Gribble, E.; (2007) Brief as virtual building: How configurational is a construction brief? Masters thesis , UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

This study explores current briefing practice and tests the proposition that a construction brief contains sufficient prescriptive information regarding spatial relationships to constitute a ‘virtual building’ with its own inequality genotype: it asks ‘how configurational is a construction brief?’ Starting from the premise that space syntax theory (Hillier and Hanson 1984) fills certain logical gaps in the literature on briefing, it argues that current advice on the briefing process which states that understanding the client’s organisation is critical, supports the direct use of space syntax methodology in developing the brief. The research methods used include an archival study of RIBA Client Design Advisor statements on briefing, a questionnaire on the content of construction briefs, unstructured interviews and a syntactic analysis of three generic briefs: government design guidance on magistrates’ courts (CSDG 2004), primary schools (BB99 2004), and acute mental health units (HBN 35 1996). The findings suggest that architects conceptualise the briefing process in at least 3 different ways and use a wide range of techniques to elicit information from the client. That a high proportion of construction briefs (in this study) include client attitudes and values with spatial implications and reference to spatial relationships in terms of permeability, visibility, intelligibility and control. And that generic briefs do encode meaningful regularities between syntactic measures and institutional attitudes towards different categories of building user. Despite recommendations that briefing should start early and continue throughout the project, this study indicates that in practice briefing is often separated from the design process. It is argued therefore that the cultural content of a construction brief should be made explicit so that informed decisions can be made regarding its validity and applicability. The findings of this study indicate that space syntax methodology could be used to this end. However, this proposition would need to be tested with a larger sample of construction briefs before this could be asserted with any confidence. Finally, further study is proposed into the circumstances in which the benefits of using generic design guidance, briefing templates and standard briefs outweigh the costs. It is suggested that this could draw on the ideas of transaction costs and human error theory.

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