Problem-solving base building under uncertainty and ambiguity: Multiple-case study on an airport expansion program

This multiple-case study induces alternative strategies to coordinate the overlap of tasks to detail and physically execute base building with tasks to conceptualize the business-critical fit out. Base-building subsystems provide service space for occupancy, whereas fit-out subsystems make the space functional. Our empirical findings on problem-solving base-building design under uncertainty and ambiguity stem from a number of projects in an airport expansion program. They suggest that base-building subsystems show low sensitivity to incremental changes in fit out as their definitions are seldom optimized to eliminate slack. Yet, base-building subsystems show high sensitivity to radical changes in fit out when the architectures of the two subsystems are integral to one another. Three strategies for problem-solving base building stand out: (1) iterate design when preliminary information about fit out is ambiguous, or precise but unstable; (2) physically decouple the architectures of base building and fit out; and (3) design buffers in base building when preliminary information about fit out lacks precision but it is not ambiguous. These buffers can be designed out if uncertainties in fit out resolve favorably before starting the physical execution for base building.