Evaluating Initial Building Designs Considering Possible Future Changes: The Example of the New Pet Centre of the University Hospital of Zurich

Building managers aim to ensure that their buildings function as required over a specified period of time. The ability of a building to provide an adequate level of service might change over time due to changes in the level of service required (e.g. demand). The common practice in building management is to plan maintenance and changes without taking into consideration future uncertainty. To overcome the limitation of this approach, recent research has resulted in a process that enables the evaluation of multiple possible initial building designs taking into consideration uncertain future demand. This process has recently been used by (Esders, 2017) to determine the best initial design for the new PET centre of the university hospital of Zurich, considering possible variations in the number of patients and decision flexibility. This has shown that a flexible building is the best initial design, when coupled with a decision flexibility, to maximize the net benefits. As decision flexibility is not always a privilege that building managers are given, in this paper the expected net benefit is estimated for the flexible initial design of the new PET centre of the university hospital of Zurich, using the traditional method, i.e. assuming that the building manager decides at present when and how to plan changes in future. The results are then compared to those obtained with the real option method, and conclusions are drawn on the potentials and limitations of considering decision flexibility when managing this building. Finally, suggestions are made for further research directions