Evidence-based decision making (EBDM) is a framework that has yielded huge benefits in
fields ranging from medicine to social policy. While the concept is becoming popular in the
built environment sector and terms such as “evidence-based design” are now widely used,
our research has shown that EBDM is not in fact widely practised, and certainly not to its full
potential. Valuable opportunities are being lost as a consequence, including opportunities to
create better buildings and increase the expertise of the professionals who make pivotal …