The Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Responsibilities of Landscape Architecture Firms

ESG performance has a positive influence on the long-term sustainable development of both the firm and the society. LA is concerned about the relationship among humans, the buit, and nutural environments, so it is of especial importance to study what LA firms are supposed to do in ESG practice. This paper made a detailed discussion about each of the ESG responsibilities of LA firms respectively in accordance with the distinctive firm characteristics of the LA industry. This study might have two possible implications for the literature on ESG: (1) an industry-based approach to the study of ESG performance is of theoretical and realistic significance; and (2) ESG responsibilities are worthy of attention for the study of LA firms.

Accurate and Timely Ship Design Proposal Development Using Product Lifecycle Development

Commercial naval architecture firms and shipyards perform concept and solution development work (Pre-Contract work) at their own expense with no guarantee of success. Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software is the first of two vital overlapping components of an enterprise IT environment, the other being Enterprise Resource Planning(ERP). Companies not using PLM, including links to an ERP system, for their Pre-Contract work, miss the opportunity to link system requirements to standardized and prior developed solutions. The consequence is higher estimated project cost than necessary, because margins are included in cost, weight, and delivery efforts without taking into account the reuse effect. While planning and implementing a PLM system is a long and sometimes challenging process, Shipbuilders can benefit from using PLM. With PLM implemented, a shipbuilder can take the next step by linking PLM to their ERP to further enhance their entire operation. An overpriced bid ultimately leads to a lost contract or even worse, to an over-budget project and late delivery. To be successful today and in the future, shipbuilders and naval architecture firms must adopt PLM in their enterprises.

Measuring Bourdieu Capitals of Landscape Architects In Malaysian Landscape Architecture Firms

Pierre Bourdieu (1986) introduced the concept of capitals as forms of intangible resources that individual use to advance their socio-economic status. Past relevant researches have not focused on all Bourdieu capitals. This study conceptualises the Bourdieu capitals to empirically determine the intangible resources of Malaysian leader landscape architects. The aim of this study is to determine the type of capitals of leader landscape architects in Malaysian landscape architecture firms. All landscape architecture firms (73 nos.) in the database of the Institute of Landscape Architects Malaysia were chosen for the survey. The firms were given the letter of invitation and questionnaires through the post. Thirty-nine firms responded to the invitation which resulted in 90 subordinates landscape architects and assistant landscape architects as respondents. The subordinates were asked to rate their leaders’ (landscape architects) capitals. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics and factor analysis. Factor analysis findings generated 5 factors (capitals). The capitals are social, human, emotional, cultural and design authority. The study findings provide evidence of the validity of scales to measure the intangible resources of the leading landscape architects in Malaysian landscape architecture firms. It also suggests a new research perspective for the Trait Theory of Leadership by replacing the traits with Bourdieu’s forms of capitals.

The Architecture Industry and Typical Icons

This chapter aims to fill in the substance of the first component of the corporate fraction of the transnational capitalist class (TCC) in architecture and urban design, the major architecture firms. While the starchitects and signature architects who produce unique architectural icons have attracted most media attention, they are a very small group within the profession. Here, the focus is on the much larger group of architecture firms producing the successful typical icons that are transforming cities all round the world in the era of capitalist globalization. Infrastructure is an increasingly large part of this, and I introduce the idea of celebrity infrastructure to highlight how bridges, transportation hubs, and waterside developments are mobilized as the Icon Project strives to turn them into consumerist spaces. Here the focus is more on the projects than the firms. As we saw in the previous chapter, contrary to the claims of many architecture critics and theorists, iconicity is not simply a creation of the media or corporate publicists. Architects play a significant part in the social production of iconic architecture, making some of them active participants in the Icon Project. As Dion Kooijman (2000: 829) argues, ‘architecture can form a true part of the “image building” by PR and marketing departments’. Behind the general discussion of the ways in which the four fractions of the TCC serve the interests of capitalist globalization through creating and promoting iconic architecture is the idea that, as well as the symbolism and aesthetics of iconic buildings and spaces, there is something else going on of great significance. Two pioneering studies, Blau (1984) and Gutman (1988), researched architecture as an industry in the United States. Judith Blau focused more on architects themselves, reporting a key finding that 98 per cent of respondents (she surveyed 400 architects in New York) said that architects were distinct from other professionals in terms of the ‘mystique of artistic creativity’ (Blau 1984: 49), but that most architects never realize this goal. This was seen to be a problem for architecture, particularly in capitalist societies.