Gonzalo Lizarralde

A systems view of temporary housing projects in post‐disaster reconstruction

Natural cataclysms (earthquakes, hurricanes and so forth) become natural disasters when they coincide with vulnerabilities; unfortunately, informal settlements in developing countries are only too often highly vulnerable – a reality amply and unhappily confirmed by available statistics. In this context, reconstruction projects are sandwiched between the short‐term necessity to act promptly and the long‐term requirements of sustainable community development – a situation that is currently reflected in alternative and conflicting paradigms at the policy level. Adopting a case‐study approach, we explore the use of temporary housing within two post‐disaster environments, where the impact of different organizational designs leads to fundamentally different solutions to the short‐term housing problem. Our research adopts a dynamic systems approach, associating strategic organizational team design with the development of tactical technical proposals. Two case studies from Turkey and Colombia show that a coherent approach to the sequential stages of providing immediate shelter, temporary housing and permanent reconstruction is not always obtained. The research results emphasize that the performance of reconstruction projects is directly linked to the design and management of the project team.

Relationships between Construction Clients and Participants of the Building Industry: Structures and Mechanisms of Coordination and Communication

Abstract This article examines the factors that determine the relationships between project clients and participants of the building industry at two different levels: at the level of the structures created for project procurement and at the level of formal and informal mechanisms of coordination and communication between the client and participants of the building industry, integrated within the projects temporary multi-organization (TMO). Contrary to the majority of contributions in project governance in construction, this research analyses both inter-organization and intra-organization relations in order to challenge existing configurations of the TMO based on procurement strategies. The research, based on comparative case studies of institutional clients in Canada, examines (a) the functioning of the structures and contractual relations between clients and their main consultants and contractors and (b) the formal and informal mechanisms of coordination used by client representatives (notably mechanisms based on informal communication). The results highlight important characteristics of the mechanisms of communication between the institutional client and other members of the project TMO. The study (based on document analysis, observations, interviews and network mapping) concludes that the structure of the TMO, as derived from procurement strategies, does not reflect the real relations between project participants.

Sustainable Development in the Building Sector: A Canadian Case Study on the Alignment of Strategic and Tactical Management

Increasingly, organizations view sustainable development principles as a key tool in aligning their strategic plans with specific objectives and procedures used for managing projects. However, more research is needed to identify how sustainable development contributes to aligning longer-term strategic management of clients in the building sector with their short-term needs for construction project management. We present a multicase study of three construction projects conducted by an institutional client in Canada, developed through a review and evaluation of project feasibility studies, construction project meeting transcripts, contract documentation, organization and policy documents, and seven semistructured interviews of managers involved in these projects. We found that the principles of sustainable development transcended both short-term needs and long-term responsibility, facilitating the alignment of the strategic and tactical plans.

Framing responses to post‐earthquake Haiti

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to add a new dimension to urban resilience by exploring how representations of disasters, reconstruction and human settlements are made, and how, by shaping plans and programs, they ultimately influence resilience.Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on James Scotts notion of “legibility” to ask how different representations simplify complex realities and how they are transformed into plans and programs. The paper first outlines the various broad analytic lens used to examine legibility to portray post‐disaster reconstruction, drawing on international literature and policies. The paper then focuses on post‐earthquake Haiti and analyzes eight reconstruction plans and reviews design proposals submitted for the Building Back Better Communities program to explore how different stakeholders portrayed the disaster, identified the reconstruction challenges and proposed to address human settlements.Findings – Representations of the disaster, the reconstruction challeng...

The informal construction sector and the inefficiency of low cost housing markets

Urban low cost housing markets in developing countries are often inefficient and subsidized programmes can add further market distortions. In the case of South Africa, one of the important causes of the inefficiency of the housing market (and one that is often ignored) is the fact that housing policies and construction practices systematically exclude the informal construction sector: the very sector that has been the only source of delivery of affordable housing for the bottom poor. After the end of the apartheid era and the transition to democracy in 1994, an ambitious programme of subsidized housing was implemented in the country. Since then, more than 1.6 million housing units have been built but the housing policies have not created a functional residential market for low income South Africans. In spite of the good intentions of the stakeholders in the marketplace, some projects developed by NGOs do not help to overcome these shortcomings and frequently accentuate some of the inefficiencies of the market. Four case studies of housing projects in Cape Town show the common constraints derived from institutional structures and prevailing attitudes among the NGOs and other stakeholders that prevent the informal sector from being involved. Giving greater participation to the informal sector in subsidized housing projects might prove difficult as it requires modification of structural policies and reformulation of the principles and values of urban intervention. However, these changes are required to reduce the housing deficit in South Africa.

A systems approach to resilience in the built environment: the case of Cuba.

Through its capacity to evoke systemic adaptation before and after disasters, resilience has become a seductive theory in disaster management. Several studies have linked the concept with systems theory; however, they have been mostly based on theoretical models with limited empirical support. The study of the Cuban model of resilience sheds light on the variables that create systemic resilience in the built environment and its relations with the social and natural environments. Cuba is vulnerable to many types of hazard, yet the countrys disaster management benefits from institutional, health and education systems that develop social capital, knowledge and other assets that support construction industry and housing development, systematic urban and regional planning, effective alerts, and evacuation plans. The Cuban political context is specific, but the study can nonetheless contribute to systemic improvements to the resilience of built environments in other contexts.

Structuring of temporary multi-organizations: Contingency theory in the building sector

The appropriate management of construction projects presupposes a clear comprehension of the structure of the temporary multi-organization (TMO); however, most of the work on the structuring of TMOs has concentrated either on procurement strategies or the structure of individual organizations. Current approaches, therefore, do not fully consider the roles of all project stakeholders, the informal communications, and the complexity of the client organization. Instead, we argue that the contingency theory contributes to the understanding of the structuring of TMOs. The analysis of 27 recent construction projects allows us to identify two contingency factors and patterns of configuration of the TMO.

Finding out: a system for providing rapid and reliable answers to questions in the construction sector

The construction sector is notorious for the dichotomy between its intensive use of information in its decision‐making processes and its limited access to, and insufficient use of, the pertinent information that is potentially available, e.g. on the internet. This paper seeks to examine this issue. To solve this problem (the ‘problem of information aboutinformation’), a multidisciplinary team developed an online question‐answering (Q.‐A.)system that uses natural language for the query and the reply. The system provides a direct answer to questions posed by building industry participants, instead of providing a list of references (as is the case with most online information retrieval systems), much as if onewere asking a question of, and receiving a response from, an expert.It has the capabilitiesto process questions in natural language, to find appropriate fragments of answers indifferent web sites and to condense them into a paragraph, also written in natural language. The main features of the system are that it uses domain‐specific knowledge (in the form ofa hierarchical specialized thesaurus complemented by terms of fieldwork parlance),semantic categorization, a database of filtered and indexed web sites, and an online interface that is adapted to different profiles of actors in the construction sector. The testing process shows that the system goes beyond the lists of references and links provided by traditional search engines on the web.The Q.‐A.system already gives 70% of satisfactory answers. The Q.‐A.system can be applied to other business domains apart from information retrieval and decision‐making in the building sector. It is also possible to apply it to the exploitation of in‐house knowledge management database.

Iterative Project Processes Within Temporary Multi-Organizations in Construction: The Self-, Eco-, Re-Organizing Projects

Theory-based studies claim that informal processes interfere with the formal mechanisms and structures of projects in the construction sector. These processes structure and transform multi-organizations. This four-year case study reveals empirical evidence about how processes effectively evolve over time and affect formal mechanisms and structures. The results show: (1) the significant differences between what is planned and what actually unfolds in project processes; (2) how iterative processes overshadow linear ones; (3) how informality and “iterativity” eventually end up as self-, eco-, and re-organizing projects and organizations, confirming that projects (re)create the very processes and structures that initiate them.

The influence of green building certifications in collaboration and innovation processes

While the paradigm of sustainable development has largely influenced architecture projects worldwide, Green Building Certifications (GBCs) have become the new (increasingly mandatory) standard of project performance. Numerous studies have concentrated on the influence of sustainable development (SD) in the final product: the building. However, more research is still needed in order to understand how GBCs have influenced building processes, particularly collaboration and innovation within architecture projects. In order to fill this gap, this study presents results from 19 interviews with professionals in the built environment and examines three architecture projects conducted in Canada that received a widely popular GBC and were significantly influenced by SD principles during the design and building process. The research applies recent frameworks for exploring stakeholders’ interests on GBCs and the collaboration and innovation practices developed by them. Research results show that processes within these projects are shaped by at least four tensions that can either enhance or hinder collaboration and innovation: strategic–tactical, collaborative–competitive, participative–effective and individual–collective. The study highlights the importance of understanding GBC as a process and not only as a final outcome, and thus, to better manage these tensions so that they contribute to product and process performance.