Letter From The Editor

This issue marks the 29th year of this Journal and its name-change to Journal of Building Physics. Having been first, a member of the Journal editorial board, then its associated editor, and finally its editor-in-chief for 23 years out of 28 years, it is at present my privilege to share with you a bit of the Journal history. The Journal was initiated in response to the energy crises of the 1970s as the Journal of Thermal Insulation. The readership was primarily industrial and the published material oscillated between technical and practical information e.g., news from Washington. By the end of the 1980s, people of North America forgot the energy conservation and the Journal readership started to shrink. Therefore, when the previous editor retired, I was given the job to rebuild the Journal and its readership. The only constraint imposed on me by the publisher was to retain part of the title so that there would be no need to obtain a new mailing permission from the US Post Office. For this reason, the Journal’s scope was changed and the name became Journal of Thermal Insulation and Building Envelope. As buildings were the main area of thermal considerations, this title was a step forward. Yet, thermal considerations alone were insufficient to address the building envelope as a system. In one of the popular articles, my colleague and I wrote: