Matching values and value in construction and design

In response to a series of influential government reports that have been critical of the approaches taken by, and outputs of, the UK construction industry, human aspects of construction have been given a new significance, particularly issues of value as judged by diverse stakeholders. This paper seeks to relate diverse and applied notions of value in construction with a similarly diverse body of knowledge contained within social and environmental psychology on values, from the work of Maslow and others in the 1950s and 1960s, to more recent contributions by Schwartz and colleagues. Collectively, the paper describes the work of an inter-disciplinary team with the active participation of key stakeholders in construction: professional organisations, practitioners, construction companies, clients and end product users, focused upon the search for a new 'language of value' that can aid the adoption of innovative conceptualisations of value within the industry. Finally, an innovative framework of value is presented that has been developed for design practitioners in the non-domestic building industry.