ABSTRACT
The urban economist David Perry, former director of the Great Cities Initiative in Chicago, once off ered a distinction between architects and planners: “When architects put something physical into the world, they think of their job as done. When planners put something into the world, they think of their job as just beginning” (Perry 2006 ). As the chapters in Part V help demonstrate, building performance evaluation is an ideal, integrative framework for architectural criticism. An integrative intellectual framework would extend the typical compositional and historical assessments of architecture to include its life in time and use, which would in turn expand the ethical compass of criticism to include a building’s impact on environment, health, and well-being. Such criticism would constitute a greater “inducement to involvement,” to borrow a phrase from the philosopher Richard Rorty – if “truth is what works,” then “the obvious question is whom does it work for?” (Rorty 2006 ). This broader problem fi eld stands to strengthen the credibility and value of architecture, which in turn stands to transform the design methodologies that produce new subjects and objects of criticism.
