Preliminary Study of Green Design and Project Delivery Methods in the Public Sector

The selection of the project delivery method (PDM) for any project is critical—it establishes the communication, coordination, and contractual interfaces between the owner, contractor, and designer. With an increase in the number of green design projects, understanding the relationship between the PDM and green design is paramount to project and contract management. While it is reasonable to assume that a relationship between green design and design-build (DB) exists since both theoretically are intended to foster an integrated, holistic, team-based collaborative project; it is also appropriate to understand the relationship between green design and other PDMs. This preliminary research examined possible relationships between design-bid-build (DBB), construction management (CM), and DB PDMs and green design with the goal of beginning to identify potential positive correspondence between them. To develop an initial understanding, two main tasks were completed. First, existing published research was evaluated to reveal aspects of projects and PDMs independent of green design. Second, the research collected primarily qualitative information by conducting structured interviews with approximately twenty-five individuals, including owners, contractors, and designers involved in completed green design projects, mainly in the public sector. Upon completion of the structured interviews, responses from the interviews were reviewed for green design project characteristics. Additionally, the interviews provided insight on the initial understanding of the current state of knowledge and experience in green design and PDMs. After the two main tasks were completed, both were evaluated for commonalities. Preliminary results found that seven green design project characteristics emerged that in some cases related to a specific PDM, but in other cases were independent of a PDM. Future research will quantitatively investigate the relationship between green design projects, PDMs, and success factors.