Www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto MULTI-DISCIPLINARY TALK ON DESIGN ISSUES IN CONSTRUCTION SITE MEETINGS Tarja Mäki & Hannele Kerosuo Center for Research on Activity,

ISCAR-2014/University of Helsinki, CRADLE, Finland/ Mäki&Kerosuo

1www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto

MULTI-DISCIPLINARY TALK ON DESIGN ISSUESIN CONSTRUCTION SITE MEETINGS

Tarja Mäki & Hannele Kerosuo

Center for Research on Activity, Development and Learning

University of Helsinki, Finland

ISCAR International Congress 2014, Oral session 37

2.10.2014

www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto 2ISCAR-2014/University of Helsinki, CRADLE, Finland/ Mäki&Kerosuo

1) Flaws, errors and open questions of design work addressed in the site meetings in construction phase

• Design details that follow the rules or requirements of national legislation and specifications - but are created based on limited knowledge of constructability, project costs, time consumption or user requirements or maintenance work.

• New design solutions suggested by other project partners than designers

2) How the design issues are discussed and new solutions

created in the site meetings?

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Research subject


• Construction project meeting activities are mainly studied from the perspectives of communication and collaboration.

• Alarcón and Mardones (1998) have analysed design defects and their effects on a construction process.

• The problems were mainly poor design quality, a lack of design standards and poor constructability.

• What is lacking, is the closer analysis of what the problematic design-related issues in construction phase are, and how these issues are solved.

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Previous research on design related issues in construction phase


1) What design-related issues do the different partners address in the meetings?

2) Who participates in the discussions and the creation of new design solutions?

3) With whose expertise are the new design solutions created?

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Research questions


• Building Information Modelling (BIM) as a new tool for designers is considered a promise for better accuracy and quality in the design.

• The better accuracy and quality are ensured by designing as-built-models of buildings

• The use of as-built models requires a building to be constructed precisely according to the design models and changes to be updated in the as-built model.

• In life-cycle projects, the project partners are responsible for the maintenance costs and quality for the next 25 years.

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Context of the research

ISCAR-2014/University of Helsinki, CRADLE, Finland/ Mäki&Kerosuo

6www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto 2.10.2014

Pro

ject

1P

roje

ct 2

Observation of 8 site meetingsAug11-May12

Observation of 9 site meetingsAug12-May13

Pro

ject

0 (

not

incl

.)

SCHOOL

SCHOOL

DAYCARE CENT

Case: The schedule of the life cycle project of 4 schools and 1 day care center (2009-2013)


• 17 site meetings

• 30 hours of audio and video recorded data

• 12 participants & 1…4 hours per meeting

• 411 design related issues discussed

• 7640 speech turns analyzed

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Research Data


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Design discipline specific BIM software tools

BIM models, combined model, drawings

Partially shared objects in the construction and design activities

DESIGN ACTIVITY CONSTRUCTION ACTIVITY


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Design solutions discussed in the meetings and related goals of actions

THE DESIGN OF A SCHOOL BUILDING

THE CONSTRUCTION & MAINTENANCE OF A SCHOOL

ROOF: location and installation of roof wells

WINDOWS: how to shade the windows: blinds or films


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Analysis of 411 discussion episodes

• The unit of analysis is a discussion episode, which encompasses actions from identifying a design related topic to answering a question, solving a problem or to making a decision on the topic.

Dis

cuss

ion

topi

c

Ope

ning

line

/com

men

t

Who

ope

ns th

e di

scus

sion

The

dis

cuss

ion

The

num

ber

of

lines

/com

men

ts b

y

each

par

ticip

ant

Dec

isio

n m

ade

On

who

se a

rgum

ents

dec

isio

n is

base

d on

Participants

Each line in the table remarks one discussion episode (N=411 discussion episodes.


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Design-related topics discussed in the site meetings


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Reasons to initiate a discussion in a site meeting


Initiating issues, participating in discussions & decision making

Project Manager

Designers Contractors Other0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

Addressed issues

Participation in discussion

Decision making arguments

• Contractors were the most active partner in taking up the design-related issues for discussion.

• All partners participated actively for the creation of new solutions.

• New solutions were often based on contractors and designers arguments.

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PM = project manager, MC = main contractor, MM = maintenance manager, HC = heating contractor, ARC = architect, SV = supervisor


• Deeper collaboration between site managers, designers, material suppliers, maintenance people is required to ensure the better quality and life cycle effectiveness of the design.

• Contractors’ participation in design activity needs to be recognized and taken into account in contracts.

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Conclusions

Documents

Www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto MULTI-DISCIPLINARY TALK ON DESIGN ISSUES IN CONSTRUCTION SITE MEETINGS Tarja Mäki & Hannele Kerosuo Center for Research on Activity,