Opening Session: The Architecture Research Unit—Objectives and Organisation

LIST OF PARTICIPANTS

Mrs. P. Apps, Land Use and Built Form Studies, University of Cambridge, School of Architecture, 16 Brooklands Avenue, Cambridge, England. Mr. G. Atkinson, Head of Design Division, Building Research Establishment, Garston, Watford, England. Mr. B. Beckett, Chief Architect, Scottish Development Department, 83 Princes Street, Edinburgh, Scotland. Mr. A. Bijl, Research Architect, Architecture Research Unit, University of Edinburgh, 55 George Square, Edinburgh, Scotland. Dr. J. Brine, Lecturer, Department of Urban Design and Regional Planning, University of Edinburgh, 60 George Square, Edinburgh, Scotland. Dr. R. Cammock, Medical Architecture Research Unit, Northern Polytechnic, Holloway, London, England. Mr. T. Colchester, Secretary, Commonwealth Association of Architects, 66 Portland Place, London, England. Professor R. Cowan, Professor of Architecture, School of Architecture, Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland. Professor G. Desbarats, Dean, Faculte de L'Aménagement, 2375 Côte Sainte Catherine, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Mr. C. Doidge, Unit for Architectural Studies, Department of Architecture, University College London, Gower Street, London, England. Dr. J. Gibbons, Lecturer, Department of Architecture, University of Edinburgh, 16-18 George Square, Edinburgh, Scotland. Professor A. Hardy, Professor of Building Science, School of Architecture, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, England. Dr. D. Hawkes, Land Use and Built Form Studies, University of Cambridge, School of Architecture, 16 Brooklands Avenue, Cambridge, England. Professor D. Hinton, Director, Birmingham School of Architecture, City of Birmingham Polytechnic, Corporation Street, Birmingham, England. Professor T. Howarth, Dean, Faculty of Architecture, Urban and Regional Planning and Landscape Architecture, 230 College Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Professor P. Johnson-Marshall, Professor of Urban Design and Regional Planning, University of Edinburgh, 60 George Square, Edinburgh, Scotland.

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Mr. F. Joyce, Reader, Unit for Inter-disciplinary Research, University of Aston, Gosta Green, Birmingham, England. Mr. R. King, Director, Fell Housing Research Unit, School of Architecture, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. Mr. S. Larbi, Lecturer in Architectural Science, Faculty of Architecture, University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana. Professor Sir R. H. Matthew, Professor of Architecture, Architecture Research Unit, University of Edinburgh, 55 George Square, Edinburgh, Scotland. Mr. H. Moss, Unit for Architectural Studies, Department of Architecture, University College, London, Gower Street, London, England. Professor A. Prakash, Principal, Chandigarh College of Architecture, Chandigarh, India. Professor C. Robertson, Director, Architecture Research Unit, University of Edinburgh, 55 George Square, Edinburgh, Scotland. Mr. A. Rodger, Senior Lecturer, Department of Architecture, University of Edinburgh, 16-18 George Square, Edinburgh, Scotland (formerly Department of Architecture, University of Khartoum). Mr. J. Skakke, Director, Housing Research and Development Unit, University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya. Dr. J. Taylor, Director of Research, Institute of Advanced Architectural Studies, University of York, Kings Manor, York, England. Mr. C. Thunhurst, Medical Architecture Research Unit, Northern Polytechnic, Holloway, London, England. Professor C. B. Wilson, Professor of Architectural Science, Department of Architecture, University of Edinburgh, 16-18 George Square, Edinburgh, Scotland. Mr. D. Wisdom, Department of Architecture and Civic Design, Greater London Council, County Hall, London, England.

Editors of Proceedings Professor Charles Robertson, Dr. John Gibbons.

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OPENING SESSION INTRODUCTION:

SIR ROBERT H. MATTHEW

The purpose of this meeting is a very simple one, and I think you are all familiar with it. In July, we sent out a short note explaining very briefly why we were staging this meeting, and I would just like to say a brief word about it. First of all, it has been thought of as a simple job of bringing together architectural research units in the Commonwealth. Why the Commonwealth? For the practical reason that there is a Commonwealth fund in existence. That fund was earmarked to encourage professions in the Commonwealth. It started the Commonwealth Association of Architects, whose first meeting was in Malta. We have been able to call on this Fund, provided that its use is restricted to the Commonwealth. There are other reasons, of course. Architectural Education throughout the Commonwealth is based on one system of education. Also, we all still speak English, which is a great help. It seemed, therefore, a useful thing at some stage to hold a meeting of this kind to bring together units in existence. The question was when. Timing was partly related to the situation in Edinburgh. We have been going for quite a number of years. Why "Architectural" Research Units? We restricted the range in order to enable the meeting to be handled easily as a discussion group rather than a formal seminar. The Seminar is therefore confined to the field of Architectural Research and excludes the well defined field of building research and town planning. In today's meeting, the initiative is taken by Charles Robertson to start the ball rolling, in order to throw up the principal kind of problems involved. In the course of seven years, I have visited the bulk of schools in the Commonwealth, and made contact with most of the recognisable units in existence—I was impressed by the fact that the same problems are arising everywhere. The Edinburgh unit has come across all conceivable problems. With these few words of introduction, I would start off, the meeting with Charles Robertson's paper.

THE ARCHITECTURE RESEARCH UNIT—OBJECTIVES AND ORGANISATION: Charles Robertson, Director, ARU, University of Edinburgh.

A Research Unit was founded in this University by Professor Robert Matthew in 1959 to undertake studies in housing. Three important points of policy were stated in the early proposals for setting up the Unit. They were:—

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that the work, in addition to architectural design, should include social and building cost studies and consequently staff of the Unit should include a sociologist and a quantity surveyor in addition to architects. that research work should be related to practice; the initial research studies should be used to establish design criteria for two actual building projects to be carried out by the Unit. Subsequently these projects were to be examined in use after occupation. that the Unit's staff after a period of research and practice would form a reservoir of teachers for the undergraduate course. The Research Unit was established prior to the undergraduate course, which consisted initially of only the two final years. Students were selected from departments in other colleges and universties, for example, the Art College in Edinburgh and Cambridge University, not offering at the time themselves any honours degrees course or any full degree course leading to final RIBA exemption. Some time later, the course was extended into a full five years honours course similar to that which we now have. The original programme for the research unit was designed to span over five years. It was financed by the Nuffield Foundation (L35,000), Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, now the Science Research Council (l0,000), the Carnegie Trust for Universities in Scotland (2,500), and the University of Edinburgh. The Nuffield Foundation supportcd all the architectural staff and the sociologist. DSIR supported the quantity surveyor, the Carnegie Trust money was specifically for travelling and the University provided services full-time of a Senior Lecturer as Director, a secretary, partial services of a technician, accommodation, heat and light and a small departmental grant of £600 to cover documentation. Towards the end of the five-year period the first building project at Prestonpans had been completed and the "in-use" studies had commenced. It had been preceded by social surveys of the area and of the tenants about to take up occupation. The second building project at Cumbernauld was in the process of detailed design and working drawings and was attempting to develop some of the aspects of the design criteria set up for Prestonpans using a different form of housing. Traffic surveys of vehicles in housing areas in East Kilbride, Cumbernauld and some parts of Edinburgh had been completed and an attempt had been made to develop a technique for comparing various low cost housing schemes on a technical, economic and social basis. The sociologist had carried out studies in ownership of housing, particularly in the field of co-operative or joint ownership and although the proposals to establish an experiment in the Cumbernauld project did not materialise, a Housing Association was set up in the University which subsequently sponsored several cost rent and cooperative ownership schemes in and around Edinburgh. The sociologist has since developed his interests further and some years ago became the first representative of the Housing Corporation in Scotland and now holds a full-time appointment in that capacity. The quantity surveyor had carried out cost studies on various projects, and investigated various quantity surveying methods and in particular those relating to the operational bill of quantities. He subsequently Page seven

received a further grant from the Nuffield Foundation to pursue his interests in quantity surveying and methods of contract and published his work in April 1966 in a report "Studies in

Integrated Building Cost Information".

From these studies the Unit was developing clear lines of interest: one was in the field of design criteria related to low rise high density housing; another in the relationship of ownership and management to design; and another in methods of communicating design proposals to the contractor through bills of quantities and contractual methods.

As the end of the grant period approached, fresh application was made to Nuffield and DSIR for further grants to continue the work. Nuffield, however, are not in the habit of repeating a grant once having established the Unit and were only prepared to help the quantity surveyor pursue his particular interests. The grant arrangements of DSIR were in a state of change and no help was received from there. Small grants were obtained after much perseverance from the Ministry of Public Building and Works to investigate design decisions in another project the Unit had commenced (which will be discusesed later) and from the Carnegie Trust to assist in the writing up of the Prestonpans project, which was subsequently published. The members of the Unit, however, at that time felt that the work of the Unit must continue and by a happy coincidence we were able to be appointed to design five 17 storey point blocks for the City of Salford using prefabricated large panel construction. This project, although not pursuing directly the interests of the Unit at that time, allowed the Unit to mature as a practice organisation handling large scale building projects. Also, since fees were paid on the normal RIBA scale and overhead costs low, it was possible to achieve a small surplus on income to employ a minimum of research staff—not related to the project. The country at that time was in a building boom and commissions for building work were not ttoo difficult to achieve. Consequently, about the same time through negotiation with the Ministry of Housing and Local Government a commission was obtained from the Borough of Sunderland to undertake the design of 168 dwellings of low rise high density nature. The purpose of the study, however, was to investigate the use of an operational bill of quantities and to a certain degree operational drawings. The Unit supplied the architectural services, the County Borough of Sunderland supplied the quantity surveying services in co-operation with the Building Researach Station, and the Unit and BRS jointly monitored the work as it proceeded. Although the results have been used in seminars in various parts of the country, it has never been published. Again about this time the University of Edinburgh appointed the Unit to build an extension to the Laboratories for the Department of Zoology and a small sub-section of the Unit was set up to deal with laboratory design. This section has subsequently built three other laboratory buildings for the government and has been concerned with the integration of services and structure, the use of movable and adaptable laboratory furniture and to a certain degree, dimensional co-ordination. Reports on its various activities have been published and a senior member of the team has taken part in a University Party on Laboratory Design Criteria in this University, a report of whose work has also been published. The method of financing live building projects and consequently the Unit, has been through

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normal commissions and normal RIBA scale of fees. All members of the Unit are salary earning and therefore the Unit is non-profit making. Fees are paid to the University and since the work is of an educational and research nature, no tax is paid by the University on these fees. The full fee is therefore used for furthering the work of the Unit. In addition to continuing to supply accommodation, salary for one secretary, the £600 documentation grant, but no longer the salary of the Senior Lecturer, the University has allowed us to use the total fee income for the work of the Unit. It has also acted as the Unit's bankers carrying the Unit's liabilities over short periods of time between the earning of fees and the receipt of the actual fee. Although research grants have been slow in coming in, we have therefore been able to continue and expand our activities into establishing an organisation capable of undertaking considerable building projects and of supporting a nucleus of research staff capable of developing their fields of interest.

By this method from Unit income, the sociologist was sponsored to undertake a further study of single storey courtyard housing, not designed by the Unit but exhibiting and developing some of the features of the Prestonpans scheme, and the results have been published. An appointment with the London Borough of Lambeth to undertake a design for 300 houses to investigate design criteria enabled the Unit to pursue the interests of low rise high density housing. This project is at its completion stages and it is intended to follow up tenant reaction. Running parallel to this, the Greater London Council agreed to an appointment for a research and investigation study over nine months on low rise high density design criteria, following this with an appointment for the design of 300 dwellings in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets using the design criteria evolved from the initial research study. This project is currently at tender stage and after completion it is also intended to follow it up. The first stage of the GLC work has been published. The practice work in Salford developed into a further appointment to continue system building into five other point blocks and into a very close collaboration with a large Manchester contractor who was used on both these projects in assisting him in a design/build or package deal series of contracts. All this work, amounting to several million pounds worth of building, has developed in the Unit a deep interest in building methods and standards and opened up new areas of dealing with building contracts. None of the work, however, has been published. Three years ago the Scottish Special Housing Association approached the Unit to investigate the possibility of using computer graphics to aid them in their large scale housing programme. A substantial grant was subsequently received from SSHA for a two year period and this has led on to further substantial grants from the Association and also from the Science Research Council, together with the former Ministry of Public Building and Works (now the Department of the Environment). This work will be described later by Mr. Bijl. The important point here is that this kind of commission could be attracted largely because the Unit had established a staff of some considerable experience in practice; with an understanding of practice problems and a variety of research skills that could provide a nucleus for developing research work.

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Having described in a broad way the kind of work that has developed and to a certain degree a policy in developing it, one must turn to the problems and shortcomings of an organisation of this nature and perhaps this is best done by examining it under the three headings—practice, research and teaching.

Practice

To establish a practice anywhere from scratch with no previous work, the client must be satisfied as to the capabilities of the people within the practice. We were fortunate of course in being headed by Sir Robert Matthew and our credibility was established almost immediately. My own background before coming to the Unit had been ten years in practice and the other architects who joined the Unit subsequently had also had good practice backgrounds. Building up the efficiency of a practice, however, requires continuity of senior people, so that the standdards set can be continued. Practice work is a fluctuating thing and can vary from high levels of activity to low levels of activity in a fairly short space of time. We have seen in Britain recently a considerable slowing down of building activity and many practices being faced with redundant staff. A normal good practice, of course, would set aside reserve money in good years to offset low income in other years. Pursuing ARU policy, however, using surplus income almost to the maximum every year to maintain a nucleus of research people, no reserve fund has really been possible. Indeed it can be argued that if a reserve fund had been developed, little or no research activity would have taken place and this, in my view, would have been wrong. We have reached this year a considerable slowing down in our practice activities with the regrettable result that our practice staff has had to be reduced. In stretching the finances in this way, it is extremely difficult to maintain reasonably long-term appointments for senior men, causing uncertainty in their own careers and a feeling of some insecurity. All members of ARU staff are on shortterm contracts varying from one year to three years. This of course cannot lead to stability within the practice and a continuance of good practice standards. An integration of practice, research and teaching has been the policy of ARU since its inception; with practice as the base. It is necessary, however, to achieve a continuing flow of practice work. ARU, although carrying out a great deal of work, has been unable to achieve continuity. This may best be achieved by some positive link to a large authority—a city or county authority —or in the future to one of the enlarged regional authorities, supplying the research and development needs of that authority and perhaps some continuing, mid-career educational opportunities for the authority's staff.

Research

Developing credibility is the first object and I believe ARU policy has been successful in doing this. Support for research, however, remains a problem for our work as for others. Sponsored research from SRC, SSRC, Foundations etc., is almost exclusively project orientated with the consequent problem of continuity of staff at the completion of projects. Group research Page ten