Research in practice: a call to arms

Abstract

To say that we live in a time of change is something of an understatement. Many of the drivers for change are well known and have existed for many years, indeed decades. There have always been good reasons for reducing energy consumption in buildings, but the increasing impacts of climate change, and more recently the energy crisis, have made these immediate and critical issues. Similarly, the need to make buildings healthy has always been a desirable objective, but the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, in which most transmissions occurred in buildings, also raised the profile of the role of design for health; this has been further highlighted by the recent tragic case of Awaab Ishak. Prior to this, the Grenfell tragedy heightened awareness of the imperative to design safe buildings, which has led to rapid changes in British regulation that further impact on professional standards, education, and accreditation. All these elements have raised serious questions about the role of the profession. It is clear that we are not yet delivering buildings at scale that meet these objectives. The failure to innovate when being confronted by early signals means that we need to innovate rapidly now. Is the profession ready for this? Architecture is an industry that relies on ‘tried and tested’ methods, in which changes were incremental and innovation was stylistic. We have got behind the curve and there is a need to accelerate the pace of change. This will require the rapid acquisition and implementation of knowledge, and so the ability to undertake high quality research is fundamental. We need new knowledge that can be applied in design and construction, and that can evidence the outcomes of design and the performance of buildings for further innovation or implementation. Robustly and effectively developing such knowledge about processes, systems, and technologies, and understanding how these impact on occupants, requires research thinking and skills. The need for the profession to be engaged in research has never been more pressing, but to date it has been slow to respond to the need for fundamental shifts in theoretical and applied research. In public, architecture tends to celebrate our best buildings as artworks, reflecting wider journalistic and rhetorical publicity to promote architecture. By contrast, cognate professions — such as medicine, engineering, pharmacy, and law— place greater public emphasis on research, relying on robust evidence to demonstrate the value that their professions add and the standards to which they work. The architectural profession has not invested enough in research as a means of achieving new products and services. It is one in which the commercial imperative has become predominant. In the mid-1970s, almost 50% of all UK architects