Professor David Johnston

David is a Professor of Building Performance Evaluation within Leeds Sustainability Institute. He has almost 30 years’ experience of applied and theoretical research and consultancy in low carbon housing and is one of the UK’s leading experts in coheating testing and Building Performance Evaluation (BPE). He has led and managed numerous field trial projects in both new and existing dwellings, involving detailed in-use monitoring of energy consumption, the analysis of occupant behaviour and detailed evaluations of the fabric and services performance of domestic buildings.

In recent years, his research has concentrated on the building fabric thermal ‘performance gap’. Professor Johnston’s work in this area has involved developing methodological approaches to assessing the fabric performance of dwellings (for instance, development of the Coheating Test Method), exploring the techniques that can be used to quantify the size of the ‘performance gap’, identifying the reasons why this ‘gap’ is important and examining the various factors that contribute to the ‘gap’.  The findings from his work have been used by various stakeholders to inform their design and construction practices and help them understand how they can begin to close the ‘performance gap’. The findings have also been used at policy level to inform future revisions of the UK Building Regulations and to develop new European Standards.

David has contributed to a number of important industry groups, such as the Zero Carbon Hub Working Group WG5b and the Air Tightness Testing and Measurement Association (ATTMA) Registered Testers Scheme. He is currently the only academic member of the Caravan Industry Renewable Energy Working Group and a member of the Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) TM23 Forum. He is also an expert member of BSI B/540/9 and currently the Chair of CEN Technical Committee 89 Working Group 13. As part of his CEN Chair role, he has been working with European Colleagues to develop new European (CEN) standards relating to the performance testing of buildings.

He has authored numerous reports and has produced almost fifty peer reviewed publications. He has also co-authored publications with European colleagues, most notably Wolfgang Feist, the co-founder of the Passivhaus Institute in Germany. He has also guest edited a number of Special Issues for various academic journals. David also regularly peer review papers for a number of leading academic construction journals and has recently peer reviewed CIBSE TM23, which provides Building Regulation guidance on testing buildings for air leakage, and a guide on thermal bypassing produced by the Passivhaus Trust. He also has externally examined PhD’s at a number of universities and has assessed various Readership and Professorial applications.

David teaches on a wide variety of Built Environment courses including:

• Architectural Technology
• Building Services Engineering
• Building Surveying
• Quantity Surveying and Construction Management

Specific areas include:

• Airtightness
• Building performance evaluation
• Building science
• Building services
• Construction technology
• Low carbon housing thermal bridging
• Sustainable buildings