Client requirement representations and transformations in construction project design

Abstract

Article Accepted Version Collinge, W. H. (2017) Client requirement representations and transformations in construction project design. Journal of Engineering, Design and Technology, 15 (2). pp. 222241. AbstractExploring how client requirements undergo representational and transformational shifts through the design process, a social semiotic framework is mobilized to examine a series of construction project representations of hospital department configurations in their context of use as meaning making resources. The analysis reveals how semiotic resource use is intrinsic to design work: the deployment and use of sign constructs influencing multiple processes including communications, relations between parties and stakeholder engagement. Supported by practitioner opinion, it is contended that construction project design work may be understood as social semiotic practice: both client parties and designers judiciously employing sign constructs to represent requirements in a process that can be politically sensitive, competitive and temporally constrained. IntroductionDespite their centrality to the design process, the representational shifts that client requirements undergo in briefing work are seldom recognized or acknowledged by practitioners or commentators. This is in spite of briefing being recognised as a collaborative, social process (Barrett and Stanley, 1999) that demands effective communication between parties (Dainty et al., 2006;Emmitt & Gorse, 2007). Although a wide variety of communications are used in design work (e.g. a written brief; rough sketches; formal drawings; computerized imagery; physical models), the role and significance of such resources to represent client requirements is deserving of further study. This paper re-focuses attention upon how the built environment needs of clients are expressed through their requirements: often initially detailed in a strategic brief, but then subsequently transformed by designers into drawings, images, models, etc. The paper will note how the representation of requirements through sign communications has multiple implications for the design process, including requirement interpretation, stakeholder engagement, intra-project relationships and project control.The paper uses a series of requirement representations relating to hospital department configurations drawn from a hospital construction project and examines them with a social semiotic framework. It will be argued that although client requirements provide a tangible and ever-present link to client needs, the semiotic choice of representation and communication is motivated by human intention, and is intrinsic to the sharing of meanings.The paper builds upon the work of construction management academics who have identified meaning as pre-eminently important (e.g. Dainty et al. 2006), who have described briefing as a social process (e.g. Fernie et al. 2003;Fleming, 1996) and those who identify construction communication as a semiotic process (Gluch and Raisanen, 2009). The analysis clarifies how and why si...

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Infection Control in Design and Construction Work

“…construction project work, it has also been noted how sign communications provide a vital link between the realizations of design and the cognitive interpretations of construction project stakeholders (Collinge, 2014;Collinge & Harty, 2014). From a medical facility construction project perspective, it is important to clarify how infection control requirements are communicated and understood by project participants as effective infection control is recognized as preeminently important (Department of Health, 2013; Hamilton, 2013).…”

“…Although information exchanges have been called the “fuel of design” (Baldwin, Austin, Hassan, & Thorpe, 1999, p. 155), academics and commentators (e.g., Blyth & Worthington, 2001; Kamara, Anumba, & Evbuomwan, 2000; Markus & Cameron, 2002) have also observed that requirements are “translated” from one communicative form (i.e., words) to another (i.e., schematic drawing, visualization, and physical model). Although communicative resources such as briefing texts, drawings, and images make meanings and shared understandings (Gluch & Raisanen, 2009) in construction project work, it has also been noted how sign communications provide a vital link between the realizations of design and the cognitive interpretations of construction project stakeholders (Collinge, 2014; Collinge & Harty, 2014). From a medical facility construction project perspective, it is important to clarify how infection control requirements are communicated and understood by project participants as effective infection control is recognized as preeminently important (Department of Health, 2013; Hamilton, 2013).…”