John Joseph Burns is an award-winning architect based in Glasgow. John has over 15 years of experience working professionally in both the UK and China. He is an Associate at Holmes Miller specialising in sustainable education, sport and residential design. John also has a passion for architectural history, urbanism and sustainability, explored through his research projects such as the ‘Tenement: An Architectural History’ and ‘Form Follows Fuel: 14 Buildings from Antiquity to the Oil Age’ publications. Based on his research John gives regular lectures at the University of Strathclyde.
Form Follows Fuel
This drawing set was completed as part of research for the forthcoming book ‘Form Follows Fuel: 14 Buildings from Antiquity to the Oil Age’, written by Florian Urban and Barnabas Calder with myself providing research support, carrying out calculations and illustrating. The research aimed to calculate the embodied energy within fourteen buildings throughout history, from the Great Pyramid to the Seagram Building, to provide a comparative analysis of energy used in construction in relation to fuel sources available. Digital models were created based on historical and measured information of the selected buildings from which material volumes were calculated to enable embodied energy to be derived. The drawing set was then extracted and presented from these models to illustrate the book in ‘plates’. This set contains eighteen of these ‘plates’ complied together demonstrating the rigour, consistency and variety inherent in the research approach. The research aims to provide quantifiable embodied energy figures against historic buildings providing comparative analysis. The process of measuring, modelling and drawing of each building was crucial to this and shows the importance architectural drawing is in this new field of architectural history. ‘Form Follows Fuel: 14 Buildings from Antiquity to the Oil Age’ will be available from Routledge from the 9th of September 2025.
Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus
The elevation drawing of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (formerly Victoria Terminus) in Mumbai was carried out as part of research for the forthcoming book ‘Form Follows Fuel: 14 Buildings from Antiquity to the Oil Age’, written by Florian Urban and Barnabas Calder with myself providing research support, carrying out calculations and illustrating. The research aimed to calculate the embodied energy within fourteen buildings throughout history to provide a comparative analysis of energy used in construction in relation to fuel sources available. A digital model of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus was made, based on original drawings by Frederick William Stevens in 1878, from which the elevation drawing was created. The drawing demonstrates the level of detail and rigour the research project went into in establishing material volumes as accurately as they could be from available information from which embodied energy could be derived. The research aims to provide quantifiable embodied energy figures against historic buildings providing comparative analysis. The process of measuring, modelling and drawing of each building was crucial to this and shows the importance architectural drawing is in this new field of architectural history. ‘Form Follows Fuel: 14 Buildings from Antiquity to the Oil Age’ will be available from Routledge from the 9th of September 2025.