ABSTRACT
In all industrialized countries, the building industry is being blamed both for run-away costs and for the poor quality of its products. This phenomenon is a direct reflection of the socio-economic environment of the industry today-an environment which is no longer characterized, as it was forty years ago, by the crying need for quantities of buildings to meet the urgencies of the post-war period. Instead, there is a demand for improved quality-whether to meet higher standards of living or to satisfy the particular
1989b). The phenomenon is also due to the way the building process is organized, and the determinism it exerts on the technology that can be used. Our purposa in this paper is not to question the changing requirements the industry is called upon to satisfy, but rather to look into the traditional functionings of the building industry, and the way its routines affect the processes of innovation.
