Contradictions of interests in early phase of real estate projects - What adds value for owners and users?

In the last decades, Norwegian real estate projects have traditionally focused on cost minimization rather than value optimization. The main intention of the research project “OSCAR – value for Owners and Users of buildings” is to develop competences, methods and analysis tools that makes it possible to optimize the design that creates value for owners and users throughout the buildings’ lifetime. This paper aims to elucidate what adds value for owners and users as well as looking at what are the main contradictions of interests in early phase planning of buildings. The research is approached by a literature review and a questionnaire survey among a wide range of stakeholders (N = 799) in the Norwegian building Industry. The survey focus on the four dimensions of sustainability, namely social, economic, environmental and physical aspects of the building. In this paper, we focus on the economic and social value aspects, and look at how these contribute to value creation for owners and users of buildings. The literature points towards need for increased competence in value management and new co-creative collaborative working models as a continuously part of the building process. We suggest using a structured network role to better understand and safeguard the owner, user and FM needs, and to improve the users’ influence on the decision process in early phase of constructions projects. We believe this this is a successful way of finding innovative designs and technical solutions. Exploratory principal component analysis (PCA) of the responses gave many interesting findings. The owners and users have significantly different views concerning financial issues and efficient operation of buildings in the use phase. These findings are topics for further research. Keywords: Early phase involvement, owner, user and Facilities Management involvement, cocreation models, value management, building process