Search

Expressing end-user needs and including them into the public sector building process is crucial to the public sector client when making an informed and legitimate decision and implementation of a construction project. The aim of this article is to analyze how end-user needs can be, and in a specific case are, articulated and taken up differently by stakeholders through the early phases of the public building process. A time-geographical approach allows for theoretical analysis of the early phases of the construction project over time. Hereby an analysis of end-user needs can be visualized and thereby show the complexity of how to manage end-user needs in public building processes. It is here illustrated by the realization of a public House of Culture in a Scandinavian city. The analysis shows how stakeholders networked until the construction project and procurement forms were settled with the contractors. The analysis shows the complex interplay of how stakeholders take on end-user needs by integrating them into the policy process and the briefing process, creating new functional and technical building solutions. The public sector client has to create openings for all types of stakeholders to contribute as early as possible to the public building process when including and representing end-user needs.

There are increased demands to prepare for and coordinate of crisis management in public administrative bodies. Governmental organizations and authorities have responsibility for providing systems and structures of coordination before, during, and after crises. Among these are the technical information systems which create the structuring arena for coordination and integration that is analyzed here. There are several technical information systems to choose from for municipalities, which are responsible for local crisis management in Sweden. One technical information system, known as web-based information system (WIS), was a national initiative, but due to the local autonomy mandated in the Swedish constitution it was complicated to get municipalities to choose the national system and alternative local technical information systems were developed. The study builds on a bottom-up analysis of how municipalities choose technical information systems within crisis management. The main conclusion points out the importance of organizational structure in governance and the demand of flexibility in technology.