The Impact of design changes on apartment projects’ feasibility and project performances in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Design changes are inevitable in the construction industry. Among all, the consequences of design changes in apartment buildings are more crucial and evident with the existing salient nature of commercial aspects unlike in other building constructions. While the impacts of design changes on project performance have been investigated in usual building construction, there is a lack of focus on apartment construction projects and their reflections towards commercial behaviour. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the impact of design changes on project performance in terms of time, cost and feasibility in the case of apartment building construction in Sri Lanka. The research aim was achieved through the mixed-method approach. A questionnaire survey and expert interviews were conducted as data collection techniques. The impacts of design changes on project performance in apartment projects were identified by the questionnaire survey. Six experts were selected, who had experience in apartment construction projects for the semi-structured interview to investigate the reflections on financial feasibility. The quantitative data were analysed statistically and qualitative data from expert interviews were analysed using the code-based content analysis method. The findings of the research revealed that there is a significant impact of design changes on financial feasibility in apartment projects. Furthermore, ten strategies were proposed to minimise the impact of design changes on project performance and project feasibility, optimising both project performances and the feasibility of the apartment building projects for its whole life cycle.