In several fields of inquiry, theory plays a central and crucial role in scholarly activities as well as informing public policy, providing clarity in purpose and enabling a more general understanding by society. Theory often has an additional role in defining a research frontier. Unfortunately, theory cannot be seen as having such roles in built environment related research. Rather, theory-building in the built environment tends to be fragmented, under-resourced and explored from the limited perspectives of individual disciplines or interest groups within the construction/ property industry. Also, there continues to be a deep-seated suspicion of the value of theory within the construction/property industry. This is a view that deserves to be challenged, especially when it has been argued that many of the problems related to designing and constructing the built environment are caused by inadequate theories, on which the methods and practices in use are implicitly based. These arguments provided the rationale for the Symposium on the Theory in the Built Environment (Koskela and Roberts, 2007), held in June 2007 in Salford, UK.
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