Why is construction so backward?
Date
2004
Authors
Advisors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
ISSN
DOI
Volume Title
Publisher
Wiley Academy
Type
Book
Peer reviewed
Abstract
Description
Construction boasts a vast worldwide literature, but few books take an international overview or draw on relevant technologies outside construction. This book fills those gaps, concentrating on the UK but also investigating international practice. It provides both a historian’s and a forecaster’s perspective on building and its planning context.
Outcomes included:
• a nationwide speaking tour on the book
• joining the Board of the Housing Forum, a body that, with government support until recently, represents all stakeholders in UK housing
• contributing to the Construction Research and Innovation Strategy Panel (CRISP) paper, The social and economic value of construction: the Pearce report revisited, August 2004
• lecturing to major conferences on housing, engaging with top civil servants at the Department of Communities and Local Government (CLG)
• a series of broadcasts on housing for Radio 4.
My book engaged in contemporary debates in the field and since publication, the Government has decided to build three million new homes by 2020.
In an original manner, the book subjects the complexities of building to interdisciplinary perspectives, including those of economics, urban geography and the management of marketing and innovation. The book makes the novel suggestion that mass-produced buildings, granted Type Approvals, could be located beyond brown-field sites in the UK, so offering householders more space, better architecture, lower energy use and lower house prices.
The rigour of the research consists in its comprehensive survey of international opinion on building, as well its insistence on always asking the question: why should the quality and price dynamics of buildings be any different from those of other products?
Keywords
RAE 2008, UoA 63 Art and Design
Citation
WOUDHUYSEN, J. and ABLEY, I (2004)Why is Construction so Backward? London: John Wiley & Sons