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Menu Home Upfront Now Up Books Towns Structures People Firms Lexicon NATIONAL BUILDING RESEARCH INSTITUTE (NBRI) Established: 1945 Researchers The National Building Research Institute (NBRI) was legally constituted on October 5, 1945, under the Scientific Research Council Act (No. 33 of 1945). It was one of the first three national research laboratories established by the South African Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), founded with the aim of conducting research that might be neglected by private industry, focusing on the specific needs and challenges of the South African building and construction sectors. The initial focus of the Institute concentrated on applied research and development into various aspects of building and construction, including the use of local materials, architectural design suited to the South African climate, and the performance of functional building units (e.g., plumbing, electrical installations). A particular area of concern was affordable mass housing, particularly for the disenfranchised black population. Of the original researchers, was DMcG CALDERWOOD, who, on his return from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), was appointed Chief Research Officer, National Building Research Institute whereafter he became Head of the Architectural Division. Among those he recruited to the NBRI to work alongside on the housing research programme was PH CONNELL (a graduate from the University of the Witwatersrand). He also recruited as young researchers to the programme Barrie BIERMANN, who, while at the NBRI as an HB Webb Scholar and research assistant, was a collaborator in the establishment of the Minimum Standards of Accommodation, and Betty SPENCE, who became a part-time researcher for South Africa’s National Housing Commission and the NBRI. It is recorded that in 1949 WFGL VAN BEIJMA served on the sub-committee on House Planning and Design and also in a joint advisory subcommittee on the Sub-committee to survey the attitudes of occupants to housing. In 1951 he became Chief Architect of the NBRI (Information from Hannah LE ROUX, Wits School of Architecture). Calderwood's thesis was published in 1953 with funding from the CSIR. It focussed on the prevailing issue at that time: how to implement the new (1948) Nationalist government's post-Second World War township building programme. Calderwood was charged with drawing up national standards for state funded housing at minimum cost. Calderwood designed three housing types designated NE 51/6, NE 51/8 and NE 51/9 (where acronym ‘NE’ is non-European dated 1951 types 6, 7 and 9). In 1959 Dr WEBB was appointed director, and at the time of his retirement in 1980 had 250 members of staff in service in offices in Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth and Windhoek, South West Africa (now Namibia). Throughout its existence, the NBRI produced research and technical services. It was later subsumed into the broader structures of the CSIR. Architects in employ: COWAN, D GEORGE, F JENNINGS, A NAPIER, KPJ SCOTT, TW URRY, CA WELCH, C Tod ZWART, Wibo J