The UK building stock has seen major changes in the last 50 years, in its form, fabric and function. The context is the expansion of the building stock and built infrastructure, which takes place in most areas at 1-2% per year, with the implication that up to 75% of the dwellings of the year 2050 already exist now. This is a major challenge. The energy performance of much of this stock is generally low, while its economic, social and cultural values are often high. The purpose of this review is to provide a brief outline of the state of knowledge of the existing building stock, and of potential advances in that knowledge. We follow a knowledge mapping approach, set out on several axes. The first is an axis from buildings as physical forms, to buildings as containers of socio-economic activity. Another axis spans between existing buildings, renovations and adaptations, and new buildings. A third axis is that of scale, from building components to large-scale settlements. There are many possible combinations of these parameters. Here we focus on those that are most relevant to the SEMBE goals of sustainable energy management across the whole building stock. (C) 2008 Queen's Printer and Controller of HMSO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.