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Studies in Building Cultures and Markets (ABPL90311)

Graduate courseworkPoints: 12.5Not available in 2017

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Overview

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This subject investigates the organization of the construction industry in various country environments, with an emphasis on the strategic selection of construction technologies and methods according to specific social, economic, legal and technological contexts as well as regional traditions.

Consisting of a seminar component and a travel component (which can vary each year depending on the focus provided by the subject coordinator), the subject will expose students to unfamiliar cultures, places and people, thus stimulating their ability to reflect critically on the Australian construction environment.

The subject will incur travel costs in addition to tuition fees. Faculty subsidies may, however, be available to each enrolled student.

Intended learning outcomes


  • To observe and record building industry operations in non-Australian contexts, and provide an international perspective in construction.
  • To enable comparisons of construction markets, technologies and processes in different countries and regions.
  • To help students understand contingent relationships between construction technologies and national cultures.
  • To gauge the impact of cultural drivers within construction.
  • To encourage students to identify and engage critically with issues of geographic specificity in construction.

Generic skills

At the completion of the subject students should have developed the following skills and capabilities:

  • Ability to understand and navigate social and cultural differences;
  • Ability to undertake ideal-type analysis;
  • Ability to understand the type of industrial data required in socio-technical studies;
  • Ability to derive theoretical positions from empirical analyses;
  • Ability to prepare and conduct technical interviews with industry representatives;
  • Ability to combine data from primary and secondary sources for the development of a scholarly argument;
  • Ability to translate these data into a cohesive piece of original research.

Last updated: 3 November 2022