Design-build contractor selection for public sustainable buildings

Bo Xia, Qing Chen, Yelin Xu, Mei Li, Xiaohua Jin

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    44 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Design-build (DB) is regarded as an effective means of delivering high performance green buildings, and the selection of DB contractors is of critical importance. The objective of this study is to evaluate the selection of design-builders for public buildings seeking leadership in energy and environmental design (LEED) certification and compare the selection practices involved with those of non-LEED-seeking DB projects through a robust content analysis of 74 DB requests for proposals (RFPs) for public DB projects. The results of the content analysis reveal that the level of LEED certification is the dominant means of conveying the sustainability requirements in RFPs for contractor selection, with the majority of RFPs (60%) including sustainability requirements as part of the contractor evaluation package. With the exception of contractors' past performance, there is no statistically significant difference in the importance weights of selection criteria between LEED-seeking and non-LEED-seeking buildings, and DB owners tend to place more emphasis on innovative technical solutions rather than the past performance of DB contractors. Additionally, the research findings also indicate that owners of LEED-seeking building projects tend to provide fewer design decisions in RFPs to solicit innovative design alternatives from potential DB contractors. This study provides DB owners with a number of practical implications for selecting appropriate design-builders for green DB projects.
    Original languageEnglish
    Article number4014070
    Number of pages7
    JournalJournal of Management in Engineering
    Volume31
    Issue number5
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2015

    Keywords

    • architects
    • content analysis
    • design and construction
    • sustainable architecture
    • sustainable buildings

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