Structuration and the Social Dynamics of AEC Integrated Project Teams in High-performance Energy Design

Abstract

Since integrated project teams and high-performance buildings have become much more mainstream project delivery systems and project objectives in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry, this study investigated how the inherent social processes within integrated project teams influenced the realization of energy performance goals. By connecting agency and structure through the analytical framework of structuration, this qualitative study explained change patterns in the practices of integrated project teams engaged in high-performance energy design.The first study was grounded in data collected from one large architectural firm and compared the energy design practices of two major building projects. The findings indicated that meso-level and macro-level structural constraints exerted significant influence over different energy design decisions. These constraints included issues like architects’ professional self-conceptions, the firm-level ambition to position themselves as leaders in high-performance building design, and somewhat radical differences in project management methods. The second study examined a set of U.S. hospital projects that successfully achieved their energy reductions predicted through energy modeling during design after the buildings were constructed and operational. The investigation focused on the practice changes and shifts in structural constraints within integrated project teams that contributed to achieving significant energy reductions. The findings discovered a pattern of resistant project variables and meso- and macro-level forces that we called strong constraints. These constraints had the capacity to direct energy design decisions as well as integrate the decision process more consistently across project teams leading to other team integration improvements in areas like communication. The third study was a sensemaking effort motivated by the aim to uncover how integrated project teams enact change processes within their social contexts, to establish the intrinsic relationship between design and change, and to demonstrate the empirical value of analyzing these kinds of project-based change practices through the lens of structuration theory. The paper consolidated previously disparate literatures across AEC activities and concepts to demonstrate that the analytical capacities of structuration theory possess a strong natural affinity with the essential characteristics of AEC practice. Addressing notable gaps in the existing structuration-based practice research literature, the paper extended a previous structuration process model to be more useful to AEC practice change research and presented three illustrative examples in which transcript excerpts were diagrammed and interpreted through a simplified process of structuration analysis.