Including and Representing End-User’s Needs When Building Houses of Culture

Abstract

Expressing end-user needs and including them into the public sector building process is crucial to the public sector client when making an informed and legitimate decision and implementation of a construction project. The aim of this article is to analyze how end-user needs can be, and in a specific case are, articulated and taken up differently by stakeholders through the early phases of the public building process. A time-geographical approach allows for theoretical analysis of the early phases of the construction project over time. Hereby an analysis of end-user needs can be visualized and thereby show the complexity of how to manage end-user needs in public building processes. It is here illustrated by the realization of a public House of Culture in a Scandinavian city. The analysis shows how stakeholders networked until the construction project and procurement forms were settled with the contractors. The analysis shows the complex interplay of how stakeholders take on end-user needs by integrating them into the policy process and the briefing process, creating new functional and technical building solutions. The public sector client has to create openings for all types of stakeholders to contribute as early as possible to the public building process when including and representing end-user needs.