ABSTRACT
The endeavour in this book has been to propose a way of accounting for and understanding how and why certain development concepts and models specifi c to the late twentieth and early twenty-fi rst centuries in the UK have arisen, and then, by the use of case study examples, to elucidate the processes that impact on the shaping of particular built outcomes. This has been undertaken through the devising of a conceptual framework, as elaborated in Chapter 1, which in taking a contextual approach to the built form addresses a number of different factors: cultural, social, spatial and conceptual processes; the institutional framework; the infl uence of organisations and individuals; and the articulations of discourse and text. The result is a work which may in some respects be open to criticism, for example in regard to its breadth rather than its depth, or for the failure of the author to identify with one specifi c theoretical approach, or for the lack of critical engagement with the intricacies of theory, be they sociological or architectural. However as stated in the Introduction, these matters have not been the focus of the book, and instead the aim has been unapologetically to borrow ideas from different theoretical and conceptual approaches and from a range of disciplines and schools of thought. These ideas are the ones considered to be useful for the purpose and are arguably idiosyncratic and selective, but the justifi cation is deemed to be in working towards a more holistic elucidation of the processes which result in the built forms in which our lives are both framed and refl ected. This fi nal chapter seeks to draw together and refl ect on the different infl uences which have helped to shape the variety of our residential environments as we enter the twenty-fi rst century, and ends with some speculation about what this might indicate in regard to future directions.
