Roderick Lawrence – författare

Built environments are complex, emergent, systemic, and require contextual analysis. They should be understood before reconsidering how professionals and researchers of the built environment are educated and trained to reduce the gap between knowledge, practice and real-world circumstances. There is an urgent need to rethink the role of policy makers, researchers, practitioners and laypeople in the construction, renovation and reuse of the built environment in order to deal with numerous environmental/ecological, economic/financial and social/ethical challenges of providing a habitat for current and future generations in a world of continual change. These challenges are too complex to be dealt with only by one discipline or profession. Combinations of different types of knowledge, knowing in praxis and tacit knowledge are needed.

This book presents and illustrates recent innovative contributions with case studies focusing on five strategic domains and the interrelations between them. These transdisciplinary contributions apply concepts, methods and tools that facilitate convergence and concerted action between participants collaborating in policy definition and project implementation. The methods and tools include experiments in living-labs, prototypes on site and virtual simulations, as well as participatory approaches including citizen science, the development of alternative scenarios, and visioning plausible futures.

Built environments are complex, emergent, systemic, and require contextual analysis. They should be understood before reconsidering how professionals and researchers of the built environment are educated and trained to reduce the gap between knowledge, practice and real-world circumstances. There is an urgent need to rethink the role of policy makers, researchers, practitioners and laypeople in the construction, renovation and reuse of the built environment in order to deal with numerous environmental/ecological, economic/financial and social/ethical challenges of providing a habitat for current and future generations in a world of continual change. These challenges are too complex to be dealt with only by one discipline or profession. Combinations of different types of knowledge, knowing in praxis and tacit knowledge are needed.

This book presents and illustrates recent innovative contributions with case studies focusing on five strategic domains and the interrelations between them. These transdisciplinary contributions apply concepts, methods and tools that facilitate convergence and concerted action between participants collaborating in policy definition and project implementation. The methods and tools include experiments in living-labs, prototypes on site and virtual simulations, as well as participatory approaches including citizen science, the development of alternative scenarios, and visioning plausible futures.

The book results from a project funded by the Geneva International Academic Network, with staff from the International Labour Office and the University of Geneva. It presents and discusses the challenges and potential of local authorities to promote decent work in construction.

Existing literature on decent work focuses mainly on the roles and responsibilities of actors in the private sector but the contribution of the public sector should not be ignored. Local authorities play a crucial role in economic development through a range of policies and programmes in the construction sector and related services.

Labour Conditions for Construction: decent work, building cities & the role of local authorities includes a methodology that combines quantitative and qualitative information. It defines and validates a set of criteria to evaluate the capacity of local authorities, combining criteria about decent work, the construction sector and the policies and programmes of the local authority in each case study city.

The book fills an important gap in focussing on the role of local authorities in creating and promoting decent work and will be of interest to managers and policy-makers in construction, health and safety and labour relations as well as to researchers and students in construction management.