Data Collection and Research Methods

After testing and validating the research approach, the step of data collection was carried out by collecting and cross checking the information required by different sources for each case study selected. The types of information required was the one that could help describe the building and process characteristics (as described in section 4.2.2), the innovation type and impact (section 4.2.3), the role of actors (section 4.2.4), and the results achieved (4.2.5).

As showed in table 4, the types of sources utilized were: technical documents, bibliography, building observations and interviews. Once the information was collected, a framework was structured to conduct the analysis, as showed in Appendix A and B.

Technical documents, such as conceptual sketches, architectural drawing, construction drawings, shop drawings, specifications, meeting minutes were utilised to describe the building characteristics (as defined in section 4.2.2), as well as the building delivery process. These information were completed by the data available in the press documents of every projects, in the publications available for each building analysed. Often these sort of sources were used to complete the information regarding the building delivery process, as industry partners often published reports on projects experiences, describing their role in the delivery. Other sources of document utilised were energy certificates, post-occupancy documents, and award reports. In these two types of documents it was possible to tease out the sustainability types of results achieved by each project.

Building observations were also conducted, where possible, to test and check the information previously collected on both the building characteristics described, and the sustainability results achieved. As Nigra (2010) explained:’…As physical artefacts, buildings provide material evidence of the process that led to their realization and the effectiveness of the decisions made prior to it: construction details implicitly reflect the knowledge of production factors embedded in the work and the efficacy of the contractual methods employed to structure underlying socio-technical relations; building use patterns validate or reject choices made at program definition and development stages;

building maintenance requirements give an indication of the depth of thinking that

went into the operational life of the building, or help assess the administrative and labour structure that put it together’.

The interviews were conducted by verifying the building characteristics explored in the technical documents, understand role and responsibilities of the actors involved, as well as by recording the building delivery experiences reported by the architects, and by assessing with the architects the degree of innovation of each building characteristic in relation to the context. The interviews were semi-structured to allow flexibility in the narrative of the uniqueness (Turin, 1980) of each project experience analysed. Such interviews were approved by the Strathclyde University Ethical Approval System. Sample of starting questions were the following:

1. What is your most innovative sustainable building projects?

2. What is the most innovative sustainable feature/strategy of this project?

3. What was your design and management approach to sustainability on this project?

4. What positive or negative impacts this innovation has generated?

Where these impacts social, economic, and/or environmental?

5. What strategy have you used to avoid negative impacts?

6. What innovative design decisions impacted the project development?

How?

7. Who had an important role in the introduction of sustainable innovation?

8. What have you learned from this project experience?

9. What impact working on this project has had on your practice?

10. In general, what do you think are the major criticalities and opportunities in introducing sustainable innovation in the building industry?

The table below shows the type of sources that were utilised for each case study. As result of the structural fragmentation of the project-based, and the difficulties in defining uniform knowledge transfer mechanisms typical of the industry (Gann, 2000; Tombesi 2008; Nigra 2010), the types of sources varied for each project. For instance, interviews were carried out for the majority of projects, except for example, for the North American case studies, due to the difficulties in reaching out some of the largest firms in the country. Yet, the information required was found in the extensive reports published by the American Institute of Architect (AIA), which produced yearly analytical documents for the most sustainable building projects in the country, where the innovation type, the role of actors, the results and the impact on the local contexts are largely discussed. For other case studies, such as the African one, it was not possible to conduct the building observations in person, due to the logistic difficulties of reaching some remote areas, as well as due to the shortage of funds available to conduct such

field trip. Yet, validation of the case study description was done in such cases by the interviews conducted with the local architects, as well as by the observation of the post-occupancy photographic reports carried out by the architects themselves.

Table 5: The table below shows the type of sources utilised for each of the case study analysed.

Building Technical

Post-occupancy

Drawings

Burundi,

USA Drawings

The collected data were then organized into a working frame that created two matrixes as showed in the following figures, one referred to the building (Appendix A) and the second one to the building process (Appendix B). These frameworks were used to conduct the analysis in which, after describing building components and delivery process, each aspect was analysed according to type an impact of innovation, actors responsibilities, and sustainability results (Appendix C). In particular for each building characteristic analysed the following questions were explored:

- Which type of innovation definition this building characteristic correspond to? Is it incremental, modular, architectural, system or radical innovation? (please refer to definitions in section 4.2.2)

- Who was the actor who introduced such innovation? (please refer to definitions in table 2)

- Has the innovation produced any environmental, social or economic result?

For the building process, the questions posed were instead:

- Were the actors required to undertake competence enhancing and/or competence destroying activities to deliver the project?

- Who took such decision on the delivery process?

- Which environmental, social and/or economic results the delivery process has achieved?

In order to answer to such questions, the context of each case study was explored to understand the degree of development in the socio-technical charactertics. To do so, research was conducted to understand the normative framework and policies, the technological systems ustilised in the area, and the organizational forms typical of each context. Also, the material availability and the industrial participation and availability was explored. These information served to provide a basis for the analysis, and therefore to understand the degree of innovation departing from the standard practice of each context.

As suggested by Yin (2018), the output produced by the frame works previously explained were organised into a visual display to allow the simultaneous reading of all the case studies analysed. For each case study, the innovation type and impact was summarised and graphically represented as follow:

Table 6: The table below shows an example of visual representation of innovation type used on each case study

Incremental Modular Architectural System Radical Context Characteristics building and the delivery process according to environmental, social, and economic domain.

Figure 7: The pie charts represents a visual example for showing the types of results achieved on each project analysed.

The role of actors was expressed by the application of the eco-innovation and sustainability model (Bossink 2013). By counting the number of decisions on the

Building Process

project, the position of each actor within the eco-innovation levels and represents with a graphical output to help visualise the behaviour on each actor according to the eco-innovation and sustainability management model, explained in section 4.2.4.

Figure 8: The image above shows an example of graphical output of the role of each actors within the eco-innovation levels of the eco-innovation and sustainability management model