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The facility manager has selected an architect. He/she might be getting ready to start a great project ‐ but perhaps not. Facility managers are often put into the position of selecting and negotiating contracts for architecture services. This paper is based upon research sponsored by the American Institute of Architects. From input gathered at an owners’ forum last year, this paper focuses on potential improvement areas for architects. It also assists the facility manager to prepare and negotiate a contract that will help ensure the delivery of expectations. This is accomplished by: understanding what to put into the architect’s contract to protect an organisation’s interests and realise expectations; developing a contractual format that will minimise surprises; learning what many owners think are the most common shortcomings of an architect. The facility manager must learn how important it is to select the most suitable architect for their organisation and consolidate the learning by negotiating a contract that will protect the company’s interests and help to achieve the desired results.

The purpose of this paper is to clarify that while integrated project delivery (IPD) methods can be momenta for restructuring architectural practice, they do not predetermine specific patterns of restructuration for the roles, responsibilities and services of architects.

This paper is based on a multiple case study design; two IPD projects were theoretically sampled and studied. The data collection methods included semi-structured interviews and observations. An inductive data analysis approach was applied to frame the phenomena, conduct cross-case comparisons and develop propositions.

While IPD implementations set expectations for new structures for practices, it is the project participants’ situated decisions that lead to the restructuration of some dimensions of architectural practice. The dimensions in this study included team formation, design leadership and collaboration and architectural services. IPD project participants locally changed and redefined conventional roles, responsibilities and project artifacts (e.g. drawings and models) that concerned design development and coordination.

IPD context, by itself, does not predetermine a fixed pattern of change in establishing designers’ roles, responsibilities and services because restructuration is highly negotiated amongst the IPD parties and can lead to different responses to this contractual setting. Contracts set expectations for collaborative behavior, but the fulfillment of these expectations is situated and emerging as project participants negotiate to develop practices.

While IPD research and guidelines aim to provide recipes for IPD implementation, this study contributes to the body of knowledge by clarifying that IPD is a context in which unprecedented ways of practice restructuration could emerge.

This study aims to answer the ‘what’ and ‘how’ questions about the key role players’ influence on the overall productivity outcomes in the lifecycle of residential buildings procured through the traditional route.

A mix of exploratory and descriptive research methods was used to obtain feedback from 179 role-players involved in various phases of the residential building lifecycle (RBLC) in New Zealand. Empirical data were analysed using content analysis, multi-attribute method and Friedman’s two-way analysis of variance.

Results showed that designers, building owners, main contractors and project managers were the greatest influencers of the productivity outcomes in the RBLC. The priority drivers of these key role-players’ influences on the RBLC productivity outcomes comprised poor brief interpretation, inclination to lowest tender, inadequate prior risk analysis and miscommunication of owner’s requirements and preferences to service providers, respectively. By taking proactive steps to redress their productivity inhibiting acts/omissions as identified in this study, the various role-players could contribute to significant improvement of productivity outcomes in the building lifecycle.

It was not possible to interview all participants that made up the representative random samples from each role-player group due largely to workload related excuses. As a result, the findings and the conclusions may not be generalised beyond the study scope. However, the study achieved its purpose, as the main intent was to provide hypothetical constructs that could guide further confirmatory/experimental studies for residential buildings as well as for other building types.

A succinct and easy-to-follow model was developed as implementation pathway for operationalising the key findings of the study in the industry. The model highlights the Owner-Architect-Contractor Influence Triangle (OACIT) as the 20 per cent of the solutions that could deliver 80 per cent of the productivity improvement in the RBLC.

This study re-examines productivity issues not only from a life-cycle perspective but also from the perspectives of the majority of the key role-players. In addition, the OACIT concept offers a novel productivity improvement tool; it stresses that productivity in the traditionally procured building lifecycle could be optimised if the architect could focus greater attention on brief articulation and the issuance and review of design and specification information. Also, the owner should adopt productivity-enhancing procurement and contract strategies and emphasise more on value-addition and less on lowest tender price.

Companies faced with the challenge of undertaking large or small‐scale development projects in the United States, be it in connection with the relocation of their headquarters or the upgrading and renovation of their existing facilities, may lack a true understanding of the many project delivery alternatives available, as well as the pros and cons associated with the various delivery methods from the perspective of quality, cost and schedule controls, risk management, legal liability and other similar criteria. This paper is written in the hope of enabling corporate real estate executives to make an informed decision.

More significant reductions in residential primary energy consumption and in space heating in particular, can contribute to achieving climate change and energy efficiency objectives. Project information from demonstration projects is now becoming available for highly energy-efficient renovation concepts.

The goal of this research is to understand how owner-occupants can be persuaded to apply far-reaching energy-saving renovations of single-family houses. To this end, the research examines drivers and barriers of owners to adopt highly energy-efficient renovation concepts. Theory on decision processes in innovation diffusion is used, in order to examine the adoption of integrated concepts to achieve high energy performance. Belgian case studies (different building typologies) were examined. Adoption drivers and barriers perceived by owner-occupants are analysed. This leads to improved understanding of characteristics that can persuade future adopters. Possible measures are discussed to overcome barriers in the introduction phase of innovation diffusion, and are illustrated more in detail with a case study. The research shows that especially expectations of improved comfort provide an opportunity for the market entry of integrated concepts. Owners, architects and contractors could benefit from increased attractiveness, competitiveness, affordability and availability of highly energy-efficient renovations. Holistic approaches (stronger coordination and clustered renovation concepts), higher skill competence (education) and improved communication (actor networks, significant economic incentives) are recommended.

This article asserts that standard form arbitration clauses do not encourage fast and economical resolution of disputes on small construction projects. Furthermore, standard form clauses are frequently a hindrance to that goal. Instead of reliance on preprinted forms, both owners of projects and contractors will be more likely to resolve disputes by devoting sufficient time and legal talent to preparation of tailor made dispute resolution provisions. Such provisions must take into account the needs of the individual parties involved, as well as the legal climate of the community. Absent this attention to detail, use of a standard form arbitration clause leads to the same waste of resources as litigation and the frequently dissatisfying results that follow. It is also argued that in certain cases preservation of the right to litigate narrow legal issues is to be preferred over arbitration.

A change order is an order from an employer authorizing a variation. Success in managing change orders results in uninterrupted construction operations and an agreed final project cost as well as duration. One of the methods to manage change orders is to establish good communication and cooperation among project team members. Success of this method can be enhanced by developing and utilizing a web‐based change order management system that supports documentation practice, communication and integration between different team members in the change order workflow. This paper discusses our web‐based project management system, change order management system (COMS), to manage change orders using the Internet. In order to show COMS’ potential benefits, a test case was conducted for comparing the COMS with the conventional practice of change order management.

Construction projects have become increasingly long, complex and costly with waste and inefficiencies and often fail to achieve the desired results. Integrated project delivery (IPD) is believed to change these problems. A reasonable and fair profit distribution mechanism is a critical factor for ensuring the success of the IPD projects. This study aims to investigate the strategies of all participants in the profit distribution of an IPD project with respect to the factor of the effort level.

This study describes the influence of owners and participants on profit distribution due to their respective efforts in the IPD project alliance. The influence of effort level on profit distribution is discussed based on the Holmstrom-Milgrom model of asymmetric information game theory and principal-agent theory, combined with incentive compatibility (IC) constraints and individual rationality (IR) constraints.

The results show that the optimal level of effort by each participant optimizes the profit distribution of an IPD project. At the same time, in the revenue incentive contract, the effort level of the participants is positively correlated with the profit distribution, proportional to their contribution coefficient and inversely proportional to the square of the cost of their creative activities in terms of effort. Each party of an IPD project can adopt a series of measures to improve their own effort level and choose the optimal level of effort based on the profit distribution, while satisfying their own utility maximization.

This study introduces the Holmstrom-Milgrom model in the principal-agent theory to explore the influence of the effort level on profit distribution in IPD projects. The quantitative model can contribute to establish a fair and efficient profit distribution scheme for the IPD projects.

This paper examines the profit distribution of engineering projects in the integrated project delivery (IPD) mode. IPD is a new delivery method that can ameliorate many of the disadvantages of traditional delivery methods and improve project results. In the implementation of IPD, the profit distribution is key for ensuring the success of IPD projects.

This paper described a new method for characterizing profit distribution in the IPD mode. The payment function and Shapley value of the cooperative fuzzy game of fuzzy alliance were defined by considering the Choquet integral of the fuzzy measure. The participation of each player was considered, and the influence of participation on the profit distribution was discussed. Lastly, changes in the profit distribution of core participants under different alliance combinations were studied.

A case from a report of The American Institute of Architects (AIA) was used to verify the fuzzy alliance model. There was a significant correlation between the degree of participation of the owner, architect and builder and the profit distribution among these three participants.

The theoretical research in this paper has some limitations. Initially, this paper selects a case with only three key participants in order to simplify the research. When there are many core participants, how to establish the alliance in the IPD mode and how to establish the corresponding profit distribution model, further work is certainly required to disentangle these complexities in models. Second, in this case, BIM technology has little impact on the income of the whole project. Therefore, this paper does not consider the impact of BIM technology on the marginal effect of the IPD project. Third, the contract type in the case is a custom tri-party based on IFOA. There is no classified discussion of the impact of different contracts on the profit distribute in the paper.

Based on the in-depth study of cooperative game with alliance structure, this paper promotes the classic cooperative game with alliance structure. The authors define the payoff function of fuzzy cooperative games by Choquet integral of fuzzy measure, and introduce the idea into the field of IPD. It aims at extending the solution to a cooperative game without a core. It can be obtained through a simple calculation. In the IPD alliance, the fuzziness and uncertainty of the participation degree of each participant will affect the profit of the whole project. The authors find that the higher the participation rate of players, the more profit each participant has. The greater the influence weight of the designer on the alliance, the lower the influence weight of the contractor on the alliance, the lower the participation of the contractor and the designer, and the lower the income distribution value of the three core participants. It shows a monotonous decline status.

For any construction enterprise, it can make more profits if it joins the grand alliance. In the IPD alliance, each participant can maximize their own interests, which can also promote the enthusiasm of construction enterprises to participate in the alliance and increase the application of IPD mode in AEC industry. This research method provides a new fast, effective, and more realistic solution method for cooperative countermeasures. It can be further extended to other cooperative game fields and advance a new research perspective and solution for the distribution of cooperative interests.

The contribution of this paper is the development of a fuzzy alliance model that provides a tool for measuring the profit distribution in IPD. This is the first quantitative model to connect the degree of participation with the profit distribution in IPD using fuzzy alliance.