ABSTRACT
The built environment (BE) industries produce and modify facilities and physical infrastructures through a broad set of activities aimed at adding to or changing the residential, commercial, governmental, industrial, transportation, and utility functions of the underlying natural, economic, and social environments. Evaluation of the success of BE projects is sometimes a challenging task for numerous reasons. First, projects are usually delivered through efforts by multiple parties, each having different priorities and objectives. Second, project objectives may differ greatly across construction projects. Project owners rely on the construction team to lead the construction phase. For many projects and most of the participants, the project objectives are fulfilled at construction close-out, so the operations phase is not part of the project, although operations is the next phase of any facility or infrastructure life cycle. One of the main decisions to be made during the planning phase relates to where the built environment facility or infrastructure will be located.
