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PurposeThe paper seeks to suggest methods that will enable innovative and effective communication and collaboration between clients and construction project management professionals.Design/methodology/approachThe methodology involves workshops with construction clients documented in working documents circulated to participants.FindingsWorkshops revealed trends that urge a re‐evaluation of the briefing process. The need for better briefing with the focus on end‐users is increasing. The findings also pointed to difficulties for construction projects to deliver what the user‐clients need. There was considered to be a lack of systems and methods to keep track of user client demands sufficiently and in a satisfactory way. Goals need to be iterated and validated on a regular and coherent basis throughout projects. An increased interest for process‐oriented and strategic briefing was indicated.Research limitations/implicationsFurther studies are required to develop a client/user driven construction process that is more than just new statements. Research needs to address not only issues in the business as such, but also what requirements should be put on the education and training of stakeholders who are active in the construction sector.Practical implicationsThe paper presents a challenge to the traditional role of several actors; there is a need to communicate core business needs to construction prerequisites in a reciprocal way. There is a need of choosing logic – however, this does not diminish the need for methodologies for capturing, processing and verifying requirements in the process of provision of facilities to a user.Originality/valueThe paper proposes the idea that different logics govern actions by construction industry stakeholders, an issue the construction sector needs to address.

Purpose This paper aims to explore the literature on office design approaches (ODAs) in relation to employee health. The overall goal is to facilitate the practical use and theoretical development of design approaches to healthy offices. Design/methodology/approach A scoping review of 7,432 papers collected from 4 electronic databases and 5 scientific journals resulted in the selection of 18 papers for content analysis. Findings Various ODAs relating to building design features and health were identified. The findings highlight challenges for this emergent field, including a paucity of literature on ODAs, a lack of definitions of health and healthy offices, ambiguous design strategies and a lack of a holistic ODA. Originality/value ODAs are potentially valuable resources but an under-considered topic for healthy office development. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first scoping review to map and compare different design approaches in the context of office design and its main contribution is in encouraging researchers and practitioners to bring a salutogenic and holistic perspective to their design approaches.

Built environment, elderly, planning, satisfaction, staff.

Purpose -The aim of this paper is to describe the process of the client's operationally determined requirements as they are translated into a strategic brief and how this is then transformed into a number of general briefs (outline briefs -four in total) adapted to various project categories so as to eventually be implemented in approximately 500 projects (through project briefs) distributed throughout Sweden. In addition, there is a description of the procurement procedure, which was directly based on briefs and the collaboration between the construction project's various players during the design phase, with the aim of clarifying how the development business's requirements were tested, developed and gradually implemented in the form of physical solutions. Design/methodology/approach -Two research methods have been applied: a broad (comprehensive) case study based on a workshop, interviews and studies of project documentation; and literature studies with the aim of generalising and analysing the client's brief work on the basis of the case studied. Findings -A number of factors (11 in total) of importance to implementation of the dynamic briefing are described and discussed in relation to the theoretical discussion in the field (theoretical framework). The case study supports the picture of briefing taking place as part of a dynamic process during which all players are responsible for adopting the development operation's overall goals, developing them and realising them in the best possible way in the individual project. Practical implications -The case study describes how business requirements are translated and developed during a collaborative process involving client and contractor -the brief's importance as procurement data. Experience from this case study may also be of benefit to other client organisations that are to implement national/international projects. Originality/value -The case study describes new knowledge of how national change processes are realised as well as collaboration between client and contractor. The paper offers insights for the academic community, professionals in the construction industry and clients involved in large-scale facilities and change processes.