designing + (dis)assembling disputes: an ethnography of disputes & lawyers in the construction industry

The UK construction industry is notorious for the sheer amount of disputes which are likely to arise on each building and engineering project. Despite numerous creative attempts at “dispute avoidance” and “dispute resolution”, this industry is still plagued with these costly disputes. Whilst both academic literature and professional practices have investigated the causes of disputes and the mechanisms for avoidance/resolution of these disputes, neither has studied in any detail the nature of the construction disputes and why they develop as they do once a construction lawyer is engaged. Accordingly, this research explores the question of what influences the outcome of a construction dispute and to what extent do construction lawyers control or direct this outcome? The research approach was ethnographic. Fieldwork took place at a leading construction law firm in London over 18 months. The primary focus was participant observation in all of the firm’s activities. In addition, a database was compiled from the firm’s files and archives, thus providing information for quantitative analysis. The basis of the theoretical framework, and indeed the research method, was the Actor‐Network Theory (ANT). As such, this research viewed a dispute as a set of associations – an entity which takes form and acquires its attributes as a result of its relations with other entities. This viewpoint is aligned with relational contract theories, which in turn provides a unified platform for exploring the disputes. The research investigated the entities and events which appeared to influence the dispute’s identity, shape and outcome. With regard to a dispute’s trajectory, the research took as its starting point that a dispute follows the transformation of “naming, blaming, claiming…”, as identified by Felstiner, Abel and Sarat in 1980. The research found that construction disputes generally materialise and develop prior to any one of the parties approaching a lawyer. Once the lawyer is engaged, we see the reverse of the trajectory “naming, blaming, claiming…” this being: “claiming, blaming, naming…” The lawyers’ role is to identify or name (or rename) the dispute in the best possible light for their client in order to achieve the desired outcome – the development of which is akin to the design process. The transformation of a dispute and the reverse trajectory is by no means linear, but rather, iterative and spatial as it requires alliances, dependencies and contingencies to assemble and take the shape it does. The research concludes that construction disputes are rarely ever completely “resolved” as such. Whilst an independent third party may hand down a judgment, or the parties may reach a settlement agreement, this state is only temporal. Some construction disputes dissipate whist others reach a state of hibernation for a period of time only to pick up momentum and energy some years later. Accordingly, this research suggests that the concept of “dispute resolution” does not exist in the UK construction industry. The ultimate goal should be for parties to reach this ultimate and perpetual state of equilibrium as quickly and as cost effectively as possible: “dispute dissolution”, the slowing down of the dispute’s momentum. Rather than focusing on the design and assemblage of the dispute, the lawyers’ role therein is, or should be, to assist with the “disassembling” of the dispute.

Design, analysis and evaluation of sigma-delta based beamformers for medical ultrasound imaging applications

The inherent analogue nature of medical ultrasound signals in conjunction with the abundant merits provided by digital image acquisition, together with the increasing use of relatively simple front-end circuitries, have created considerable demand for single-bit  beamformers in digital ultrasound imaging systems. Furthermore, the increasing need to design lightweight ultrasound systems with low power consumption and low noise, provide ample justification for development and innovation in the use of single-bit  beamformers in ultrasound imaging systems. The overall aim of this research program is to investigate, establish, develop and confirm through a combination of theoretical analysis and detailed simulations, that utilize raw phantom data sets, suitable techniques for the design of simple-to-implement hardware efficient  digital ultrasound beamformers to address the requirements for 3D scanners with large channel counts, as well as portable and lightweight ultrasound scanners for point-of-care applications and intravascular imaging systems. In addition, the stability boundaries of higher-order High-Pass (HP) and Band-Pass (BP) Σ−Δ modulators for single- and dual- sinusoidal inputs are determined using quasi-linear modeling together with the describing-function method, to more accurately model the  modulator quantizer. The theoretical results are shown to be in good agreement with the simulation results for a variety of input amplitudes, bandwidths, and modulator orders. The proposed mathematical models of the quantizer will immensely help speed up the design of higher order HP and BP Σ−Δ modulators to be applicable for digital ultrasound beamformers. Finally, a user friendly design and performance evaluation tool for LP, BP and HP  modulators is developed. This toolbox, which uses various design methodologies and covers an assortment of  modulators topologies, is intended to accelerate the design process and evaluation of  modulators. This design tool is further developed to enable the design, analysis and evaluation of  beamformer structures including the noise analyses of the final B-scan images. Thus, this tool will allow researchers and practitioners to design and verify different reconstruction filters and analyze the results directly on the B-scan ultrasound images thereby saving considerable time and effort.

Design as Symbolic Violence. Design for Social Justice.

Design embeds ideas in communication and artefacts in subtle and psychologically powerful ways. Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu coined the term ‘symbolic violence’ to describe how powerful ideologies, priorities, values and even sensibilities are constructed and reproduced through cultural institutions, processes and practices. Through symbolic violence, individuals learn to consider unjust conditions as natural and even come to value customs and ideas that are oppressive. Symbolic violence normalises structural violence and enables real violence to take place, often preceding it and later justifying it. Feminist, class, race and indigenous scholars and activists describe how oppressions (how patriarchy, racism, colonialism, etc.) exist within institutions and structures, and also within cultural practices that embed ideologies into everyday life. The theory of symbolic violence sheds light on how design can function to naturalise oppressions and then obfuscate power relations around this process. Through symbolic violence, design can function as an enabler for the exploitation of certain groups of people and the environment they (and ultimately ‘we’) depend on to live. Design functions as symbolic violence when it is involved with the creation and reproduction of ideas, practices, tools and processes that result in structural and other types of violence (including ecocide). Breaking symbolic violence involves discovering how it works and building capacities to challenge and transform dysfunctional ideologies, structures and institutions. This conversation will give participants an opportunity to discuss, critique and/or develop the theory of design as symbolic violence as a basis for the development of design strategies for social justice.

Building Information Modelling in UK Construction Projects: A State of the Art Review

This paper aims to present a state-of-the-art review of the scope and practical implications of the Building Information Modelling (BIM) platform in the UK construction practice. Theoretical developments suggest that BIM is an integration of both product and process innovation, not just a disparate set of software tools. BIM provides effective collaboration, visual representation and data management, which enable the smooth flow of information throughout the project’s lifecycle. The most frequently reported benefits are related to Capital Cost (capex) and Operational costs (opex) and time savings. Key challenges, however, focus on the interoperability of software, capital installation costs, in-house experience, client preference and cultural issues within design teams and within the organisation. The paper concludes with a critical commentary on the changing roles and a process required to implement BIM in UK construction projects, and suggests areas for further research.