Research, practice and education in the built environment
This thesis consists of two parts: the body of published work is presented as a portfolio of10 publications and forms Part II. Part I consists of a critical review of those publications.In the context of the built environment sector, the overarching themes of the publishedworks are the relationships between:research and emerging concepts in the field and the working practices of constructionand property professionals;practice as an interdisciplinary activity and educational programmes;programmes and curricula within higher education and the relevance of research.The critical review explores the portfolio from a micro and macro perspective todemonstrate that the work is considered at an individual publication level, and also withinthe extended boundaries of the discipline. This opens up broader horizons and assists incomparing the knowledge claims being made with other key benchmark publications.The principal conclusion associated with the research-practice relationship is thatpractitioners are largely driven by commercial imperatives and the associated need to solveproblems expediently. Positivist perspectives therefore have more influence on builtenvironment practitioners than constructivist methodologies. This should inform thedesign of research projects if researchers wish to be relevant to practice.The main finding linked to the practice-education relationship is that normativeinterdisciplinarity requiring a collaborative transcendence is more relevant to builtenvironment practice than a phenomenological position where interdisciplinarity existswithin the individual. This should inform the design of undergraduate built environmentcurricula in order to adequately prepare students for practice.In the education-research relationship this thesis concludes that there is a need to develop amore comprehensive definition of scholarship or scholarly activity in support of builtenvironment education to include applied/consultancy-based research, market-basedstudies, professional updating and the writing of textbooks. This should inform both therecruitment and promotion processes within universities.
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