Explicit principles guide FAR’s analyses or technological propositions:
- definition of intent;
- efficiency in the use of resources;
- their ethical allocation to the program;
- concern for the impact of design choices over users and workers;
- ability of the work to trigger or enable positive change in the environment of relevance.
If at the centre of FAR’s concerns is, literally, a desire to behave techno-logically – i.e., reflect and act upon what makes a technique ‘appropriate’ to the task, projects must occupy a critical position in the analytical methods of the laboratory. Indeed, within FAR, project analysis constitutes a privileged mode of didactic enquiry, where equal attention is paid to process and product, in the attempt to reveal the mechanics of their successful relationship. At the same time, the physical reality of the building constitutes the natural terrain on which FAR’s reflection is exercised, an irreplaceable and unavoidable place for the verification of the disconnection between intentions and outcomes of the project, beyond the apologetic and essentially ideological narrative that seems to dominate current communication.
FAR directs its research focus onto the following areas:
- analysis of building industrial landscapes;
- articulation of product and process innovation dynamics in construction;
- development of building policy directions and initiatives;
- preparation of construction briefs;
- assessment of as-built design;
- development of strategic building systems;
- identification of and response to technological gaps.