

This is actually the location of the original control room of the House of Commons. And now the only remains of this original control system is the periscope, which we can see over here. Now this periscope is quite significant in terms of the approach to environmental control because it was used to monitor the number of members within the chamber and also observe the type of activities that were happening. So when the House of Commons, for instance, was preparing for votes, the system had to be adjusted. So this is an example of historic environmental control technology. We can still go and look through the lens and we can observe what's going on inside the chamber.

So now we are currently in the basement and right below central lobby. We've got a Palace that is about 300 metres long and to allow the air to be distributed to every location, they used the basement and passages to move the air from one end to the other. This is quite important in terms of the research, is to look at what has survived but also looking at what has been lost - in order to get a comprehensive understanding of the whole system. 

Nick Hill, Learning Legacy, Palace of Westminster Restoration and Renewal Programme: 
Being able to take Henrik's work and create something like this BIM model - a three-dimensional view of where we are - will save enormous amounts of time, enormous amounts of complexity, of where we would normally go in on a major project site.

James Gregory, Plowman Craven:
Once you've got that scan data, you can then begin to build a model from it. What we're now able to do with Henrik's research is make use of that very useful, very valuable report and studies and research to begin to integrate that information into the model so you that you actually model what you can't see. And that's where it really gets quite special. 

Agnieszka Cielsa, Plowman Craven:
When we started I wasn't really sure. Okay - the voids, ventilation voids? It's kind of natural how the air goes. But when we started building it, it makes so much sense that we have fresh air, we have vitiated air, we have smoke air - and it's really amazing. Of course we learn something. We learn a lot of how it works inside the building. So we can use this knowledge for the future work. 

Henrik: 
This archive holds a number of important documents relating to the life of the historic ventilation system. And here, we've got an example of a historic logbook in which the staff that were operating the systems were logging temperatures, the number of people in the chamber and also making notes on operational procedures they were undertaking, on feedback that they had received from Members of Parliament during particular sittings, etcetera. 

They are essentially two main reasons why it's important to look at these operational aspects. The first is to actually understand how historically effective these systems were, and this critical understanding allows us then to re-evaluate past systems and seeing how far they can be improved and adapted to today to meet modern requirements. 

Patrick Duerden, Conservation Architect and Practice Director, Donald Insall Associates: (BEARD)
Henrik's research, I think, has revealed aspects of our understanding of the building. We understood that there was a ventilating system designed within the fabric of the building. That was known. But exactly how it worked, and exactly what it was that made it work, was not fully understood. And I think that having that level of specialist technical expertise within the field of conservation, allows us to develop a much more sophisticated view of what the Palace of Westminster is. 

One tends to regard science, technology, as having a linear trajectory - that there's a progress and a development. And of course that's a false perception and often things are developed for very specific reasons. Mechanical air conditioning had a very specific genesis. And it's now quite interesting to be able to go back and say, well, in the middle of the 19th century, people were still thinking about how to ventilate and cool buildings - they had begun to work out that there was a science behind this and perhaps those now can be brought  back to life. And there's a very tantalising possibility that the semi-naturally ventilated, mid-19th century Palace of Westminster could be made to work again - that we could make this a carbon-neutral building by restoring its original design ventilating system.

Nick Hill, Learning Legacy, Palace of Westminster Restoration and Renewal Programme: 
The legacy part of all this is not just within the programme and how we plan it going forward, but it will - as far as we possibly can - it will be an open door to other industry, to the wider industry, I should say, to other heritage projects. So all of the work that Henrik's doing here, related to this type of building, and then how we apply and how the fact that what Henrik has learnt means that we can get through this piece a certain type of robotics that doesn't even exist yet but we can design and build. Once we've done that, then for future programmes to protect the UK's heritage buildings throughout, it's a fantastic piece of legacy. 

Andrew More, Senior Building Services Engineer (Historic England) and Chairman (CIBSE Heritage Group):
The principles that Henrik has worked on here, you can apply in broad-brush terms to any sort of project-  so whether that's the heating of a parish church or a listed domestic house, or commercial offices, and, in fact, almost any sort of existing building. And so, even a building which is modern - in five years' time, 10 years' time, 20 years' time when you want to modify it - it's that same thought process. What were the designers trying to do? What were the parameters they were working to and did they succeed? Can we learn from those lessons of history? 

Patrick Duerden, Conservation Architect and Practice Director, Donald Insall Associates: (BEARD)
The transferability of now recognising that there is conservation of building services as a specific discipline, as it were - I think that's really quite exciting and an emerging field. And I feel that there are many other buildings, perhaps of other periods, where that can be developed further. 

Henrik: 
The level of insight that I gained through this type of research also has a practical application and a practical value alongside its scholarly value. And that, personally, because of my background in architecture, I value very much because it's really important that you can bridge the gap between scholarship on one side and practical knowledge on the other. 

I feel really honoured to be able to work on the project like this - to have the opportunity to actually take my knowledge, develop it and being able to feed directly into the whole process of restoration. I mean, seeing it, hopefully, as being actually constructively utilised to refurbish the building - of course, that fills me with a sense of pride in the long run, I hope.