What is the future for professional practices in the Built Environment?

Will we will see the development of a new form of interdisciplinary professional, as yet without a name,  capable of leading from RIBA Stage Minus One and on to the project in use or will Architects or others take the stage as leaders of the team?

These and other issues will be discussed at Professional Practices in the Built Environment, a conference at the new School of Architecture at the University of Reading 27 April 2017, an event designed specifically for curious, research driven, ethically oriented professionals who want to shape the future of the profession in collaboration with others.

If you want to share your thoughts and research on the future of the profession, YOU HAVE ONE MONTH TO SUBMIT AN ABSTRACT to https://www.reading.ac.uk/architecture/professional-practices-call-for-papers.aspx

The following questions are offered as a prompt:

 Nature of the professions Today:

• What are the skills and dispositions of a professional and can they be evaluated?
• Are the professions necessary and is there a viable alternative? Without the professions how might the long term curatorship of the built environment evolve?
• The professions have a ‘defined duty to serve the public interest’ rather than that of their clients. How does an ethical stance play out in practice across the globe?
• What is the meaning of professional judgment, and what are the best conditions for developing it?
• What is the impact of digital and other new tools on the way in which the professions operate?

Conditions for collaboration:

• Collaboration is the sharing of risk. What are the best conditions for collaboration between professionals? Can a culture of trust be developed as an alternative to contracts?
• Professionals need a shared language to ensure communication across disciplines. What is the nature of this language and how is it best expressed?

Knowledge Sharing and Development:

• What is the role of research in professional practice and in fostering innovation? Where does it take place? What are the conditions to flourish? To which forces it is responsive? Who is/ ought to be engaged? How is research disseminated and valorized?
• How can professionals involve society in the evolution of the built environment, the sharing of risk and an understanding of uncertainty?
• What is the relationship between professionalism and pedagogy?
• Building Performance Evaluation, in terms of cultural, social as well as environmental sustainability is vital to narrow the performance gap and for the learning of the field. What should be evaluated? How can it be measured? How can BPE be developed collaboratively and who will pay for it? How can we learn from failure?
• How is knowledge managed in professional practice? How is this impacting the way how Architecture and the Built Environment is conceived, constructed, and maintained?
• The professions have oversight of educational standards. How can the standards be written that account for the need to educate students for an uncertain future?

If you want to help close the gap between practice and academia to help create a stronger voice a better built environment papers from professionals are needed.