Conflict, Complexity, and Uncertainty

in Building Refurbishment Projects

Adel Noori, Masran Saruwono, Hamimah Adnan

and Ismail Rahmat

Abstract Building refurbishments involve improvement, upgrading, renovation,

retrofit, and repair of existing buildings. It is an important sector of the construction
industry. Building refurbishment projects are characterized by a high level of
complexity and uncertainty which often involves factors such as change in design,
inadequate and unavailable information which may initiate conflicts. The aim of
this paper is to investigate how the factors cause conflicts. A comprehensive lit-
erature review was carried out as part of on-going Ph.D. research program. The
review reveals that building refurbishment projects are more uncertain than new
building projects and that the uncertainties tend to increase conflicts. This paper
concludes that knowledge relating to complexity and uncertainty in refurbishment
projects and the factors that cause conflict has to be managed systematically to
enable successful project implementation.

Keywords Building refurbishment
Complexity and uncertainty
Conflict

1 Introduction

Building refurbishment works involve improvement, upgrading, renovation,

expansion, and repair of existing building [1, 2]. The benefits of refurbishing
existing building have recently been brought into focus along side the concern on
environmental impacts of buildings [3]. This is due to the fact that existing
buildings constitute the majority of the total building stocks for years to come and
hence will remain responsible for the majority of greenhouse gas emissions in the
environment [3]. Also, building refurbishment works have received increasing

A. Noori
M. Saruwono
H. Adnan
I. Rahmat (&)

Faculty of Architecture, Planning and Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM),
40450 Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia
e-mail: ismail046@salam.uitm.edu.my
A. Noori
e-mail: Adel.noori61@gmail.com

© Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2016 251

M. Yusoff et al. (eds.), InCIEC 2015, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-0155-0_24

adel.noori61@gmail.com
252 A. Noori et al.

Table 1 The growth of Type of refurbishment Number of refurbishment projects

building refurbishment projects 2011 2012 2013 2014
projects in Malaysia,
2011–2014 Upgrading 513 516 612 435
Expansion 176 179 146 92
Repair 241 247 401 281
Renovation 300 337 291 220
Total 1230 1279 1450 1028
Source Malaysia, CIDB (2014)

Table 2 Total number of Type of work Number of new projects

new projects in Malaysia,
2011 2012 2013 2014
2011–2014
New building 6160 6229 6289 4539
Source Malaysia, CIDB (2014)

attention and grown hugely in the past decade; because of the change in economic
conditions and the emphasis on sustainable development [4]. In Malaysia, building
refurbishment works have become an important sector in the construction industry.
This is due to increased number of aged buildings and rapidly changing technology
that requires the existing buildings to be altered to accommodate the current
building needs [5]. In recent years, the numbers of building refurbishment projects
have been increasing rapidly. Data in Table 1 shows a growth in the number of
building refurbishment projects from 2011 to 2014. However, due to downturn in
the construction industry, these numbers have been slightly decreased in 2014
(Table 2).
It should be considered that many building refurbishment projects have not been
reported during these years, especially those that have been done by building
owners. Therefore, the value of building refurbishment projects could be higher.
The first objective of this paper is to identify the factors that make building
refurbishment projects complicated and uncertain. The second objective is to
establish the extent to which these factors cause conflicts.
Changes in design, inadequate and unavailable information, difficulty of access
to the site, difficulty of matching new materials with the old ones, limited space
available for working, and storage of material are common factors that cause
complication and uncertainty in building refurbishment projects [6–11].
Therefore, it is important to do further research to establish the factors that
contribute to the complexity and uncertainty of building refurbishment projects.
In construction industry, complexity and uncertainty is one of the main factors
that cause conflicts [12–14]. Also, conflicts are more likely to occur in building
refurbishment projects which are noted with a high level of complexity and
uncertainty [8].

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Conflict, Complexity, and Uncertainty in Building Refurbishment … 253

Rahmat and Ali [15] states that complexity and uncertainty cause conflict in
building refurbishment projects. Thus, the aim of this paper is to overview the
factors that cause complexity and uncertainty in building refurbishment projects and
to show how these factors cause conflicts in the projects.

2 What is Complexity and Uncertainty in Building

Refurbishment Projects?

Baccarini [16] defined project complexity as consisting of interconnected parts and

can be operationalized in terms of differentiation and interdependency, and this
definition can be applied to any project dimension relevant to the project man-
agement process, such as organization, technology, environment, information,
decision-making, and systems.
Uncertainty may have different meanings in different fields. In psychology,
uncertainty is defined as a state of mind characterized by a conscious lack of
knowledge about the outcomes of an event [17]. However, in project management,
uncertainty is defined as an event or condition that, if occurs, has a positive or
negative effect on at least one project objective, such as time, cost, scope, or quality
[18]. Also, [19] in a simplest and most comprehensive expression which defined
uncertainty as difference between information required for the decision and the
information available.
In addition, there is a relationship between complexity and uncertainty: with
increasing complexity, uncertainty also decreases [20]. As business systems
become more complex, it is difficult for managers to be certain of anything [20]. By
the same token, [21] believe that the more complex the undertaking, the greater the
likelihood of surprise, because more factors can interact in unforeseen ways. So,
there is a strong correlation between complexity and uncertainty.
The complexity and uncertainty variables in building refurbishment projects are
many, such as unforeseen site conditions [22, 23], site access [12, 22, 24, 25], lack of
space [13, 24, 26], availability of material [24, 26–29], design change [8, 30–32],
defective design and plan [6, 25, 29], and lack of information during design stage
[11, 31, 33]. However, [8] found that unavailability of design information and
changes in design during construction had the greatest impact on project perfor-
mance, and arguably, on the level of conflicts. Therefore, this paper focuses on these
two variables of building refurbishment projects, complexities, and uncertainties.
The second cause of complexity and uncertainty is design change, which ‘is
inevitable’ in construction [14]. Change is the act or an instance of making or
becoming different, an alteration or modification. Changes in construction projects are
mainly due to changes due to site conditions, changes due to client requirement, and
changes due to design errors. [34], incomplete design information [11, 30, 35, 36],
insufficient condition data, inadequate information on building condition, and
ineffective communication between the client and contractors [35].

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Changes in building refurbishment projects are exacerbated by unforeseen site

conditions [11]. Unforeseen site conditions are defined as an unanticipated or
unexpected circumstance or situation that affects the price, time and quality of
project [37]. For instance, information about building services is normally very
limited and is one of the major elements of unforeseen building conditions [11].
This is mainly due to the fact that the majority of services components such as
electrical wiring and piping are embedded in walls or ceilings [11]. Unforeseen site
conditions could occur because of the demolition work involved in the building
refurbishment projects [38]. Demolition works involve tearing down, breaking up,
and razing whole buildings or parts of buildings and includes the removal of
machinery or equipment from buildings [39]. The demolition of a building can be
total or partial. Total demolition is, in general, aimed at the recovery of the area for
subsequent reuse, while partial demolition is aimed at the recovery of the building
for refurbishing or rebuilding [40].
Apart from design changes, building refurbishment projects are more chal-
lenging, especially when dealing with historical buildings, because in such projects,
the availability of design information is limited due to the absence of “as-built”
document [41, 42]. According to [11], much of the necessary information is not
available at the required time. Furthermore, in some building refurbishment pro-
jects, the designers face problems in matching up the old and new materials because
many materials are no longer in production. This contributes to a complexity and
uncertainty in building refurbishment projects [43].
Ali et al. and Egbu [5, 10] have provided evidence of the problems of building
refurbishment projects. This is most commonly due to the lack of design infor-
mation available to perform a task, especially during the initial stages of the design
process [11]. By the same token, [11] believed that, the problem in the design
process is further compounded by complicated nature in building refurbishment
projects, mostly due to the unavailability of design information.
The changes occurred in design often due to indecisiveness of the client came to
certain realizations during a specific phase of the project, or changing requirements
that the company has of the building [28]. These design changes frequently conflict
with completed work, and thus force the design team to alter the designs.
Consequently, client induced design changes caused unplanned delays depending
on the severity of the design change [28].

3 How Complexity and Uncertainty Cause Conflict

Bin Rahmat [8] noted that, conflicts are more likely to occur in building refur-
bishment projects with a high level of complexity and uncertainty; therefore are
often considered.
As one of the main reasons for construction projects is conflict [13, 32, 44].
According to [45], conflict is defined as opposition, struggle, or disagreement
between two or more individuals or groups. Meanwhile, there are three basic forms

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Conflict, Complexity, and Uncertainty in Building Refurbishment … 255

Table 3 Sources of conflict

Area Discipline Sources of conflict
Complexity and External Design change, variations, environmental concerns, social
uncertainty impacts, economics, political risks, weather, regulations,
and unforeseen site conditions
Internal Incomplete scope definition, errors in design, lack of design
information, construction methods, and workmanship
Source Ng et al. (2007)

of conflict that occur in teams and within an organization: process conflict, task
conflict, and relationship conflict [46–48]. Process conflict occurs when the parties
agree on the goals and content of the project, but disagree on how to achieve the
goals and actually do the works (conflict about how to do a project), task conflict
refer to conflict regarding the goals and content of the project (conflict about the
substance of an issue or project), and relationship conflict occurs when the parties
have interpersonal issues (also known as emotional conflict) [49–51].
Ng et al. [22], prepared a table to show complexity and uncertainty as a source of
conflict in design and construction projects, as shown in Table 3 design change,
unforeseen site condition, errors in design, and lack of design information are
factors that cause both external and internal complexity and uncertainty
According to [38], design information for building refurbishment projects did
not often correspond with the existing conditions, because relevant information
(e.g., dimensions) is not available until the construction phase begins. In this sit-
uation, the design is in conflict with the existing conditions, which makes design
change and cause conflict between owner and contractor. By the same token, [8, 28,
30, 31] believed that design changes are one of the main causes of conflict in
building refurbishment and new built projects.
Some construction conflicts are unavoidable, to contractually accommodate
changes because of unforeseen project conditions or unavoidable changes in cli-
ent’s priorities. While such conflicts may be settled amicably, the prior presence of
unhealthy conflict can trigger degeneration into unnecessary disputes [34].
Yates [31] mentioned that the underlying causes of conflict are identified as
inaccurate design information, inadequate design information of client’s require-
ments, changes in design due to changes in client’s requirements; in construction
projects, design change was characterized as a root causes of conflict by [52], and as
problem areas by [33]; also it was characterized as a causes of conflict by [53].
According to [2], building refurbishment projects involve a high level of com-
plexity and uncertainty that are likely to cause asymmetric information between
contractors and residents which will cause conflicts between them. Definition of
information asymmetry is a situation in which one party in a transaction has more or
superior information compared to another. Potentially, this situation could be
harmful because one party can take advantage of the other party’s lack of
knowledge [54].

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On the other hand, there are many issues relating to building refurbishment
project, and also there are many studies about the conflict or causes and roots of
conflict in new building such as researches done by [13, 14, 55, 56]. However, the
study on conflict in building refurbishment is limited. Only in some of the studies,
the authors have a brief mention about conflict or causes of conflict in building
refurbishment projects [8, 9, 30].

4 Conclusion

The review presented in this paper showed that refurbishment projects are tend to
be complicated and uncertain. The factors that cause complexity and uncertainty are
unforeseen site conditions, site access, lack of space, availability of material, design
change, defective design and plan, lack of information during design stage. It was
also found that conflicts are prevalent in refurbishment projects. The complexity
and uncertainty factors that causes conflict are design changes, unforeseen project
conditions, inaccurate design information, errors in design, and lack of design
information. The findings presented in this paper would help the refurbishment
managers to reduce conflicts in refurbishment projects.

Acknowledgments We are grateful to the RMI (Research Management Institute) of Universiti

Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Malaysia, for funding this research by ERGS grant.

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