Building refurbishment is an important sector in the Malaysian
construction industry, and has become an important economic driver. High demand
for refurbishment projects mainly contributed by an increase in the number of
building renovation, alteration, extension and extensive repair works. However,
refurbishment projects are more diffi cult to manage because of uncertainty factors
inherent in the projects. The uncertainty of refurbishment projects is refl ected in
the diffi culty of obtaining design information during the design process. As a result,
most refurbishment projects end up with high amounts of design changes during
the construction stage. The performance of refurbishment design, however, could
be improved by increasing the use of coordination methods among the key design
participants in the projects. Therefore, this paper identifi es effective coordination
methods that could be used in managing the refurbishment design process.
The data were obtained from a literature review, semi-structured interviews
with 21 architects and a questionnaire survey, which involved 234 respondents.
The analysis of the results concludes that methods of coordination were used
extensively by architects in obtaining design information with scheduled meetings,
and that direct formal contacts were more predominant.

• Methods of coordination in managing the design process of refurbishment projects