Actors and Factors; Indicators and Variables of the Built Environment

1.6. Actors and Factors; Indicators and Variables of the Built Environment:

The phrase built environment is typically described as an interdisciplinary field that addresses the design, construction, management, and use of man-made surroundings as an interrelated whole as well as their relationship to human activities over the period of time. 

The built environment field or domain of knowledge is generally not regarded as a traditional profession or academic discipline in its own right, instead drawing upon areas such as economics, law, public policy, public health, management, geography, design, engineering, technology, and environmental sustainability. 

Within the field of public health, built environments are referred to as building or renovating areas in an effort to improve the community’s well-being through construction of aesthetically, health improved, and environmentally improved landscapes and living structures. 

The term built environment is also refers to as, the human-made surroundings that provide the setting for human activity, ranging in scale from buildings and parks or green space to neighborhoods and cities that can often include their supporting infrastructure, such as water supply, or energy networks. The built environment is a material, spatial and cultural product of human labor that combines physical elements and energy in forms for living, working and recreation. 

It has been defined in social science as “the human-made space in which people live, work, and recreate on a day-to-day basis”. The “built environment encompasses places and spaces created or modified by people including buildings, parks, and transportation systems”.

The early concepts of built environment developed within classical cities around the world in each culture where an order was created in built environment by using grid based geometrical plans that mapped the city. These early city plans over the time disturbed to an informal organic urban form or an abstract grid after industrial revolution and in modern times. 

Eventually, it paved the way to the City Beautiful movement in the late 1800s and early 1900s, inspired by architects around the world for the progressive movements to actively promote the reform in the architectural design and in the landscape architecture. This global effort by architects was in partnership with city planners who believed that beautifying cities would improve the moral compass of the cities and encourage the upper class to spend their money in cities. 

This beautification process included development of parks and architectural design of buildings. By mid-century modernist architects’ indifferent design influenced the character of living areas, work places and public spaces, followed by a late twentieth century revival of interest relating to the concept of place including the built environment and its relevance to mental health of people. In recent years, public health studies has expanded the definition of "built environment" to include healthy food access, community gardens, “walkability", and “bike-ability” or driving on bicycles.

In the knowledge domain of architecture, urban design, urban planning, environmental design, and environmental planning, the term ‘built environment’ refers to aspects of our surroundings that are built by humans, and distinguished from the natural environment. It includes not only buildings, but the human-made spaces between buildings, such as parks, and the infrastructure that supports human activity such as transportation networks, utilities networks, and telecommunications network and so on and so forth.

The construction Industry describe built environment as, ‘all forms of building i.e. housing, industrial, commercial, hospitals, schools, etc. and civil engineering infrastructure, both above and below ground and includes the managed landscapes between and around buildings.' Built environment can be a useful term, as other descriptions such as; ‘buildings’, ’civil engineering’, ‘construction’, and so on, do not fully capture the extent of our human-made environment, and separating the subject into its component disciplines fragments what should be considered as holistic endeavor. However the term itself is not widely used and is easily misunderstood.

As the population increases, there emerges, greater pressure for sustainable development and the requirements from the built environment become more demanding. Over half the planet's population now lives in cities and this figure is predicted to rise to more than 70% by the second half of this century, a figure made even more startling by the fact that the human population will have increased by two billion in the same time-frame. There is broad agreement that densely populated urban areas should be more sustainable than less concentrated rural settlements. 

However, whilst around 50% of the global population lives in cities, they account for more than 75% of the consumption of non-renewable resources, and create around 75% of global pollution. In part, this is because it is not always clear who is responsible for the built environment. As it is an interdisciplinary field, with involvement form architects, engineers, town planners, landscape designers, urban designers, environmental designers, central and local policy makers and so on, but there is often an absence of leadership. It can seem that our built environment simply develops organically, through the constant turnover of stand-alone developments.

The major challenges of the 21^st century include the rapid growth of many cities and the decline of others, the expansion of the informal sector, and the role of cities in causing or mitigating degradation of built environment around the world and contemporary urban planning has largely failed to address these challenges. The actors and factors; indicators and variables of the Built Environment as summarized above, need further clarification by identifying the process of creating an effective built environment development.

The effective development of built environment depends on a sustained commitment to a clear course of action over the short, medium and long term. It requires a unified leadership, a clear inspirational vision, a set of well-defined strategies and objectives, clear communication and the creation of an appropriate and acceptable governance model. The development of a business and economic appraisals to assess the impacts of development and a clear understanding of urban development, transport and infrastructure strategies and regeneration models is also quite necessary for the built environment. 

A thorough grasp of how technology can be integrated into our built environment and an appreciation of current and emerging best practice in the use of smart systems in services, infrastructure, and buildings is another issue of built environment to be addressed appropriately. In this respect, an appreciation of context and an understanding of the interests of stakeholders, local culture and customs as well as an understanding of the ownership, safety, security and use of data as well as funding models for new infrastructure is also significant for development of an effective built environment.

References:

1. From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Built_environment (Retrieved 11/8/2018)
2. From: https://www.britannica.com/topic/City-Beautiful-movement (Retrieved 11/8/2018)
3. From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_urban_planning (Retrieved 11/8/2018)