Accountability

Accountability is a concept that is continually broadening, shifting, and digressing further away from a fixed, clearly definable, and measurable principle. This chapter asks, ‘What does accountability represent in the context of architecture?’, more specifically, architecture integrating lived experience engagement? Accountability has a deep-seated connection to personal identity, an identity that can be somewhat constructed by our awareness of another person's perception of us. These perceptions can progressively gain influence, establishing a disparity between an internal sensibility and an external need for affirmation. This need for affirmation can in turn complexify what is authentic from what may be a ‘responsive’ gesture towards accountability. Whilst there are many established frameworks, mechanisms, and professional standards in place to monitor and measure these pursuits towards accountability, and these do assist to raise the level of base competency and compliance, they are not a guarantee within themselves of accountability.