Risk stages and factors in architectural design- A structural equation modelling

Abstract

ABSTRACT The design phase is one of the key project processes in the construction industry. Despite the architects’ responsibility to develop complete, accurate and coordinated project documents, architectural design is accompanied by multiple errors and consequential risks. That is, the errors are potentially costly and time-consuming to correct and impose significant risks if are not caught early during the design phase, and become cumbersome to be handled in the construction documents and the construction phase. The aim of this research is to identify the risky stages in the architectural design process and find what factors cause risks in that process within the context of Iran. To this end, a combination of a qualitative and quantitative method as the sequential mixed-method was designed in which the research was commenced through the qualitative exploratory investigation to discover the literature and then, proceeded to the quantitative research including questionnaire design, model structure development and the Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) application and analysis. The results of the study reveal that the greatest design risks may occur in the identification and investigation phase of the Iranian architectural design process when the feasibility studies and planning are not conducted accurately, correctly and completely. Moreover, the outcome shows that time pressures in design data collection, ambiguous objectives of the clients, and poor disciplinary coordination are the main risk factors in architectural design.