Vakeva-Baird, S; Tahmasebi, F; Williams, J J and Mumovic, D (2025) Effective interdisciplinary stakeholder engagement in net zero building design. Buildings & Cities, 6(1), pp. 654-673. ISSN 2632-6655
Abstract
Stakeholder engagement is crucial to the design and construction stages of net zero buildings, requiring interdisciplinary collaboration to promote the integrated design process. The double diamond method is used to structure three briefing methods, deployed as stakeholder engagement to promote the integrated design process and identify pathways to regional, socio-technical knowledge utilisation. Stakeholders in three medium-sized, early stage, construction projects in the UK, Ireland and Rwanda included a range of construction professionals, facility users and policymakers. A consultation survey evidenced recurrent themes of professional agency in responding to the climate emergency and importance of carbon reduction through quality project delivery. A participatory workshop established systemic connections of building performance spanning concept, design, construction and operation life-cycle stages which encompassed technical, environmental, economic and social considerations of performance. A priority weighting workshop evidenced cross-case dominance of the provision of healthy environments relative to carbon and economic targets. A range of participation benefits was evidenced from a longitudinal evaluation of participation in the study. Future research directions for net zero buildings and the integrated design process include the use of decision-analysis methods.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | building performance; building project; construction project; design; engagement; evaluation; net zero; participation; stakeholder engagement |
| Index terms: | Ireland, project delivery, integrated design process, design and construction, stakeholder engagement, net zero, construction professional, socio-technical, carbon reduction, workshop, building design, briefing, interdisciplinary collaboration, agency, construction project, Rwanda, survey, building performance |
| Subjects: | project delivery, energy systems, research design and methodology, data collection methods, community and social dimensions, sociology, professional development, architectural design, contractual arrangements, construction type, climate science, scope management, quality assurance, research methods, design process, production management, Geography |
| Topics: | Stakeholder Management, Construction Technology, Research Practice, Information Management, Design Practice, Procurement, Sustainability, Geographical Context, Project Management, Engineering Principles, Quality Management |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTE |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here