Niels Barrett PhD.pdf - OpenAIR @ RGU - Robert Gordon University

The rise of a Profession within a ProfessionIntroductionThe Development of the Architectural Technology Discipline within the Profession of ArchitectureThe research approachTo test the hypotheses, it was necessary to closely investigate the history ofarchitecture, the handicrafts, education for the industry and the professions of theindustry. The present day industry was also investigated in order to identifyindicators for or against the hypotheses.The research considers relevant historical data in the existing literature, to informspaces in the current knowledge to be filled through series of primary data studies.The first hypothesis presumes little awareness of the relationship betweenarchitectural technology and the area of responsibility embedded in the oldhandicrafts. This point is interesting in itself, and was addressed through review ofliterature, and through data collection pertaining to both the educational systems inthe UK and Denmark, and through reference to current practice.The second hypothesis infers that the construction industry has no awareness, ormakes little distinction, that AT is by nature a different discipline from the one thearchitects are trained to undertake and any understanding in that direction is totallyabsent in society as a whole. This was investigated through the data collection whichin the different studies tested both hypotheses and together with the literature reviewproved them right.Initially, it was difficult to figure out how to design the tools to collect the right sortof data and it became necessary to develop and tailor a special kind of questionnairefor study 1 because of the rather complicated nature of the things to ask about. Theproblem was to ask in a way that appeared simple but in fact involved a number offactors and do so without forcing the respondents into a number of troublesomeconsiderations. In the end this turned out successful.From literature it was, along with general information about the history of theprofessions involved, possible to collect basic data for new statistics about the31