Designing the Planning Processes for SustainableBuildings: From Experiment towards Implementation

Abstract

Buildings play crucial role the achievement of sustainability aims. Generally the prescriptive-normative strategies are being used in Europe in order to increase building performance in terms of energy efficiency. The focus is mainly upon development and implementation of new technologies for energy-efficiency of e.g. building hull and -services or the calculation methods. Little effort has been invested into rethinking of planning process for sustainable buildings. The practitioners are aware of the need for a paradigm change in the planning culture, separating planning tasks into sequenced, highly specialized disciplines, and are asking for methods towards more integrated, collaborative planning processes. We argue that for achievement of sustainability aims a paradigm shift form technology- and building performance oriented prescriptive strategy, towards people (planning process stakeholder) as carrier of sustainability is necessary. Special emphasis lies hereby on the need for the development of holistic, life-cycle oriented planning strategy; which enables knowledge transfer from phase to phase, as well as creation of common new knowledge. Critical hereby is the collaboration of all stakeholders of the planning process (planners, users, managers) from the early planning phases on, since these are crucial for the latter building performance.

In order to identify and evaluate advantages of the integrated planning practice (IP), we conducted a role-playing experiment simulating integrated and sequential planning processes for an energy-efficient structure. The experiment was part of a research project Co_Be (Cost Benefits of Integrated Planning) at the Vienna University of Technology. The experiment identified efficiency, team- and process-satisfaction, as well as more balanced stress- and conflict levels of the IP teams as significant advantages of the IP-treatment. The results of the experiment were verified within the stakeholder feedback-workshop with practitioners. There the need for the development of mechanisms, supporting the design of interdisciplinary communication; as well as knowledge creation and knowledge management within the integrated planning processes, was identified.