Living Labs (LLs) consist of social and dynamic environments that enable end-users and stakeholders to collaborate towards an innovation.This paper presents the concept of LLs and analysis on how it can foster communication and collaboration from a lean perspective.Key concepts, such as co-creation, common ground, shared understanding and boundary objects are discussed in relation to LLs.The paper highlights the synergies between LLs and lean, including the focus on users' needs and values, the use of participatory approaches and early inclusion of stakeholders in the decision-making process, for example.There is however lack of clarity in the literature regarding the concept of LLs and, hence, there is a need for future empirical research to enable a better understanding of the synergies between Living Labs and lean.

This chapter explores how Lean Construction initiatives address early project collaboration. Previous research identified that early project collaboration is hampered by misunderstandings between project stakeholders, who tend to conceptualise collaboration differently according to their background and experience. In this context, the development of the Transformation-Flow-Value (TFV) theory led to the exploration and development of applications that aim at promoting improved collaboration. This chapter analyses how collaboration has been conceptualised in some Lean Construction initiatives, highlighting limitations and opportunities to improve performance at early project stages. It is suggested that early project collaboration should be interpreted as a socio-constructive and dialectical interaction, which requires the adoption of strategies for collective reflection, supporting the breaking down of assumptions held by project stakeholders.

Collaboration is essential for the success of construction projects. However, the concept of collaboration is unclear, and the term is often related to different meanings. Construction research defines collaboration in different ways, having been influenced by other research fields (e.g., social sciences and philosophy). This paper discusses existing definitions of collaboration and how they relate to three perspectives on the nature of collaborative interactions, linked to organisational metaphors. The research was developed through a literature review, including the conceptual analysis of existing definitions of collaboration. The discussion proposes that metaphors not only describe collaboration ontologically, but also establish different appreciative systems by which individuals conceive and evaluate their collaborative performance. The aim of this discussion is to address the lack of consistency in defining collaboration in construction, embracing the coexistence of interpretations. This can help researchers and practitioners understand how to overcome misunderstandings and explore initiatives to improve collaboration.

Early Design Collaboration in construction projects can be hampered by misunderstandings between team members.Consequently, design actions are not supported by all, causing delays and frustration.This paper presents a study aiming to capture (a) misunderstandings between participants at early design stages, and (b) how these individuals resolved such misunderstandings through shared understanding.Anexploratory case study was conducted to investigate collaborative interactions of a Design Team, in an Architecture Office in San Francisco (USA).Data was collected during a concept design charrette focused at the building envelope of a Medical Office Building.Results from Protocol Analysis revealed misunderstandings emerging through independent actions and wrong assumptions among the participants, which triggered breakdowns in communication and the use of metaphors to construct shared understanding.This paper proposes a conceptual framework to explain the dynamics of shared understanding in early design stages, which could be used to help design teams to map, reflect about and improve their collaborative interactions.

This research addresses the problem of lack of integration on decision-making caused by misunderstandings between team members during collaborative concept design. Previous research on collaborative design indicated relevant empirical evidence that current concepts of collaboration in design and construction focus on changing the context and the media, and have not properly addressed the socio-constructive nature of collaboration, failing to allow the development of particular abilities required to engage in collective creative situations. In this research it is argued that while the development of such new context and new media can contribute for integrating organizations, process, communication and coordination, they have limited capacity to support collective reasoning on decision-making, especially during concept design. The research approach is a synthesis of the literature, presenting a new model to study collaboration in concept design. The paper discusses the concept of collaboration in conceptual design, and explains collaboration as a socio-constructive act. Collaboration in design should be considered as dependent on the group ability to engage in self-reflective actions, allowing the group to conduct collective decision-making. Further development will provide ways of measuring this and investigating how a multidisciplinary design team can improve collaboration. Keywords: Collaboration, Multidisciplinary Team, Concept Design, Shared Understanding and Social-Constructive Interactions.

Since Aristotle, it has repeatedly been stressed that for engaging in meaningful discussion or debate, the discussion parties must share, besides a language, also knowledge, information, values and goals. What do we know today about this issue? How can that knowledge be used and advanced? The purpose of this paper is to consolidate our understanding on the many concepts that refer to preconditions for communication and collaboration in construction projects. The underlying research is conceptual by nature, and it is underpinned by a literature review. The findings show that currently there is a wide variety of terms and theoretical approaches that refer to the discussed phenomena. This situation invites for a conceptual synthesis and empirical research for its validation.

The complexity of the collaborative design process is related to the nature of the product and the processes, and also involves the social interplay that ultimately generates design. This fundamentally, affects the way people work, in the purposeful action of designing together. Low levels of collaboration are identified especially at early design stages, where the collective design creation is hindered by the lack of ability of the team to build shared understanding, embracing a multitude of expertise in the task. In this context, the research focused on how the concept of shared understanding can potentially support better collaboration at early design stages. This is based on a deeper understanding of collaborative design as a dynamic system of social interplay, in which the process to build shared understanding for concerted actions can be described as a system that combines mediated coupling and coordinated perception, in a context where division of labour exist. Based on a literature review, lean approaches that claim to support shared understanding between project participants are investigated. This paper contributes in discussing how shared understanding, as a process, can be the basis of the collaborative act, and how components of this process can be addressed through lean approaches.