Abstract
Municipal building refurbishment projects are carried out under conditions of high uncertainty and complexity, which often result in unsatisfying outcomes. In this research, a case study approach is used to provide a holistic presentation of the sources of uncertainties in the early phase of a municipal school refurbishment project in Finland. The study also explores how these sources are treated in the case project. It is considered that the uncertainty in the case study originated from three key sources: from the project due to the characteristics of existing buildings; from the organization due to the separately operating municipal units; from the municipal environment due to the municipal policy, and decision-making process. This study shows that more emphasis should be laid on the sources of uncertainty in the early phases of a municipal building refurbishment project for reaching proper decisions. In addition, the study presents suggestions for improving the municipal process.
Highlights
Challenges in the management of building refurbishment projects have been identified in several countries
The projects have a number of stakeholders and contracts between the parties, and the conditions and environments vary in every refurbishment project
As this study aims to identify the sources of uncertainty and examine the treatment of these sources in the early phase of a refurbishment project of a publicly owned building, a participatory case study was chosen as the research method
Summary
Challenges in the management of building refurbishment projects have been identified in several countries. Unsatisfying project outcomes, and budget and schedule overruns are common problems, especially in many municipal building refurbishment projects [1,2]. These negative outcomes are associated with the project complexity [3,4], whereas complexity is strongly related to uncertainty [1,3,4,5,6]. Building refurbishment projects are carried out to fulfill new technical, physical or technological requirements [7]. Building refurbishment projects include more uncertainties than new building projects because of the circumstances and limitations that the existing building imposes, as well as due to the social, technological and legislative aspects. The nature of a public environment and political issues cause uncertainties and difficulties for a public construction project, including differing interests among the various public sector parties, as well as a hurried start and poor preparation of projects as the project needs to be implemented before the elections [10,11,12]
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