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Koch, C and Larsen, A (2018) Performance of Retrofit with ICT of Social Housing – Proving Technology Optimists Wrong?. In: Gorse, C and Neilson, C J (Eds.), Proceedings 34th Annual ARCOM Conference, 3-5 September 2018, Queen’s University, Belfast, UK. Association of Researchers in Construction Management, 667–676.
- Type: Conference Proceedings
- Keywords: Retrofit , Information Technology, Performance, Stakeholder
- ISBN/ISSN: 978-0-9955463-2-5
- URL: http://www.arcom.ac.uk/-docs/proceedings/b7a8380f2b03afa9ef555dc48577eb1c.pdf
- Abstract:
The costs of social housing retrofit are critical, for social housing companies, for efforts to build sustainable cities and for society. Compared to avaible resources, they are deemed costly, and there is a need to improve productivity. One approach is to realise digital integration and (partial) automation processes creating more performative digital practices. However what digitalisation should target and its scope is difficult to decide. Even standard concepts like Virtual Design and Construction come in many variants. And to capture the performance gain of digitalisation requires measurement methods, while most methods are designed for new built and production, and does not appreciate the costs and values that characterize retrofit using digital practices.
This paper aims at conceptualizing a method for understanding performance in digitalized retrofit of social housing. A review of approaches to productivity, efficiency and performance is done. Produced values are multidimensional and cannot meaningfully be reduced to costs per m2. Performance is proposed conceptualized as values produced for clients, tenants and companies, and the compared to costs and effects of the digital practices. The context is two phases of a large Scandinavian retrofit project, which is followed by a longitudinal study using a mixed method approach. The social housing consists of 900 apartments in blocks and in row houses at 70.000 m2. The refurbishment encompasses new bath rooms, ventilation and parts of the building envelope. A gradual VDC implementation is carried out, rather than an ambitious overall implementation. The performance is dependent of hybrid IT and organizational practices, where the interaction with tenants is important. It is therefore a hybrid set of factors that lever performance. It is intense coordination among the contractors, it is continual communication and interaction with tenants and it is the craftsmen’s learning during production that improve the performance over time, with a more indirect effect of ICT use. Technology optimism or not, it is not technology alone that improves the performance.