Formerly grounded in values of craftsmanship, in the skilled making of products, 'quality' is now associated with the management of administrative or technical processes. Its appreciation, once based in the exercise of individual judgement and taste, is now often founded on supposedly objective systems of evaluation.
Practitioners of design are under pressure to quantify 'quality', but it is questionable whether it is possible or even desirable to do so. This book considers this important issue, looking at how quality is:
- defined
- appreciated
- evaluated
- managed
- produced.
With contributions from eminent architects and architectural critics, this book is for architects, academics, students and anyone interested in what architectural quality is, and how it may be achieved.
About the Author: Allison Dutoit is an architect and Lecturer at the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Michigan and a Masters of Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests in representation and urban design are balanced with practice with Gehl Architects.
Juliet Odgers is an architect and Lecturer at the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University. As 'Jo Odgers' she is editor of (with Adam Sharr and Flora Samuel) Primitive: Original Matters in Architecture (Routledge 2006) and assistant editor of arq: Architectural Research Quarterly (Cambridge University Press).
Adam Sharr is Senior Lecturer at the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University and principal of Adam Sharr Architects. He is editor (with Richard Weston) of arq: Architectural Research Quarterly (Cambridge University Press), series editor of Thinkers for Architects (Routledge) and author of Heidegger's Hut (MIT Press, 2006; GG, 2008) and Heidegger for Architects (Routledge, 2007).
