Professionalism in China's building sector: an economic governance perspective

As the third force beside markets and governments, professionalism emerged to protect the interests of civil society, and it has played a unique role in the building sector. By conceptualizing professionalism as a community-based governance structure, an economic governance perspective is adopted to examine professionalism in China's building sector. The development of professionalism in China's building sector is reviewed, and both its achievements and its weaknesses are assessed. Root-cause analysis reveals that the primary impediment to building professionalism is the imbalanced relationship between markets, governments and professionals. It is argued that the success of professionalism in China's building sector is dependent ultimately on whether the government can change its overly dominant role in the economy. To address the concern of creating an independent, vibrant professional culture that contributes to the long-term public interest, the following are recommended: separating professional associations and relevant bodies from government agencies completely; improving the administrative system for both practice qualification and market access; and increasing the proportion of non-government investments to change the imbalanced relationship between professionals and public clients.     

Rethinking professionalism: guardianship of land and resources

The rise of modern professions, and the concept of professionalism, usually has two sides. On the one hand, it can be seen as self-serving as it circumscribes practices, controls a knowledge base, controls entry into the occupation, demands public recognition of professional status and fixes the market for its services. On the other hand, built environment professions and professionalism also offer the promise of a covenant with society to protect it from unscrupulous, unfair or short-term practices through the provision of impartial advice and services. This ethical basis for professionalism is considered in the context of the property market, with a focus on valuation professionals. It is argued that if property professionals have a stewardship or guardian role for society and the built environment, then this means the right and a duty to challenge what ‘the client’ or ‘the market’ may seek. The property profession in general and valuation professionals in particular must find a new role in proactive ‘market-shaping’ which involves a re-examination of unquestioned assumptions and underlying fundamentals of current professional practices.

L'essor des professions libérales modernes et le concept de professionnalisme présentent généralement un double aspect. D'un côté, cela peut être considéré comme intéressé, dans la mesure où cela permet de circonscrire les pratiques, de contrôler une base de connaissances, de contrôler l'accès au métier, d'exiger une reconnaissance publique du statut professionnel et de définir le marché correspondant aux prestations concernées. D'un autre côté, les professions libérales qui se préoccupent de l'environnement bâti et leur professionnalisme offrent également la promesse de s'engager envers la société à la protéger des pratiques malhonnêtes, déloyales ou à court terme par la fourniture de conseils et de services impartiaux. Cette base éthique du professionnalisme est envisagée dans le contexte du marché de l'immobilier, l'accent étant mis sur les professionnels de l'évaluation. Il est soutenu que si les professionnels de l'immobilier exercent un rôle d'intendant ou de gardien au bénéfice de la société et de l'environnement bâti, cela signifie alors le droit de remettre en question ce que « le client » ou « le marché » peut rechercher, et que c'est un devoir de le faire. La profession immobilière en général et les professionnels de l'évaluation en particulier doivent trouver un rôle nouveau en influençant le marché d'une manière proactive qui implique de réexaminer les hypothèses acceptées comme allant de soi et les fondamentaux sous-tendant les pratiques professionnelles actuelles.

Mots clés: environnement bâti, éthique, pratiques intelligentes, professionnalisme, évaluation des biens immobiliers, intérêt public, intendance, valeurs     

社区建成环境对居民久坐行为的影响研究 ——以南京市为例

以南京市主城区10个社区为研究对象,构建分层回归模型,探索社区建成环境对居民久坐行为的影响.研究发现,久坐行为在不同环境的社区之间存在差异;个人社会经济属性、个人行为偏好、客观建成环境与主观建成环境都会对居民的久坐行为产生影响;相比于客观建成环境,主观建成环境对居民久坐行为的影响更为显著;客观建成环境方面,住房密度、道...     

公交出行分担率影响因素分析——基于南京主城区的实证研究

首先指出除了预测手段外,运用历史数据研究建成环境等因素对出行行为的影响机制,是引导和促进公交出行的重要方法。其次,重点从研究方法与模型、自变量选择这两个角度回顾国内外在该领域的主要研究成果。再次,基于采集并经整合处理的2009年南京市主城区居民出行行为调查数据、土地利用及街道、公交等建成环境数据基础上,以公交分担率为因变量,运用多元线性回归分析探讨诸多因子对因变量的影响方式和量级。结果显示:在99%的置信度下,平均出行时耗、公交线网重复系数、距地铁站距离、公交IC卡持有比例4项因子对公交出行有显著影响;若降至90%的置信度,则增加土地利用混合度、低收入者比重、十字及以上路口密度3项因子。在使用小汽车已经成为一些人生活习惯的背景下,或在不恰当的建成环境影响下,提升路网密度非但不会促进公交出行,相反会促进小汽车使用。最后,从轨道站距设置、公交线网设计、公交IC卡发行、用地混合、路网规划等角度提出提升公交分担率的政策建议。     

A typology of New Urbanism neighborhoods

This paper describes a framework for understanding the diversity of New Urbanism (NU) in practice in the United States. The framework is based on a nationally representative survey of NU developers that inventories characteristics of NU projects’ built environments across categories of urban design, land use, street configuration, and size. Using cluster analysis, the paper resolves the diversity of NU in practice into three types: Mainstream Urbanism, Dense Urbanism, and Hybrid Urbanism. The paper elaborates on each type, including geographic and temporal aspects of constituent projects. It also considers the ways in which the framework contributes to scholarly understanding of NU and advances the discussion of NU in practice.     

高教园区建成环境评价体系研究

随着我国高等教育的跨越式发展,大学校园建设面临前所未有的巨大投入。本课题运用环境心理学、人居环境科学等多种方法,依托计算机、互联网络等多种新技术,建立符合中国国情的高教园区环境质量的综合评价体系和评价模型,为高教园区规划设计和决策提供科学可靠的辅助手段和反馈机制,并为公众参与规划设计提供信息共享、意见交流和共同参与的支撑平台。     

城市街道空间品质大规模量化测度研究进展

伴随我国人居环境建设从重"量"走向提"质",城市建成环境的科学评估与定量研究亟待展开,街道作为重要的公共领域,其空间品质与活力成为重要的方向之一。本文从街道空间品质的概念、大规模量化方法和空间品质测度方法三个方面切入,梳理了国内、国外街道空间品质量化研究方法的进展。总体而言,街道物质空间的测度在不同的方面已有一定的方法积累,但少有多种方法的集成应用,利用可获得性高的街景图片进行街道空间测度是国际上新兴的研究方向,空间品质的影响机理研究还有待深入,已有研究少有以科学认识为基础的规划设计方法讨论。     

建成环境对公共健康影响的尺度与方法研究

近年来,建成环境对居民健康的影响成为跨学科研究的重点。在不同的空间尺度上,建成环境对健康影响的机制与研究方法均有所差异。通过对国际上相关理论和实证的文献研究,总结建成环境对公共健康影响的研究基础;分析其研究尺度,包括宏观(全球/国家/区域)、中观(城市/县)和微观(街道/社区)3个层次,明确不同尺度建成环境对健康影响的要素;并围绕指标测度和研究方法进行评述。最后,提出健康导向下不同尺度的建成环境构建策略,以期为我国健康城市的建设提供借鉴和参考。     

Housing quality and resilience in New Zealand

There is extensive research on the negative health impacts of poor housing quality. However, little is known about the potential health benefits of high-quality housing in poor neighbourhoods. Neighbourhoods with unexpectedly good health outcomes despite high levels of deprivation have been deemed resilient places and housing quality in these areas may be a contributor to this resilience. This study aimed to evaluate whether an indicator of neighbourhood housing quality was associated with a previously quantified resilience index (RINZ) in New Zealand. It was found that areas with high housing quality tended to have higher median income, greater proportions of partnered people and shorter-term residents, and very low proportions of Māori. A positive association was found between housing quality and resilience, after adjustment for deprivation. There was no indication of differences by heterogeneity in housing quality within the aggregate unit of analysis. These findings pose the hypothesis that improving housing quality in similarly deprived areas that have poor health outcomes could potentially boost health. To extend this understanding, further development of a more sophisticated housing quality indicator is recommended.     

新时期面向品质提升的城市设计工作思路探讨——以沈阳金廊核心段城市设计为例

沈阳金廊在快速发展十年之后,迎来了对规划建设总结和提升的阶段,本文在分析其建设现状基础上,结合新时期中央城市工作会议精神,从追求品质增长、发挥公共价值、增强设计指导性三方面开展本轮城市设计工作,包括继续按照最初谋划的金廊整体功能结构和空间结构进行严格控制,着重对公共领域的品质进行提升,并打造未出让地块为示范项目树立标杆,最终落实成管控文件。     

From Local to Global: One Hundred Years of Neighborhood Planning

Problem: Over the past 100 years, city planners have used neighborhood planning to address a variety of vexing social problems such as community disintegration, economic marginalization, and environmental degradation. To date, there has been no comprehensive review and critique of these planning initiatives and how they have influenced the profession.

Purpose: This article traces the history of neighborhood planning in the United States to learn from past experience and to identify its contributions to the planning profession.

Methods: I review the literature on the various forms of neighborhood planning, which I define as planning initiatives that focus on altering the physical environment of one or more neighborhoods in pursuit of larger social objectives.

Results and conclusions: Each of the six forms of neighborhood planning discussed in this article has made important contributions to the planning profession. Perry's neighborhood unit formula provided planners with a template for good neighborhood design and introduced the idea that neighborhood design could affect the sense of community. Urban renewal taught the profession about the limits of physical solutions to social problems, the precious nature of neighborhood social networks and the importance of involving citizens. The community action programs created a new norm for citizen participation and showed its limits, as well as introducing truly comprehensive redevelopment planning. Community economic development showed that some planning and implementation activities can be successfully delegated to community-based organizations. Municipal neighborhood planning provided a mechanism for ongoing citizen involvement. The most recent forms of neighborhood planning create neighborhoods that encourage walking, use of mass transit, social interaction, and a sense of community.

Takeaway for practice: Neighborhood planning programs have made a number of important contributions to the planning profession, including focusing attention on how neighborhood design influences urban livability and social behaviors, institutionalizing citizen participation in plan making, and going beyond physical development to address social, economic, political, and environmental issues. Neighborhood planning is currently more important than ever, as it now addresses global issues such as energy conservation and greenhouse gas emissions in addition to its historic focus on social equity issues such as poverty and social alienation.

Research support: None.     

Forum A historical context for theories underpinning the production of the built environment

The quest for ‘theory’ in the Building Research & Information special issue ‘Developing Theories of the Built Environment’ (36(3) 2008) needs to be understood within a larger historical and political context. It would benefit from engaging with a rich vein of work on the production of the built environment over the last 30 years. Theory inherently develops in the political context in which it exists; if it fails to do so, it may be dangerous. This commentary traces the intellectual underpinning concerned with understanding the process of change in the built environment, particularly the result of changes in social relations and the social labour process. The production of the built environment is seen as encompassing all the social processes concerned with producing the built environment, built products, buildings and infrastructure, and out of natural resources, whilst consumption is applied to all the processes involved in consuming these, including the well-being of tenants. And between these are situated the processes of exchange, distribution, and circulation, involving complex webs of relations between developers, builders, and landlords and landowners. The challenge is not only to engage and learn from past work, but also to state explicitly what is currently driving the need for a theory (or set of theories).

La quête de la « théorie » dans ce numéro spécial de Building Research & Information consacré aux théories du développement du milieu bâti (volume 36(3), 2008) doit être comprise dans un contexte historique et politique plus large. Elle aurait intérêt à s'appuyer sur les nombreux travaux concernant la production du cadre bâti publiés au cours de ces 30 dernières années. La théorie se développe, de manière inhérente, dans le contexte politique dans lequel elle existe; dans le cas contraire, la situation pourrait devenir dangereuse. Cet article analyse le raisonnement intellectuel sous-jacent concernant la compréhension du processus de changement dans le milieu bâti, notamment les conséquences des changements dans les relations sociales et dans le processus social du travail. La production du cadre bâti est considérée comme englobant tous les processus sociaux liés à la production du cadre bâti, des produits de construction, des bâtiments et des infrastructures et aux ressources naturelles alors que la consommation s'applique à tous les processus qui entrent en jeu dans la consommation de ceux-ci, y compris le bien-être des occupants. Entre ces deux notions, on trouve les processus d'échange, de distribution et de circulation qui font intervenir des réseaux de relations entre promoteurs, constructeurs, bailleurs et propriétaires fonciers. La difficulté ne vient pas seulement du fait qu'il faut tirer profit des travaux et de l'expérience passés mais qu'il faut également expliquer ce qui motive aujourd'hui la nécessité d'une théorie (ou d'un ensemble de théories).

Mots clés: cadre bâti, cadres conceptuels, consommation, processus de travail, cadre politique, production, relations sociales     

近代城市发展下的传统历史园林在边界空间中的延续与转型

城市空间的生活状态与传统历史园林的体验之间呈现出一种异质状态,它发生于两者所处的物理边界中。以宁波中山公园独秀山以及杭州勾山樵舍为研究对象,在梳理两处园林从私人到公共空间演变历史资料的基础上,借助西方文化研究中的“异质”概念,来反思园林边界的空间潜力和价值,即历史记忆和在场体验的关系如何推动传统园林的阅读以及其空间意义的拓展。     

Constraints on evidence-based policy: insights from government practices

Insights are offered into UK government built environment policy-making processes through an insider's perspective (based on experience of being the chief executive of a public body, the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment – CABE) on three empirical examples. The government's mandate was for policies to be evidence based. There was no shortage of demand for evidence, but it was fed into political and bureaucratic domains where less- or non-evidence-based influences were also at work. The questions considered are how much the evidence really influenced the content of policy; and whether making a policy ‘evidence based' led to its acceptance across government, causing departments to commit to its delivery. It is found that evidence (1) is powerful for defining issues to which policy should attend, (2) captures the attention of policy and decision-makers, but only if presented succinctly, and (3) is essential for testing outcomes. Supposedly evidence-based policy is not always truly evidence based. Many subjective forces counterbalance objectivity. The most significant reasons for this are mooted. Advice is offered on how to make evidence a more effective part of a process that will always be partly technical and objective, but also political and subjective.     

Changing context for environmental knowledge

Change within the construction sector has been a central concern of governments and a select few private-sector clients for a considerable time. The discourse of change emanating from organizations concerned with reform in the construction sector reflects these ongoing concerns for change in the sector. The underlying assumptions of the content of change and appropriate change mechanisms in the UK are critically examined and challenged. In particular, the limitations of measurement and best practice are explored. The allegiance to approaches based on measurement and best practice is acontextual, unreflective and insufficient in providing wholly reliable explanations for the relationship between practice and performance. Claims for the use of measurement and best practice by the reform movement must therefore be understood to have limitations and their use approached with caution. The emphasis on best practice is also understood to direct attention away from understanding the legitimacy of current practice and change within the UK construction sector. An agenda for change in the UK construction sector will need to engage with and be more reflective of current managerial practice and past change initiatives. Contextual approaches such as structuration theory offer a way in which to underpin a research framework that could support the reform movement in setting such an agenda.

Depuis longtemps, les changements qui interviennent dans le secteur de la construction sont une préoccupation majeure pour les gouvernements et pour quelques clients sélectionnés du secteur privé. Le discours sur le changement émanant d'organisations préoccupées par la réforme dans la construction reflète l'inquiétude permanente causée par le changement dans ce secteur. Les hypothèses sous-jacentes portant sur le contenu et sur les mécanismes appropriés du changement au Royaume-Uni font l'objet d'un examen critique et sont mises en question. L'auteur analyse, en particulier, les limitations des mesures et des meilleures pratiques. Les positions en faveur d'approches basées sur les mesures et les meilleures pratiques sont hors contexte, non représentatives et insuffisantes puisqu'elles ne parviennent pas à fournir une explication totalement fiable des relations entre la pratique et la performance. Il est donc clair que lorsque le mouvement en faveur de la réforme encourage l'utilisation de mesures et des meilleures pratiques, celles-ci on des limites et leur utilisation doit être envisagée avec précaution. En mettant l'accent sur les meilleures pratiques, on détourne l'attention de la compréhension de la légitimité des pratiques actuelles et des changements dans le secteur de la construction au Royaume-Uni. Tout programme de changement dans le secteur de la construction au Royaume-Uni devra être associé à des pratiques de gestion plus réfléchies et tenir compte d'initiatives de changement prises dans le passé. Des approches contextuelles comme la théorie de la structuration offrent une méthode sur laquelle pourra s'appuyer un cadre de recherche qui pourrait apporter son soutien au mouvement de réforme en définissant un tel programme.

Mots clés: analyse comparative, meilleures pratiques, gestion du changement, projets de démonstration, performances de l'industrie, innovation, indicateurs de performances clés, changement organisationnel, mouvement de réforme     

Urban landscapes on public space in the post-industrial city

The relative indeterminacy ofpublic space has led to two rather different linesof research. One pertains to the sociology ofculture, with rather general studies of a broadscope that cover lengthy historical periods and callfor an analysis of urbanity in the Western world.The other line of research includes the extremelydetailed studies of human conduct in specific urbanspatial settings. This paper takes a differentapproach: public space is described based on thenotion of urban landscapes, which are expressionsof economic, demographic and technologicaldevelopments.     

新时期成人函授高等教育的质量管理探讨

结合重庆大学继续教育学院加强函授教育教学管理的改革实践,遵循"立足改革、加强管理、提高质量、改进服务、适应需要、办出特色"的指导思想,从函授站布局调整、专业建设、教学模式以及将远程网络教育技术应用于推进函授教育教学等方面不断改革创新,对探索新时期高校函授教育管理的规律,提高函授教育教学质量提供了可借鉴的经验。     

浦东新区住宅小区建设述评

对浦东新区多姿多彩的新建住宅小区的空间分布、建筑外观、环境模式等作出归纳,进行点评,以启发人们的思考,更好地提高住宅建设整体质量水平。     

Teaching Today＇s Students to Build Tomorrow＇s Universally Designed Society

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities defines the term universal design as the design of products, environments, programs and services to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design. This paper attempts to highlight the importance of universal design as a core element in the training of architects and engineers. It emphasizes the need for students to take an interdisciplinary, comprehensive, and analytic approach to universal design through degree courses in these fields. An interdisciplinary teaching program for universal design as part of an introductory course for first-year students at Bergen University College in Norway, illustrates one possible strategy for raising awareness of universal design and for improving interaction across disciplines. In this context, the paper discusses the relevance of the seven principles of universal design as guidelines for the built environment. It also emphasizes why universal design should be an integral part of established subjects rather than be classified as a separate subject in a bachelor＇s or master＇s degree program.