Study title

Qualitative interviews with architects to scope issues and challenges that they face when designing buildings such as care homes and dementia centres in commercial, charitable and public sector contexts. Participant observation of designers in architectural firms, attending to the processes of commissioning, planning, concept and technical design of buildings in the making. Interviews with architects, commissioners, operators, building contractors and project managers are deposited here but not observation field notes.

Our research examines the work of architects who design and develop buildings for health and social care, and is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Architects are not health and social care professionals, but they are often employed to create buildings where care takes place. A better understanding of their ways of working and their contribution to the design and delivery of care therefore offers an important path for research. Project aims: (1) Develop a sociological understanding of the day to day work of architects; (2)Cast light on the way knowledge about health and social care is engineered into buildings designed for care; (3) To understand the challenges and complexities associated with design in the health and social care sector; (4) The study involves ethnographic case studies of architectural practices commissioned to deliver buildings for care in later life working alongside architects and other design and construction professionals.