The Risks of Decisions with Long-Term Impacts Within the Building Process. The Uncertainty in Design Over a Set of Objectives for the Operation and Maintenance Phase

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to underline the opportunity to control the uncertainty over important long-term objectives in architectural design by adopting risk management methods and techniques. Satisfaction with long-term objectives for buildings largely depends on the possibility to carry out due maintenance and the building process is characterized by a sequence of phases where decisions that strongly define adequacy of buildings to be properly maintained are taken at the early stages. Despite the key role of the brief and the design phases in defining building quality over time, the current practice of architectural design is characterized by a large uncertainty around the propensity of designed buildings to meet long-term objectives. This uncertainty is due to a difficulty in linking design features to the needs of use and maintenance. The operation and management phase is, then, the time after the design from which consequences of decision taken upstream appear. At this stage quality of buildings is visible and measurable and, therefore, feedback can help to track the origin of problems. This process of learning from past experiences is called learning by using. With reference to the set of problems that can arise from design the risk management process and techniques can support clients and designers by helping during both the design phase (in analysing the context, simulating events, anticipating possible scenarios) and the operation and management phase (in monitoring the performance of buildings in use in order to instruct actions to manage risks over time).