Putting the User First? A pioneering Scottish experiment in architectural research

This article traces the story of a unique Scottish experiment in Modernist architectural research in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s: the Architecture Research Unit of Edinburgh University, one of the leaders in the UK's post-war efforts to expand the academic and professional knowledge base in architecture. One of the few architectural research and development groups based within a university, the unit was one of a series of wide-ranging initiatives by Scotland's leading Modern architect, Robert Matthew – whose pivotal role in 1970s Scottish conservation was traced in a previous issue of Architectural Heritage (XVI: 2005). In this case, in his academic capacity as Professor of Architecture and Head of the newly founded Department of Architecture at Edinburgh University, Matthew initiated and personally oversaw the activities of the Unit. This was set up in 1959, flourished intermittently throughout the 1960s, but rapidly withered away after Matthew's death in 1975. Originally, and up to 1965, it was known as the ‘Housing Research Unit,’ with the abbreviations HRU and EARU being used below. The Unit's work exemplified the modernist insistence on social engagement through ‘user studies’ as the focus of all architectural research. It not only designed new housing schemes (and, later, other building-types) throughout Great Britain but also comprehensively researched their post-completion use and the experience of their inhabitants as the foundation for the design of further projects. The EARU was created in a specific cultural and institutional context, dominated by the state in its various forms, which was significantly different from that of today. However, its story also presaged present-day trends in one or two unexpected ways and thus provides some lessons that might help bridge the current gap between the discipline of architecture, as researched in academia, and the practice of architecture by today's private practitioners.