ANGLIA POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY
(now
Anglia Ruskin University )

 BUILT ENVIRONMENT AND BIBLICAL THEOLOGY

MAKING CONNECTIONS: DISCERNING RELATIONSHIPS

MICHAEL POWELL

 

 Doctor of Philosophy  February 2003

16 - OUTCOMES

I revere learning because it is a fundamental inspiration. It isn’t just something that has to do with duty; it is born into us. The will to team, the desire to learn, is one of the greatest inspirations. (Louis Kahn)

 

16.1 Purposes

In the previous Section leave was taken of Sydney Opera House as both `disclosure' model and `picture' model. This Section is, therefore, located offshore. The dynamic of the work with the models now gives way to more detached analysis and reflection

The purposes of this Section, focused on outcomes, are:

 

1.    To show that the aim has been achieved, noting the significant discoveries made.

2.    To indicate the potential of the work, such as its usefulness

3.    To evaluate the work and claim originality for it

4.    To make recommendations on dissemination and further work.

 

 

16.2 Achievement of aim

In the Introduction it was stated that:

The aim of this thesis is to relate `Biblical Theology' to `Built Environment' using specific biblical texts and built environment locations and by means of `picture' and 'disclosure' models.

 

It is demonstrated below that this aim has been fully achieved by means of a complex process that has revealed significant discoveries, potential, originality and scope for further work.

 

 

16.3 Process carried out

The complex process described in Sections 2, 3 and 4 has been carried out in full and demonstrated convincingly in Sections 5-14, with an additional perspective set out in Section 15.

 

At the outset, two concepts of Biblical Theology and Built Environment were identified. These were, first, a simple or descriptive concept comprising the biblical text in its present form or straightforward aspects of building and, second, an analytical one giving insights into background and reasons for things being as they are in Built Environment and Biblical Theology. Both concepts, or ends of a spectrum, have been fully utilised.

 

A full range of materials, particular and general, pertaining to Built Environment and Biblical Theology, have been identified as envisaged and examples of all have been utilised. Materials relating to Chelmsford and Tasmania have been in approximate balance with each other and, taken together, with the materials relating to the biblical texts. The general Built Environment and Biblical Theology materials have been similar to each other in quantity and level of academic thought and scholarship, the former tending to be philosophical in nature and the latter practical.

 

It was earlier described in details how the models had evolved from simple configurations to the complex Sydney Opera House, used descriptively as 'picture' model and analytically as 'disclosure' model, the latter utilising the concept of the single sphere. Further nuances had been derived from the cones of meaning and the centrifugal and centripetal dynamics and the truncated icosohedron with its surface feature of five hexagons ranged around a pentagon. While this now sounds unremarkable, the experience of carrying out the work has been one of contrasting exaltation and depression, as the usable ideas emerged from a mass of unusable ones.

 

At the heart of the work has been the dynamic, interactive process of selecting, deploying and interpreting materials to unlock the power of the models, and of utilising the models in ways that do justice to the content and nature of the materials. The principal discoveries deriving from this process are considered in Section 16.4 below.

 

 

16.4 Principal discoveries

 

ACHIEVABILITY

 

The most basic discovery is that the aim has proved to be feasible and practicable at all. This is both a discovery and a vindication. The situation is similar to that of Sydney Opera House, in which a dream was realised and an impossibility, given fresh thought, became a possibility.

 

MATTERS OF SUBSTANCE

1. If feasibility was the great surprise that occurred towards the end of the work, the surprise that occurred almost every day over two years was that of the universal richness flowing from the myriads of small details and their significance. Almost every page of the thesis contains at least one or, more commonly, several details that, when found, sparkled with relevance and meaning.

 

2. Feasibility without intelligibility is of little value. As the thesis came together, it was found possible to present both Biblical Theology and Built Environment information in a single, straightforward and comprehensible language. Although the two disciplines have their technical languages (or jargons), there was little need to use them.

 

3. While working with the materials in relation to the models, one became aware that the real, the metaphorical and the metaphysical were being interwoven. For example, in Section 10 Traversing Places and Times: Psalms', the first focus is on the hard geography and history of Chelmsford and Tasmania . Even within that, the Walls of Jerusalem exploration is physical in relation to Tasmania , metaphorical in the allusions to the biblical lands and metaphysical in relation to the awesomeness of mountain and World Heritage areas generally. The architectural students, Eve and Adam, are real but also metaphorical people. Brand (1994) sees buildings in terms of physical obsolescence, mutability and, relatively speaking, eternity. The various Australian theological writers, together with Sheldrake (2001), fuse materiality and spirituality. In the companion study, Section 5 Psalms: Wonder and Beauty, the metaphysics of the universe, the metaphor of the archetypal city of Jerusalem and the practical responsibilities of stewardship, come together.

 

4. When interpreted in relation to built environment, the biblical texts were found to take on significance not normally associated with them. For example, in the study of Nehemiah, the wall around Jerusalem was revealed to have major significance. Nehemiah did not just return to Jerusalem and put in hand a programme of political, economic and religious reform. He actually rebuilt the wall. The wall created an area, inside which something important could happen. The wall and its gates were a managed boundary between what was being made new and the vast generality of the outside world. It did not have to be rebuilt to its full height for its significance to be apparent. The construction work was not a defence or a shelter or even a work of art. It was the essence of what Nehemiah had come to do. The fad that the building work was done by the people themselves and not by an army or contracted labour, identified them with the purpose; they were locked in, not to the city but to the purpose of the wall.

 

As a further example, one can take the topic of light. In Genesis 1, the Psalms and Revelation, the reader contemplates light, the light of the heavenly bodies, of the skies and of the city coming down out of the sky. These are wide, diffuse images. In John's Gospel, the reader is not only directed to the light inherent in the person of Jesus but also to the light mediated by the hard architecture of the Temple and by the temporary structures for the celebration of the Feast of Booths. The architecture is not mere background, infrastructure or shelter; it is the means by which limitless light is accommodated to a particular location, at a particular time. The man who is given back his sight is given it in that particular place, where those particular shadows fall and are taken away. Without the architecture, there may be poetry but not tangibility.

 

5. When considered in conjunction with each other and in relation to the biblical texts, the particular built environments of Chelmsford and northwest Tasmania have been shown to have deep significance. For example, Chelmsford is typical of many towns in the south of England , with its rivers and bridges, historical canal journeys and street walks, factories and schools. Yet, as one puts oneself into the hands of particular writers and explorers who have some affection for the place, including its children, one is drawn, not away from hard structures to people and events, but towards many individual, small features where people, events and structures are parts of each other. This street, this school, this canal, this factory, this rotunda, this church, this hospital, this viaduct, these village houses, tell a vast human story. In this particular building, Marconi devised the means for an infinite number of stories to be told across the world. Whether one goes twelve mites to the next town, or twelve thousand to Tasmania , other places in just the same way will hold mirrors to life and meaning.

 

As a second example, it will be recalled9 that one of the main essences revealed by the Tasmanian study was the way in which natural environment and built environment were perceived as one in relation to trees and timber. Inhospitable forest tamed by the hard labour of human beings and beasts provided the wherewithal out of which first shelters and then homes could be made. It was the working of the forests and the use of the timber that opened up vistas and beauty, whether in a landscape or in a piece of crafted woodwork. These experiences have shown, concretely to those there and vicariously to others, what it means to be living people exercising stewardship in a living world.

 

6. Section 15, drawing on Sections 5-14, saw the whole issue of Built Environment and Biblical Theology in human terms of imagined interpersonal encounter and conversation. This emphasises that while Built Environment and Biblical Theology may come together in the more abstract and academic terms of cultural studies or philosophy, they most certainty come together as aspects of human experience, not merely juxtaposed with each other but enabled to speak with each other. Of particular significance were the recurring questions concerning who is and is not benefiting from built environment situations and transactions.

 

7. It should be borne in mind that Sections 5-14 include many fascinating and detailed discoveries of a micro nature, stemming from the richness of the materials and the dynamic of the model.

 

MATTERS OF PROCESS

 

The process by which Sections 5-14 were compiled had to be discovered as the work progressed. Some of the main points need to be noted.

 

1. The main themes that now appear so authoritative and fixed in the titles of Sections 5-14: Wonder and Beauty, Beginning, Significance, Identity, Becoming, Traversing, Resources, Types and Purposes, Costs and Worth, and Homes - only came to light through prolonged grappling with the materials and models. They were not mysteriously given and they were not obvious. The research was at least two-thirds done before they became apparent and began to coalesce as a set. In a way, the themes form a classification system or typology of the kind set out by Schneekloth and Franck (1994) in relation to built environment scenarios.

 

2. It is important to note that the full range of concepts has been used. In the case of Biblical Theology, there has been a sharp contrast between the simple references to biblical texts given in sub-section 7 of each of Sections 14-14 and the complex insights from ranges of commentaries set out in sub-section 3 of each of Sections 5-9. In the case of Built Environment, there has been a greater similarity across  sub-sections 6 and 7 of Sections 5-9 and sub-sections 2 and 3 of Sections 6-10 but the usage has ranged between the simply descriptive and the deeply analytical.

 

3. The derivation of the five sets of biblical commentaries that form sub-section 3 of each of Sections 5-9 is worthy of comment. Each set now gives the appearance of having been hand-­selected for this purpose, already known by an expert and readily discoverable by a generalist. That was only partly true. For example, in the case of Nehemiah, Williamson (1987) and Blenkinsopp (1988) were well known expert commentaries. Fensham (1982) was less well known but general in nature. Andrews (1999) was not strictly a commentary at all but a broader work on the nature of the Bible, using Nehemiah to illustrate certain points. Grabbe (1998) and Davies (1999) were more individualistic, experimenting with their particular approaches. It was the purpose of this thesis and the disciplines of its model that brought them together as a useful, balanced set, enabling a range of perceptions concerning the Jerusalem wall to be linked.

 

4. While the Borough of Chelmsford was largely self-identifying as a built environment research area, the situation with Tasmania was less clear-cut. Although the Four Rivers Area of northwest Tasmania now appears completely appropriate, it did not pre-exist conceptually. Local people talk about the northwest coast as an entity stretching from Devonport west to Bumie and beyond. ` Devon ' at one stage was an area of local government comprising Port Sorrell, Devonport and their hinteriands. The Cradle Mountain , Walls of Jerusalem and adjoining highland areas are an entity. As Gardam (2001) makes abundantly clear, the Mersey River is a thread of life. While Binks (1981) has a map of the Four Rivers area and makes general use of it, it is this thesis that has made an integrated and intelligible whole out of the specifically built environment aspects of the area.

 

5. Each of Sections 5-14 required the selection and deployment of a coherent set of biblical and built environment materials, both particular and general. Ranges of possible materials could be assembled. For every Section it was possible to find high value, contemporary materials that found each other naturally in the model. The model enabled them to be seen in relationship to each other. Together, they stirred one to think about what homes are becoming, what built environments in the material sense are becoming and what human communities are becoming. Together, co-inherent in and through the model, they have illuminated and challenged. This has been the dynamic.

 

To take an example, it was with Section 6, Genesis: Beginning and Section 11, Resources: Genesis, that one was acutely conscious of the vastness of materials available. A systematic survey of building materials used in historical and contemporary Chelmsford would have beer a major research exercise in its own right, requiring deep knowledge of history and technology and of methods of survey and analysis. Such a survey in Tasmania would have involved less history but a vastly more extensive geography. At the other end of the scale, the world's literature on such matters as space, time and light extends across the centuries and from the simplest of speculations to the most detailed analyses of modem science. The model showed that, while some inputs from materials studies and cosmology were necessary, they need be only indicative and typical. Thus one was on the lookout for texts which provided enough information of the appropriate quality but not a mass. By a similar process, such small and relatively insignificant texts as Rowntree (1994) filled a particular place in the sequence very effectively.

 

6. Even when a viable set of materials had been selected under the influence of the model actual construction of the detailed Sections was often problematic. While now they all are all very clinically structured and relatively seamless in appearance, each of them was at one time and tosome extent, a series of somewhat wobbly stepping-stones from either the biblical material to the built environment materials or the reverse. The single sphere is a cerebral and aesthetic concept of an academic nature. Behind the appearance is the reality of the stepping-stones anc. the determination and conviction derived from the model to establish a safe, if not altogether easy, path across them.

 

Sections 8 and 13, both involving the Gospel of John, were among the more difficult. but w tne end more rewarding, to construct. They did not fall into place easily. To start, the biblical material was diverse, including the light and blindness emphasis of chapters 8 and 9 and the discourse materials of chapters 14 to 16. The commentaries also were diverse, each having relevance in its own way but not easily coming together. The symbolism of Koester (1995) is a long way from the sociology of Malina and Rohrbaugh (1998).

 

It was a sense of the encounter and argument between Jesus and the Jews in chapters 8 and 9 that forced out the concept of identity. Prior (1997) on colonial identities had to come into the thesis somewhere and this was the obvious place. Again, prisons and prisoners figured so prominently in Chelmsford as well as Tasmania that they were self-identifying. Block (2002) herself related disability and building access to John, so her text had to come in one or other of these Sections. The pre-determined order of the eight sub-sections for each Section assisted greatly in the selection and juxtaposition of these materials. In the opinion of the writer. these are now strong Sections made up of strong materials. Their strength, coherence and, in the end, lack of wobbliness, are due to the disciplines, demands and strength of the model being used. Throughout, there was an intuitiveness reminiscent of that associated with John by Malone (2000).

 

The experience with Sections 9 and 14 involving the Epistles and Revelation materials was different. Some commentators on Revelation were writing for the Millennium and alt had to explain the way in which they see and use the imagery of the book, particularly the New Jerusalem. Chelmsford Borough was deeply involved in the consultative processes concerning its local Plan for the next ten years. Tasmania was at a juncture when the pressures of early settlement and subsequent history are over and the future can be contemplated more equably. Davis ' (1999) text on The Culture of Building ranges widely and deeply and brings the built environment world - literally world - together as no other contemporary text known to the writer. Moltmann's theology (1999) challenges with practical questions about implication and meaning and the references Ward (2000) makes to Manchester are haunting. The Homes emphasis of Section 14 is close to almost everyone's perception of built environment. Such powerful sequences did not come together easily.

 

7. It has been made very clear that there was a vast amount of material that could have been used. The problem was not to find materials with which to work but to choose well from the large amounts available. The research technique was not one of data collection but one of data reduction. It could be said, therefore, that this research process has been about the selection and moulding of data, data being in the form of texts and, on some occasions, visits and experiences. It is seeing a text in a library or a shop and saying, That fits' or looking at a street, a building or a panorama and saying, `that shows something relevant'. The process is somewhat like furnishing a house. As one goes around furniture shops and antique fairs, one starts to be aware of the kinds of things that will be appropriate and as one gets to know the details of the layout and light of the house, one develops an awareness of what kinds of furniture and ornaments will fit in.

 

8. While in its early stages, the process was more like joinery, concepts, materials, models and methodological issues being rigid in nature, in its later stages it had become artistry. True artists paint original pictures. Their subjects, whether still life, portrait or landscape, may have been painted many times before but the true artist brings an originality of interpretation and style. It is maintained that as inter-related complexity was recognised and that as joinery was superseded by artistry, this thesis developed its own powerful originality. The process is undoubtedly one of artistry and design. One has to grow into it, let oneself be carried by it and, as McNiff (1998) suggested so well, learn to trust it. 

 

 

16.5 Potential of the research

 

PRACTICAL USEFULNESS

 

The process of carrying out the work and reflecting on it have brought to light various positive and exciting areas of usefulness.

 

1. As indicated at the beginning, it was a theological teacher who enabled the writer to see the evolving model in terms of centrifugal and centripetal dynamic forces. Now the work is complete it is possible to go back to him and show him how a casual, throwaway idea has become a potential tool for use in theological education.

A project on the following lines could be devised for his students.

Pairs of students could be asked to select a small built environment, such as a cluster of buildings, an urban street or a small, rural settlement. They would need to inquire into the past, present and possible future of their chosen location. The more detail that could be discovered, the better. Students would make their own traverse through time and space, note issues of land and materials, review the classifications and typologies they themselves and others used, reflect on the various kinds of costs and worth involved and ask for whom their particular place was home. They would come to understand its beginning and becoming, its significance and beauty, and the identities of place and people.

Such work could be undertaken very early in undergraduate education to develop skills in theological perception or just prior to graduation when the approach would be more sophisticated or at a post-graduate or in-service level where experience would play a larger part. Depending on the level, the brief could be written so as to direct students to particular facets of ethics or spirituality.

 

A parallel project could be developed with built environment teachers. Their students could undertake a similar live investigation but be asked to relate it to either the Bible itself or a theological paper summarising the biblical texts and some of the commentaries on them. A further development could be in the form of a joint project for theological and built environment students.

 

2. Turning to the life of the Christian faith community, one could devise a similar but non­-academic experience. Chelmsford would be a good place to do it.

 

Four groups of people could be invited to come from the south, the north, the east and the west to converge on the Cathedral. Those coming from the south could be given part of the guided walk through Moulsham Street and the High Street and asked to reflect on the history through which they were walking. Those coming from the east could follow Marriage's journey on the Navigation from Heybridge and Maldon into Chelmsford .  The route from the west could include the Writtle walk and perhaps some detailed study of the King Edward VI Grammar School.z3 The dominant theme for those coming from the north would be the latest housing development areas and the issues inherent in them, in terms of both built environment design and technology and social life.

 

In the Cathedral the four streams could be allocated to five biblical areas - wonder and beauty, beginning, significance, identities, and becoming. Skilled group leaders could then draw out the insights that the four journeys had brought to the five biblically related topics. A second layer of discussion might or might not reveal that the Cathedral itself has the whole story of the town written into, and revealed by, its buildings.

 

Participants in such a pilgrimage of exploration would go back to everyday life with a biblically informed view of planning and architectural matters. They would be enriched both as citizens and as Christians; indeed they would be on the way to becoming integrated Christian citizens so far as the built environment aspect of life was concerned.

 

3. The Planning Officer at Devonport was interested in this work, not for any expressed reason of theology or faith, but because she is serving a city which is starting to search for a philosophy of built environment. Neither the Council members nor the people in general would put it in quite those terms but it is the situation. This thesis has shown unequivocally how rich the history is and how well it has been recorded in both general texts such as those of Ramsay (1957,1980) and Binks (1981) and the enthusiastically undertaken detailed recording work of, for example, the Devonport Plaque Walk, In Tasmania the past matters. It tells the people who they are and where they came from. The buildings embody, illustrate and exemplify the story of the last 150 or so years which have passed with great rapidity.

 

Overlaying the value of the past for its own sake is the value of heritage, which may be thought of as the value, which the past is considered to have for the present and the future. The current heritage studies are about managing change and development in ways that keep parts of the past in place.

 

While history to a great extent and heritage to a lesser extent have figured in this thesis, they are not the major concepts to have emerged when biblical theology and built environment have been brought together. This thesis offers the possibility of a philosophy rooted in wonder and traverse, beginning and resources, significance and types, identity and costs, becoming and home. These have been shown to relate to the Tasmania , and in particular the Devonport, that are. It requires a further step to use them as concepts for thinking in broad, strategic terms about directions for the future.

 

In narrowly defined professional terms the Planning Officer must address the practical issues of what to keep, what can be changed and what can be thought of as transient. Vocationally, as a person motivated through the interests and gifts which she possesses, to a concern for, and understanding of, the environments of human life, she can think in terms of the categories of this thesis. They can provide for her a vocational inscape which can underlie and form what she says and does professionally in terms of landscape and townscape.

 

This framework for thought and evaluation can be commended to persons such as this particular Planning Officer with integrity for its own sake. It is what emerges almost naturally when life is thought about as a whole and in terms of the good and the right. It is comprehensive, coherent and integrated. While it is deep, it has grown out of the experience of reality and ordinariness. Devonport played a key part in the development of the framework. Through its Planning Officer and her vocational motivation and searching, the framework can be given back to Devonport for its use as it contemplates its future.

 

4. In the UK , the Royal Town Planning Institute is engaged in a major review of the role and nature of Planning and of the Planning profession (RTPI 2001). Current Planning graduates are entering a profession that is searching for its own future soul. For some that is a matter of indifference because the everyday practicalities go on, for others a matter of challenge and for others a matter of some disquiet, causing them to ask themselves whether what they are setting out to do is worthwhile. This thesis does not provide readymade answers to such important questions. It does however offer a set of roots that go deeper into human thought and experience than, for example, the objectives of post-1945 planning legislation. While it would be foolish to say directly that a creation myth, a story about a rubble wall around a nondescript city and a decidedly odd vision of a city coming down from the sky, are profoundly significant, this thesis has shown that there are deep and relevant, meanings, values and attitudes within and behind the biblical materials. They do not have to be `applied' in some mechanistic sense. They are there to be seen and emphasised. Their nature can be mediated to students with the confidence that they can encourage well-founded commitment and hope, even when institutions are perplexed.

 

In the cases of both the Tasmanian planner and the UK planning students, one can see that this thesis not only provides ways of establishing routes between Built Environment and Biblical Theology but also enables each to be rooted in the other.

 

 

GENERALISABILITY

 

A highly significant characteristic of this work has been the ordinariness of the built environments investigated and of the biblical materials studied. This is not a limitation but a key aspect of potential. Because everything is ordinary and not special it is likely to be typical of many other built environments and areas of biblical study.

 

The fact that ten routes between built environment and biblical theology have been included constitutes substantial evidence that such routes are likely to be possible on a widespread and perhaps almost infinite basis. The thesis has not put forward just one or two such routes which might be either rare or the result of chance or coincidence. What is given is substantial and systematic evidence that such routes are likely to be possible starting from anywhere in Built Environment or Biblical Theology. The likelihood of universality has been demonstrated.

 

These widespread possibilities arise largely from the ordinariness and, therefore, of the typicality, of the materials used. Chelmsford and northwest Tasmania are ordinary places. Apart from the late arrival of Richard Rogers on the Chelmsford scene, 30 no national or international names are involved. The commentaries and interpretations of the biblical texts are those available on the shelves of the libraries and bookshops of Chelmsford . They are available to the general population now and here. In the case of Tasmania , immediate, off the shelf availability is not the situation but Internet procurement is easy. Even the broader literature of Built Environment is available from the publicly available resources of the Royal Institute of British Architects or the theology departments of the bookstores serving the central area of the University of London . Both these sources can be visited in half a day from Chelmsford . While the same did not appear possible even in Melbourne , again on-line facilities are excellent.

 

None of this is an argument for easy research. The opposite is in fact the case because one is confronted by the rich, diverse materials available. They present themselves and demand to be considered. The researcher is vulnerable to the real, living, articulate, comprehensible world. He cannot hide himself in the obscurities, dark comers and meticulously pre-determined and fine-tuned questions of sheltered academia.

 

An example of possible extensibility arose as these final pages were being written. A visit to the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum of Buildings immediately started to relate itself to this research.

 

The museum is situated in open Downland. Some forty buildings so far have been dismantled, brought to the museum and re-erected in their original forms, with varying amounts of conservation. They include housing from the poorest cottage to substantial farmhouses, various workshops and agricultural buildings, and a market cross.

Each building was once part of a particular built environment, which could have been traversed, which had a beginning, became something, cost something to someone, was home to someone, utilised resources, had some kind of significance and fell into some kind of typology.

In the museum they have become a new kind of built environment, which poses the searching questions: Who is doing this, why are they doing it, for whose benefit are they doing it and, in addition, what is it doing to the people who come to visit it, imprisoning them in a past or opening out to them a future?

 

 

CONTRIBUTION TO KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING

This work began with the writer's personal quest for knowledge and understanding and desire to test personal conviction. This work has vindicated his own determination to persevere with a dual commitment, practically to the building-related professions and the Christian church, and intellectually to Built Environment and Biblical Theology, in the belief that they would one day co-inhere and that it would be both dull and wrong to jettison one for a so-called complete commitment to the other. Full commitment in this context lies in making the connections between fields of activity and thought and in showing how it is that such connections enhance value and meaning. This is neither the place nor the moment to talk about the many dark tunnels and seemingly dazzling highways, but in reality blind alleys, that have been encountered along the way. One expects that the work recorded here will come to be seen as a major step towards a still future, but now significantly nearer, moment when one can say `Now I know that these two areas of life belong together'. Undoubtedly there is now the confidence to unlock the potential and take the matter further.

The nature of the knowledge that has been gained is inherent in the above sentence, `Now I know that these two areas of life belong together'. This is the knowledge of conviction and belief. It is not some minor addition to the world's library of factual data but a new dimension to the sum of human insight derived from extended, thoughtful and careful working with the model and materials. What, at the beginning, seemed as if it might be true has, through the experience of the process, been found to be so. The materials and model have been handled honestly and fairiy and from them has come something that, because it is true to them, has become, or revealed, its own kind of truth. This is not a blind `I now know' but an assured `I now know - and I expect to know more deeply and more truly as time goes on and I am able to explore more widely and think more deeply'.

 The second contribution is in terms of the knowledge of process, already extensively reflected upon in this Section. The thesis has shown how it is possible to work with two different built environments, such as Chelmsford and Tasmania , in such a way that they augment each other, giving a unified yet contrasting whole. It has shown how what might be thought a random set of biblical materials has combined to give a comprehensive view. It has shown how the more general built environment and biblical theology materials come together with each other and the particular in the framework of a lively model to create the rounded studies of Sections 5-14 and, by extension, Section 15. At the beginning of the research, no one knew how it could be done. Now, a methodology, having both subjective and objective facets, is known.

 

16.6 Evaluation

This Section so far has commented upon the complex process carried out and enunciated the main discoveries made in terms of both substance and process. Further, it has demonstrated the potential of the work done in terms of its usefulness to a range of possible beneficiaries, the generalisability that can be expected to arise from it, and its contribution to knowledge.

It is maintained that this work as a whole, substance and process, is unique. There is no known work specifically linking the built environments of Chelmsford and Tasmania , either with each other or with biblical theology. The idea that one can gather, interpret and relate texts and experiences in such a way as to reveal highly meaningful connections between two specific built environments and specific biblical materials, and between such specifics and more general literature in the two fields, has not been found elsewhere.

It is also maintained that the work has been creative. Its dynamic creativity has lain mainly in the way both the `picture' model and the 'disclosure' model have been used, both to depict what has gone on and lead the process of, to use the words chosen for the title of the thesis, 'making connections' and `discerning relationships`. The `making' and 'discerning' are obverses of each other. One has had to `make' every sub-section of every Section and the Sections have had to be `made' into an entity. It is only as one `makes' that one is able to 'discern' what is already there, hidden and waiting to be revealed. If the risk of `making' is not taken, the gift of 'discernment' cannot be received.

Such uniqueness and creativity have combined to produce a thesis that is revelatory, in that it enables things to be seen that have not been seen before. The revelatory nature becomes abundantly clear when one considers the full text of each Section in relation to the quotation from Louis Kahn placed at its head. In many cases, what Kahn says or hints at in a sentence or two is explained by the text of the Section. This thesis, therefore, is to some extent a revelation of what Kahn might, at least in part, mean. Conversely, Kahn gives an encapsulation of what a particular Section of this thesis might be held to mean.

In some cases the equivalence with Kahn is literal, as with beauty in Section 5 Psalms: Wonde and Beauty or with the street in Section 10 Traversing Places and Times: Psalms. In other cases it is metaphorical, as with the story being recorded in the rock in Section 4 Methodological Matters or with the miracle of the room in Section 14 Homes: Epistles and Revelation. More fundamentally, the equivalence is of the spirit, as with sensing the spirit of a teacher's work in Section 8 John's Gospel.- Identity or with sensing the nature of a thing as the essence of students' work in Section 15 Closing Certainties: Opening Possibilities.

It is believed that the work has provided strong evidence that the research process followed has demonstrated validity for work at doctoral level. It has been shown to be systematic and evidence based. The trail of enquiry has had to be followed with great attention to detail yer with an eye to the wide context in which the work is has been set. Judgement has been brought ­into play at every point and every step. Sometimes the judgements have been of choice sometimes of interpretation and sometimes of deep discernment. Although there is an element of simplicity in what has been done, it is a robust simplicity that has come from prolonged probing and reflective thought.

It is evident that the methodology used displays noticeable resonance with some social science research methodologies such as comparison. This is straightforward between Chelmsford and Tasmania but between Built Environment and Biblical Theology one must be clear about what is being compared. Arital (1982) indicates three goals for comparative research, that it should develop concepts and generalisations at a level between all situations and a single situation, that it should contribute to the development of a relevant knowledge ana that it should facilitate inter-country learning. Heidenheimer et al (1990) indicate that comparative research should occupy a middle ground between `pure research' of a theoretical nature and `applied science' directed towards the nuts and bolts of detailed policy making Furthermore, it `.. illuminates the various and subtle ways in which politics [or, arguably. built environment] works to produce choices of a collective or social nature'. (Heidenheimer 1990:21). Denzin et al (2002) indicate that constructivism is a type of epistemology that worics with pluralities, personal experience, case studies, document reviews, dialectics and meaningfulness. Bowling (2002), commenting on phenomenological approaches used in health research notes that for them `.... "reality" is multiple and socially constructed through the interaction of individuals who use symbols to interpret each other and assign meaning to perceptions and experience; these are not imposed by external forces'. (Bowling 2002:128) As with the present work, research, Bowling believes, precedes theory because it initiates and clarifies theory.

 

Penultimately, it is believed that this work is timely. As indicated earlier, Gorringe (2002) A Theology of the Built Environment: Justice, Empowerment Redemption was published during the final phase of the writing of this thesis, rightly claiming to be the first comprehensive text on its subject. That Gorrnge has published at the present time reinforces the present writer's judgement that there has been a need for work in the area of Built Environment and Theology. This thesis will, it is believed, prove a timely complement to Gorringe's work. His is the professional work of an academic theologian with socio-economic and similar interests. Thus, at first sight, it appears to be `top down' in contrast to this thesis, which might be characterised as being `bottom up'. The underlying conviction, however, is the same. Gorringe says:

 

A Trinitarian theology cannot allow a secular and sacred divide, in which `secular' occupations are left to the non-theologians, and theology confined to specialists. Rather, the rationale of such a theology will be a discernment of God active in God's world. This includes the built environment.

(Gomnge 2002:7)

 

Finally, there remains the question of whether this long process has been personally worthwhile for the writer. The answer is an overwhelming `Yes', not just because one feels vindicated in one's commitment to living and working with the interfacing disciplines3z but because of the exhilaration of the journey. My visit to Tasmania started in early August, that is in the winter, and ended in the high summer of January. Over that long period, many times in the evening I walked down the rough cliff track, across the railway line and round the bay from one end of Coles' Beach to the other and back uphill along the road enjoying the varied designs of the houses. As the seasons changed, so did the evening light and sunset over the Don Heads, so did the stark outline of one particular eucalyptus tree against the skyline of Devonport, and so did the sound, movement and temperature of the sea. The changes were imperceptible but at the end one knew one had journeyed from winter to summer. That is a metaphor for the whole research process. While I am confident in the academic and objective value of what 1 am presenting, I am personally glad to have done the work and made the journey from the winter of relative inexperience and ignorance to the summer of greater knowledge, understanding and fulfilment.

 

Overall, it is strongly believed that that the work done has given rise to a thesis demonstrating an innovative and comprehensive originality. Such originality is the sum of a complex process exhaustively carried out; demonstrable potential in terms of usefulness, generalisability and contribution to knowledge; qualities of uniqueness, creativity, a revelatory nature, technical research resonance, and timeliness, culminating in the conviction of having been personally worthwhile.

 

 

16.7 Recommendations

 

The following recommendations relate to the dissemination of findings and the scope for future work.

 

FOR THE WRITER AND SUPERVISORS

 

For the writer, the completion of this thesis is an interim point in what is essentially a lifelong process. Substantial dissemination at this point is desirable. If Supervisors wish to be associated with the work, that would be welcome

 

Biblical Theology, in the broad sense used in this thesis, by its nature seeks to discover its own meaning and relevance and give expression to them. It would, therefore, be appropriate to look for outlets both for the specific details of this work and for the approach used via networks such as the Cambridge Theological Federation or the theological Network East Anglia . In conjunction with that, the preparation of a text for publication would be appropriate. The focus needs to be on the statement, `The Bible reveals an approach to life based on a perception of God and of the nature of God's relationship to human beings and to the world in which they presently live.

 

Built Environment is more challenging because by its nature it is practical and pragmatic. Building happens in response to needs, desires and opportunities. The fact that it reveals and embodies much about human life in the world is fortuitous. What this thesis does is show Built Environment as a sector of life, what it in fact is, an embodiment and a revelation of meaning.

 

While it would be absurd to suggest that every Built Environment professional, and every member of the public involved in any significant way with Built Environment, should be required to contemplate their work in relation to Biblical Theology - or any other .. ology' -, arguably it is not absurd to suggest that from time to time such people should find themselves confronted with unusual viewpoints and questions they do not usually ask. Such encounters are particularly important in universities and at times of change. University is a place from which to move forward but it is also a place where it should be possible to stand back. It would be inappropriate and unacceptable to go in heavy-handedly with Biblical Theology but that can be a background from which questions can be asked and suggestions made.

 

As with Biblical Theology, the time would be opportune for some appropriate published work. The focus needs to be on the statement, `Built environments reveal what human beings at particular times and in particular places have needed, desired, made, valued and, sometimes, destroyed. [They] are embodiments of ideas and values, and mirrors to human life'.

 

As regards what might be thought of as the integrative subject of 'Built Environment and Biblical Theology', the writer intends to give consideration to how this work can be linked with his previous work to create a cross-disciplinary text and/or post-graduate course or module on `Built Environment and Biblical Theology'.

 

The development of the kind of practical exercises indicated may prove particularly interesting in relation to Biblical Theology and Built Environment separately and jointly.

 

Research process and methodology have been critical to the work. The experience gained, noting possibilities and limitations discovered, might usefully be disseminated to a `technical' audience, including Anglia Polytechnic University and the Cambridge Theological Federation.

 

GENERALLY

 

This thesis has opened up possibilities for further work on Built Environment and Biblical Theology. For those who like grinding exceeding small, there are many facets of this thesis that could be taken and treated in much greater detail than has been done here. There is also much scope for work with other materials and locations, and other kinds of perspective on them.

 

More widely, this thesis could itself be considered, if not as a model, then as a starting point for work on Biblical Theology and almost any other sector of either everyday life or specialist discipline, such as agriculture, a sector obviously present in the Bible, or information technology, one at first sight not present in the Bible. Equally it would seem plausible for appropriate people to explore relationships between Built Environment and, for example, the Koran.

 

Such studies of substance should be integrated with the further development of the methodological and process matters instigated in this thesis.

 

16.8 End word

 

There is no final conclusion or definite end point to work of this kind, only awareness of the vast possibilities inherent in other, new beginnings, waiting to be taken up by oneself or others.

 

Section by Section in this thesis, words of Louis Kahn have captured the essence of what has been going on. It is entirely apt to repeat here, at the end, the words of his which were quoted at the head of the Introduction:

 

You feel that what you truly have to offer is in your next work, and that what you have done is always incomplete. (Louis Kahn)

 

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