Search results

User-driven innovation has been proven to successfully increase the value of products and services in companies with direct linkages to the end-user. The construction industry demonstrates low productivity and innovation performance. In refurbishment the end-users are very visible and can either be seen as an innovation potential or burden. The purpose of this study was (1) examine the level of UDI in refurbishment, (2) develop UDI framework suitable for refurbishment and (3) mapping of UDI enablers.

The research design is a case study of renovation within social housing associations, and where user involvement processes have been the primary scope of analysis. The data analysis consisted of the mapping of user-related activities regarding the level of involvement and the extent of power allocated to the end-user in influencing the end product. Additionally, a literature review on UDI has been carried out.

This research validated a possible theoretical implementation of UDI on refurbishment projects. In addition, the research identified present barriers related to the current form of procurement and incentive structures.

The research was only based on Danish refurbishment projects.

This exploratory research has resulted in the development of a potential new paradigm of applying UDI in the construction industry. This research takes the initial steps towards creating a body of knowledge within UDI in the context of refurbishment projects.

This research is pointing towards higher degree of user-driven innovation in refurbishment and in the construction industry in general.

Designing learning environments is increasingly about mediating between the interactions in real and virtual space of largely self-organising learning communities. Traditional ways of briefing designers are less and less proficient, as the demands made on space become less timetabled, more probabilistic. ‘learning landscapes’ ¹ are proposed in which clusters of activity can be seen to be taking place across a field, that activity can be browsed, audited and fully engaged with. Such organic flows of interest and concentration are hindered by traditional demarcated space models, and attempts to enable the flows through ‘flexible’ interlinking of rooms fail.

There is evidence ² that the organic interactions between learners grow exponentially when these learners are connected together as virtual communities in open, robust virtual platforms. But this works best when these interactions are grounded from time to time in real places. How can designers best provide spaces that support learning in real and virtual space? Should design teams be composed of people with skills in devising real and virtual space?

Increasingly the answer is ‘yes’, and this places strains on procurement processes. Built form can take a long time to deliver. So can virtual platforms take time to devise and make operable. Can these processes be aligned? The concepts for RMIT’s Design Hub, a physical design research platform, were developed through research conducted twelve years before the building was completed. Many of the gap years were taken up with establishing the financial basis for constructing the Hub. During this time the concepts were validated by testing with various potential user groups, and a further tranche of international investigations validated the level of innovation being sought. The process for RMIT’s Swanston Academic Building (SAB) was smoother and shorter, but it involved a year in which a ‘learning landscape’ concept was moulded through intensive work with user client focus groups.

Neither of these projects has a virtual doppelganger, though both have sophisticated and evolvable IT systems. The Hub embeds a process of curating research interaction and dissemination that is hampered by this fact. The mediated learning landscape of the SAB falls short of the originating concepts, – because space constraints did not allow for an undivided, flowing landscape. A well designed virtual counterpart could have provided what the insertion of walls has obscured. Should all future innovative learning and researching environments have a virtual counterpart from the outset?

There is an emerging trend for such paired environments in creative city thinking and in museums. Surely briefing and procuring real and virtual environments in tandem will enliven future space use in universities?