Paul Chynoweth

Website: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Law-Built-Environment-Douglas-Wood/dp/1405197609

Law and the Built Environment is a core textbook for all students undertaking compulsory law modules on construction, real estate and property management programmes. This single text provides an accessible introduction to the many areas of law studied by aspiring built environment professionals. Written by a team of lecturers with many years’ teaching experience in these areas, key principles of English law are placed in their relevant professional context and clearly explained in exactly the right level of detail for success in the modules studied. The book also focuses in greater depth on some specialist areas of built environment professional practice, including construction contracts, health and safety, rent review, dilapidations, and lease renewals.

It provides an essential resource for students studying for qualifications leading to professional membership of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) or the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB). It caters primarily for students studying these subjects at bachelor’s degree level, but will also be suitable for students on programmes at HNC and HND levels, as well as those undertaking professional examinations. It will also provide introductory reading for students undertaking master’s level programmes, and particularly for the increasing numbers of graduates from other disciplines who are now studying on RICS-accredited master’s degree conversion programmes.

Website: http://www.partywalls.co.uk

The Party Wall Casebook describes much of the primary legal research underpinning the author’s various publications which critically assess the practice of party wall surveying in England & Wales. The book consists of two parts. The major part (Digest of Cases, pages 21 – 446) presents a digest of 81 legal case notes. These examine the state of the common law relating to party walls as well as the courts’ approach to interpreting the statutory party wall code which is now contained in the Party Wall etc Act 1996. The case notes explore the facts and underlying rationale for the court’s decision in each case and place them in the context of other digested cases which address similar issues. The conclusions from this in-depth analysis are summarized in the book’s introductory section (An Introduction to Party Wall Case Law, pages 3 – 20). This section presents a detailed summary of the law relating to party walls with reference to the influence of case law upon it. In particular, based on the analysis within the Digest of Cases, it introduces the three fundamental concepts of fabric rights, construction rights and reciprocal duties as a means of reconciling the apparent contradictions within the law in this area. It also presents a model of the relationship between the relevant statutory and common law rules which forms a basis for much of the more detailed analysis contained in the author’s various journal publications.

Website: http://www.ijlbe.com

Editorial objectives: The International Journal of Law in the Built Environment provides a vehicle for the publication of high quality legal scholarship in the context of the design, management and use of the built environment. It publishes up-to-date and original legal research contributions for the benefit of scholars, policy makers and practitioners in these areas, including those operating in the fields of legal practice, housing, planning, architecture, surveying, construction management, real estate and property management.

Editorial scope: The journal publishes scholarly legal articles dealing with the application of law in these areas, or with the related professional and policy aspects. Articles may address legal educational issues, doctrinal, theoretical or other forms of legal scholarship, or deal with empirical and socio-legal investigations within a built environment context. In keeping with the journal’s international scope articles drawing comparisons between two or more jurisdictions and those offering theoretical cross-jurisdictional legal perspectives are particularly welcome.

The School of the Built Environment, University of Salford, runs one of the most effective and well regarded Construction Law Masters programmes in the world. Our students are dynamic professionals seeking to hone their analytic legal skills for practical application in their commercial context. You will contribute to the delivery, development and enhancement of this successful programme with your passionate enthusiasm for construction law.

You will augment academic and research activity in the construction law field, in the context of our built environment disciplines which also include architecture, building information modelling, quantity surveying, construction and project management, and real estate.

Your research will enrich the construction law domain and contribute to the overall internationally recognised research performance of the School of the Built Environment by the production of measurable outputs including the delivery of research objectives, publishing in academic journals, and the recruitment and supervision of postgraduate research students.

This is an exciting opportunity for an established construction law academic, or professional lawyer looking for a different challenge. Are you the one?

Interested applicants are invited to email Dr Paul Chynoweth at p.chynoweth@salford.ac.uk if they would like to arrange an informal discussion about the post.

The paper was presented to UCL's Bartlett School of Construction & Project Management as a guest lecture on Friday 24th October 2014. It addresses the role of academic research in the built environment field and its relationship with the activities that constitute the practice of the various property and construction professions. It draws on earlier work in the art and design disciplines and proposes a distinction between three categories of research which are undertaken respectively on, for and through practice. The paper suggests that the first of these, which already makes significant contributions to policy, represents the majority of research presently undertaken within our field. However, it is argued that the other two approaches have largely been neglected and also have valuable contributions to make. The first of these, research for practice, is shown as having the potential to deliver ready-made professional solutions that are capable of immediate implementation in practice. The second, research through practice, is seen as offering the unique possibility of capturing tacit knowledge from practice, and of making this available as part of the established corpus of professional knowledge.

The chapter discusses the epistemological and methodological aspects of legal research undertaken within the built environment, as well as the cultural aspects that distinguish it from other research within the field. At an epistemological level it describes the defining characteristic of most academic legal research as a normative process of doctrinal analysis and demonstrates how this places it within the humanities tradition, with corresponding methodologies and cultural norms. The absence of an explicit methodology within legal research, as the term is commonly understood by the sciences, is explained in these terms. It is noted that this has traditionally caused communication difficulties between legal researchers and their colleagues in other built environment subject disciplines. The chapter therefore explores the various forms of legal reasoning which are undertaken by legal researchers with a view to making explicit the various implicit methodologies which are employed at a subconscious level. It concludes with some recommendations for increasing the quality of communication, and the level of understanding between legal scholars and scholars working in other disciplines within the field.

BASED IN INDIA? Please contact me for further discussions about the content of the above paper at p.chynoweth@salford.ac.uk.

ABSTRACT

Introduces a series of articles which respond to Pitts’ (2000) call for a debate into current rights to light practice. Summarises relevant areas of law as well as current measurement and valuation practices in this area. Describes the Waldram methodology, the grumble point, the fifty-fifty rule and the concept of Equivalent First Zone Loss. Shows how these concepts are used to determine the amount of damages payable where a right to light has been infringed. Calls for others to contribute to the debate proposed by Pitts.

INTERESTED IN PROVIDING RIGHTS TO LIGHT SURVEYING SERVICES? Please contact me at p.chynoweth@salford.ac.uk.

Describes the scope and editorial policy of the International Journal of Law in the Built Environment in the context of ongoing changes in the nature of legal scholarship. The shift towards policy and law reform issues is described, and the role of doctrinal, socio-legal, theoretical, interdisciplinary and comparative research approaches are explained. The editorial includes the following four sections:

1. The servant of the legal profession
2. The changing nature of legal scholarship
3. Editorial policy
4. Papers in this issue

http://www.ijlbe.com

BASED IN INDIA? Please contact me for further discussions about the content of the above paper at p.chynoweth@salford.ac.uk.

The paper introduces the concept of the professional doctorate and distinguishes it from other forms of doctoral award, including the PhD. It traces the rapid development of the professional doctorate and its recent appearance within built environment schools. It notes the increasing requirement for doctoral education within the field due to the changing nature of professional work and the emergence of the concept of lifelong learning. The shortcomings of traditional doctoral education in meeting the needs of industry and the professions are discussed. The professional
doctorate is presented as a more appropriate vehicle for doctoral level study by professionals and a number of programme design issues are discussed. In particular,
the special arrangements required for facilitating, and assessing, doctoral-level research by full-time practitioners are explored. Based on experiences in developing a
programme at the University of Salford, the paper proposes a model for a built environment professional doctorate as a basis for further discussion.

"Purpose – The article introduces a model for practice-informed research and proposes this as an alternative paradigm of enquiry, capable of satisfying the competing demands for research in the built environment to be both academically rigorous, and also relevant to practice.

Design / methodology / approach – The model is defined in terms of research whose primary purpose addresses the immediate needs of professional practice, rather than theoretical, policy, or other academic concerns, and which also utilizes the researcher’s experientially-gained knowledge as a methodological device. The extent to which this model is capable of demonstrating the required degree of rigour demanded by the academic world is then evaluated through a review of relevant theoretical and methodological literature.

Findings – The model is seen to draw upon the Aristotlean notions of techne and phronesis, and to belong to a long epistemological and methodological tradition associated with the concept of knowledge in action. The relationship between this concept and that of tacit knowledge, as well as emic and ideographic approaches to research are demonstrated. The model is also seen to have particular resonances with recent developments in the arts and design disciplines, in qualitative social research, and in aspects of the current discourse surrounding the emergence of the knowledge economy.

Research limitations / implications – The article demonstrates the academic legitimacy of the proposed model as an alternative research paradigm for use in a built environment context.

Practical implications – The model presents an approach that has the potential to increase the relevance of research, and to generate an increased level dialogue between academics and practitioners in the built environment field.

Originality / value – The article places the concept of practice-informed research into the public domain for subsequent consideration and debate by members of the built environment research community. The concept’s insider and practice-centric approaches distinguish it from earlier contributions to the relevance versus rigour debate. By drawing on a wide range of interdisciplinary sources the article also offers new theoretical insights that have not previously been aired in a built environment context.

Keywords – Mode 2, phronesis, practitioner research, practice-based research, practice-led research, relevance gap, research-practice divide, tacit knowledge, techne.

Paper type – Conceptual paper.
"

ABSTRACT

Purpose – The paper examines judicial attitudes to current surveying practice in rights to light disputes. It tests the assumption that the use of the Waldram methodology is endorsed by the courts and seeks to establish whether, despite its acknowledged limitations, its continued use can be justified on this basis.

Design / Methodology / Approach – Analysis of reported judgments.

Findings – Neither the fifty-fifty rule, nor any other aspect of the Waldram methodology, has the status of a rule of law, or is otherwise approved of by the courts. On the contrary, the methodology has been the subject of judicial criticism. Although the courts frequently rely on the expert evidence presented to them, they have consistently expressed disquiet over aspects of the methodology. Particular concerns have been expressed over its inability to cater for the effects of sunlight and externally reflected light, on its dependence on internal room design, and on its failure to distinguish task illumination from general room lighting. There is also no indication that the judiciary are aware of the extent to which the Waldram threshold of adequate illuminance falls short of that prescribed by contemporary standards. The paper concludes that the courts’ attitudes to the Waldram methodology cannot therefore justify its continued use by surveyors, either when acting in the capacity of expert witness, or when  advising clients who may be contemplating litigation in a rights to light dispute.

Research limitations/ implications – Makes a further contribution to the debate, started in this journal in 2000, about the future of surveying practice in rights to light disputes.

Practical implications – Places new information in the public domain which has implications for judges in future rights to light cases, and for the professional liability of surveyors when advising clients in contemplation of possible rights to light litigation.

Originality / value – Presents the first comprehensive analysis of judicial attitudes to modern rights to light surveying practice since its introduction in the early part of the 20th century.

Keywords – Buildings, Easements, Law, Light, Measurement, Disputes.

Paper Type – Research paper.

INTERESTED IN USING THIS PAPER AS EVIDENCE IN COURT? Please contact me at p.chynoweth@salford.ac.uk

ABSTRACT

Purpose – The paper examines the origins of the so-called “grumble point” (a sky factor of 0.2 per cent) as the measure of daylight adequacy in rights to light disputes. It seeks to identify the rationale, and underlying scientific basis, for the adoption of this standard in the early 20th century.

Design / Methodology / Approach – Analysis of archive materials.

Findings – The use of the 0.2 per cent standard does not appear to be based on empirical investigations involving human perceptions of adequate light. No evidence exists of the investigations reputedly undertaken by Percy Waldram during the early 20th century. Waldram’s own writings suggest that the standard began as a “rule of thumb” and was only later justified by reference to other independent reports. These generally do not support the use of the standard and, in any event, were soon superseded by other reports which concluded that it was too low. There is a lack of reliable evidence to justify the original adoption of the 0.2 per cent figure and many of the assumptions underpinning modern rights to light practice are found to be based on inaccurate information.

Research limitations/ implications – Continues the debate, started in this journal in 2000, about the future of surveying practice in rights to light disputes.

Practical implications – Places new information in the public domain which has implications for the professional liability of surveyors advising clients in rights to light cases.

Originality / value – Presents the first investigation into the original scientific basis for modern rights to light practice since its introduction in the early part of the 20th century.

Keywords – Buildings, Easements, Light, Measurement, Disputes.

Paper Type – Research paper.

INTERESTED IN USING THIS PAPER AS EVIDENCE IN COURT? Please contact me at p.chynoweth@salford.ac.uk

The built environment subject area is now well-established as a recognised field of study. However, because of its vocational orientation it is usually defined in terms of a particular range of professional activities and aptitudes. In consequence the theoretical nature of its academic knowledge base is poorly developed. This has consequences for research and teaching practice within the field. Using established literature on the historical approaches to knowledge categorisation a theoretical model is proposed. This defines the built environment as an applied, but theoretically coherent, interdiscipline with a common epistemological axiomatic. The practical benefits of the model are illustrated by examples in the context of curriculum design, research strategy and the research-teaching nexus.

The talk provides an introduction to the theoretical literature on disciplinary differences with particular emphasis on the relationship between legal scholarship and the research traditions in the natural and social sciences. The dominance of the scientific paradigm is discussed as well as the challenges which this poses to those operating in very different epistemological and methodological frameworks. Based on the author’s interdisciplinary work at the interface between the law and built environment research traditions some suggestions are offered as to how legal scholarship might flourish within a predominantly science-based university.