"Why and how was the term 'built environment' first introduced? Inventing the Built Environment reveals the reconceptualisation of architecture and town planning in Britain c.1964. The articulation of the term the 'built environment,' Kei demonstrates, coincided with the redefinition of education, research, and professional practices in architecture and town planning. Concentrating on the half-decade during which the term permeated the architectural and planning professions, this book recalls a time when the 'built environment,' was conceived as a part of the British government's attempt in national economic planning. Inventing the Built Environment unpacks the proposal for a Research Council for the Built Environment as part of the British government's mobilisation of social science research for political economic planning. How a relatively small group of architects, planners, politicians, and researchers transposed various pseudo-scientific thoughts from biology, economy, and computation into the 'built environment' will be considered, too. Kei highlights the assumptions and classification of the population and humans that were made when inventing the 'built environment.' The architectural and biosocial implications of this making and remaking of architectural-environmental notions, in Britain and its various (former) colonies, will be revealed through the works of pre-eminent architect-planners including Richard Llewelyn-Davies and William Holford. At a time when environmental concerns again take the front seat of architectural and planning debates, this book offers, for scholars and students, an alternative lens to reflect on the bias and discriminatory attitudes that can be embedded in our lexicons"-- Provided by publisher.

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