Risk Management in the Phase of Architectural Design in Vietnam

The architectural design phase is the key phase to make the construction project successful and meets the owner’s requirements. The main objective of this research is to explore risks involved in the architectural design phase. Meanwhile, the study resulted in some recommendations for improving the efficiency of decision making process in architectural design phase. From five cases study, two interviews and one questionnaire, four major risks among the twenty four found risks were identified. The four major risks and their possible solution are: 1. The design team uses some kind of routine design when working on a different project. The solutions are that the design team needs to take a careful assessment on design task and to improve their knowledge on different type of project. 2. The design team doesn’t have a mutual definition and languages in conceptual design phase. The solutions are that the design team needs to build up a standard form of design and discussion carefully about the change in the very first meeting of project. 3. Orders were changed during the progress. The solution is that the Owner needs to discuss with the assignment manager or take suggestion from expert to complete design task 4. Legal documents were changed while project is on process. The solution is that the officer government needs to discuss with disciplines to get a feedback about the background or the necessity of change. This study has built a framework for managing the risks during architectural design phase on a building project. The framework could be recommend for future research and apply the framework to other design projects, such as urban planning, civil construction and so on. Moreover, it would be significant if the associated financing and construction risk could be further studied.