Arto Saari

Consumer panel study on elderly people's wishes concerning services.

This study informs on the wishes and needs of elderly people themselves regarding services for the elderly. The data for the study were gathered using a consumer panel method. Elderly people desire assistance in heavy cleaning chores, in outdoor activities and in carrying out their personal business. Elderly people felt that there should be more recreational services available. Elderly people link aging with feelings of insecurity and loneliness. Becoming a service user for the first time is felt to be a very difficult step to take, and so this decision is postponed as long as possible. The elderly people desire a service for assessing their individual service needs in an organized, expert and objective fashion. The study indicates that elderly people value the human contact gained through service provision. The consumer panel method for collecting data was successful.

Flexibuild – a systematic flexibility management procedure for building projects

Purpose – Nowadays it is typical that the precise use of a building becomes clear during construction. Current building processes do not support this in Finland. The objective of this study is to present a novel systematic management of the design process for flexible construction projects, from the project programming stage through to overall design, detailed designs, procurement, and handover, in a situation where the final use of the building becomes clear only during construction.Design/methodology/approach – The development work included a constructive search for solutions to the problems presented above. The process developed in this study is illustrated with two case projects analysed retrospectively.Findings – According the open building principle, buildings should be divided into two parts: a permanent base building; and modifiable interior spaces. This division should apply throughout the buildings entire life cycle, starting from the beginning of the construction project. The start of the proj...

The productivity impact of the voice link between elderly and nurses: An assisted living facility pilot

The aim of the study was to test the use of a voice link between elderly and the caregivers. The new technology replaced the previous system of summoning assistance through activating a corridor-based visual alarm signal in an assisted living facility. The voice link made it possible for caregivers to delay attending to the resident until a more suitable time. In 76% of alarm calls, visits to attend to residents could have been conveniently delayed until a later time, and in 40% of the alarms the caregiver did do just this. Moreover, the installation of the new voice link system resulted in a reduction of nearly 60% in the number of alarm calls. The caregivers felt that the voice link had helped them in their work. The study provides ideas and material on how to undertake further studies on the impact of other examples of new care giving technology.

Re‐engineering of the meal logistics in a sheltered house for elderly people

Purpose – The goal of this study is to perform an economic comparison of alternative service concepts designed to improve the productivity of nursing care in a refurbishment project of selected sheltered housing facility.Design/methodology/approach – Four different service development options were identified for the dining and kitchen facilities: the dining facilities were either decentralised or centralised, and the meals were prepared on site or brought in from outside.Findings – The form of dining model chosen affected the operating costs more than the spatial costs. The biggest differences in operating costs were attributable to the meal price and to the costs of transferring disabled residents to the dining area. The study showed that the option which had the lowest spatial costs surprisingly had the highest total costs. This was the option in which the meals were conveyed to the decentralised dining rooms located on the different floors by the food supplier. The total costs of this option were 50 pe...

Energy Consumption of a Public Swimming Bath

Swimming baths are popular sports and recreation facilities. The high energy consumption in swimming baths presents a great challenge for energy conservation in both new construction and renovation. This paper presents a study where the energy consumption of a Finnish recently built public swimming bath was calculated and analyzed. The annual heating energy consumption of the studied swimming bath was 396 kWh/gross-floor-m 2 and the annual electric energy consumption was 240 kWh. The heating of water accounted for 56 percent of the heating energy. The major part of the electric energy was consumed by the sauna stoves and the wet steam bath (31 %), and heating pumps and water elements (30 %). The calculations were also sensitivity-tested. The calculations were most sensitive to changes in the use of the fa- cility.

Building Flexibility Management

A building may have three types of flexibility: a) service flexibility is important to the buildings users, b) modifiability interests especially the owner, and 3) long-term adaptability is a key factor especially in the stratification of the urban structure and the cultural environment. A new indicator, the Flexibility Degree, was developed as part of this study to measure building modifiability. Clear phasing of the design process facilitates consideration of modifiability in the construction process. In the goal-setting phase the design team analyzes the clients expressed needs and commits to- gether with representatives of the client to set flexibility goals. In the design solution phase the designers work out a solu- tion proposal, a modifiability concept, which describes the principles of how flexibility is implemented in different parts and systems of a building. Only in the third phase, the implementation design phase, are detailed technical plans drawn for implementing the solutions.

Quality level assessment model for senior housing

Purpose – Senior buildings have been designed as purposeful space programs. Therefore the elderly need coherent information about different senior housing concepts. The study seeks to set out a method for measuring the quality level of senior housing.Design/methodology/approach – The method includes measuring four different factors: local services, building and yard, apartment, and on‐site services. Measuring the quality level of two separate residential areas and senior housing facilities demonstrates the use of the quality level measurement system.Findings – The overall quality level of Facility 1 was significantly lower than that of Facility 2. The lower quality level measurement for Facility 1 was primarily the result of the lack of premises for lease to commercial or other tenants and the lack of on‐site services. The quality level measurement system is a successful tool for assessing the functioning and quality standard of residential areas and housing facilities in the point of view of elderly peop...

The indoor condition guarantee procedure and associated lease contract model

Purpose – Numerous studies have shown that indoor environment affects health and performance, which in turn affect productivity. Property owners have not utilized Indoor Environment Quality (IEQ) as a value‐added factor to market the office spaces. On the other hand, tenants have not had a tool to demand certain indoor conditions. The paper aims to present one market mechanism for including IEQ in office space supply: the office lease contract model entitled Indoor Environment Quality.Design/methodology/approach – The research included a constructive search for a lease contract model for the problems presented above. The need for this novel lease model is proved by the financial calculations.Findings – The lease contract procedure whereby a lessor issues a condition guarantee to a tenant consists of: technical building audit process; and entering the terms of the indoor condition guarantee in the lease contract. It makes sense for the owner to invest in a favourable indoor environment if the benefits are ...

Project delivery systems for nZEB projects

Purpose – The paper aims to reveal the most functioning project delivery systems for nearly zero-energy building (nZEB) projects. The focus is set to reveal the qualities of the systems that support the nZEB goals and sustainability. Design/methodology/approach – Research method used in this paper is inductive reasoning. The reasoning is based on existing literature, and conclusions are drawn by combining pieces of that literature. Findings – The state-of-the-art heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) and insulation requirements of nZEB technology and the lack of experience in the industry regarding nZEB projects suggest that modern collaboration-based project delivery systems should be favoured. The authors found that the most suitable project delivery system for a standard nZEB project is the integrated project delivery (IPD), which binds the financial goals of the main parties together via a reimbursement solution: target pricing. The authors also found the construction management (CM) at-ris...

Identifying and managing risks involved in the transition to the EU nZEB decree

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify the risks and challenges related to the change in building construction projects to the European Union (EU) zero-energy building (nZEB) decree in the year 2020. Another goal was to create solutions to those risks and challenges. Design/methodology/approach A workshop method was chosen to gather up-to-date information from the construction cluster in Finland. Findings In the workshop, the main concern was the level of knowledge and know-how with all the parties working with construction projects. As an answer to this challenge, serious and substantial education in the organisations and competence requirements for designers and piloting as much as possible in the next few years was offered. Commissioning consultant was also seen as vital for nZEB project. Tight schedules and unfit project delivery systems were also seen as a risk for nZEB projects. However, modern project delivery systems were seen to be problematic in practice even if they were functional in theory. Originality/value The results of the workshop are valuable for all parties working with building construction projects in Finland and the whole EU area.