What Public Evidence Can Tell You

Aerial imagery shows roof form, materials, plant locations, solar, ponding, patch repairs and changes over time when historic imagery is available. Street-level imagery shows facades, windows, entrances, signs of movement or staining, and how a building has changed. Planning and permit records show what works were proposed or approved and when. Heritage registers show protections. Energy and emissions disclosure regimes, such as NABERS in Australia, EPCs in Britain and city benchmarking in the United States, show recorded performance for many buildings.

Sales and leasing material, annual reports, tenant announcements and published documents often add specifications, floor areas, plant details and recent works.

The sources differ by market, but the categories are the same. The table names the main public sources a first read draws on and what each tends to say about capital.

None of these sources is complete on its own, and several date quickly. Their value comes from being read together, with each finding graded as documented, observed or inferred and dated to its source.

Public evidence cannot show what is behind finishes or below ground. It rarely shows internal plant condition, maintenance history, compliance certification or how systems actually perform. It can be out of date. Listings are written to sell. Permits may never have been acted on.

A desktop read sees a great deal of the outside of a building and very little of its inside. Its job is to frame the right questions, not to answer all of them.

This is why evidence grading matters so much in desktop work. Much of what a desktop read concludes about concealed elements is inference, and it should be labelled so.

Public evidence has dates, and they matter. Aerial imagery may be months or years old. Street views can predate a refurbishment. A listing describes the building as the seller wished to present it on a particular day. An energy rating has a validity period and may predate plant changes. A permit records a proposal, not necessarily what was built.

A careful desktop read records the date of each piece of evidence it relies on and treats newer, more specific evidence as stronger. Where evidence conflicts, it says so rather than choosing silently.

Moyne Ross uses public evidence to produce a first read of a building’s capital position: a ten-year view built from what can be established, with its uncertainties visible. That first read is not the final word. As the owner’s records, surveys and knowledge are brought in, lines firm up, ranges narrow and some conclusions change.

The Melbourne office and Preston fire station studies were both desktop assessments using public evidence. Both reached useful conclusions, and both were explicit about what would need confirming.

A good first read changes what happens next. It tells an owner where the capital is likely to sit, which uncertainties matter most and what to investigate first. It focuses the expensive parts of due diligence, site inspections, specialist surveys, intrusive investigation, on the questions that will move the answer.

It also tends to change the brief. An owner who sees the first read often asks different questions than they would have asked beforehand, which is the argument of Hearing the Building as It Is.