A sustainable built environment for healthcare: generative mechanisms for future-proofing

SBE 19 - Emerging Concepts for Sustainable Built Environment

生态环境科学

Krystallis, I.^1 ; Rickaby, B.^1 ; Murtagh, N.^1

Bartlett Faculty, School of Construction and Project Management, 1-19 Torrington Place, London

WC1E7HB, United Kingdom^1

关键词: Case study research;    Construction professionals;    Construction projects;    Generative mechanism;    Healthcare facility;    In-depth interviews;    Strategic perspectives;    Sustainable outcomes;   

Others  :  https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-1315/297/1/012039/pdf
DOI  :  10.1088/1755-1315/297/1/012039

学科分类：环境科学（综合）

来源: IOP

【 摘 要 】

Construction projects are planned from a set of deterministic objectives and constraints that dictates what designers must accomplish. In the case of healthcare facilities, where the policy environment is characterized by change on several fronts, fixed requirements could constrain their evolvability and sustainability. Future-proofing is a response to uncertainty whereby a physical structure is designed to respond to future changes in requirements, change of use, strategic perspectives, business drivers, new policies and changing climate. The paper investigates the causal powers that explain how and why future-proofing decisions achieve a sustainable outcome. A critical realist lens is adopted to develop a configurational perspective of future-proofing design evolution. Critical Realism's open systems ontology of social reality can account for the fact that outcomes are not predictable and can better explain the nature of causation in complex social interactions such as construction projects. A case study research design was conducted comprising in-depth interviews with healthcare construction professionals in a UK setting. The study contributes to the sustainability literature by offering four generative mechanisms of future-proofing decision making and how they contingently lead - or fail to lead - to future-proof outcomes. Two change mechanisms and two problem mechanisms are presented, together with their configuration under the right conditions and context to lead to design decisions for construction projects capable of adapting to a range of possible futures.