Perspective

Agreements Life Science Participatory Construction

Participatory construction at DTU

Written by

Marianne Bjørnkjær Villefrance

Attorney-at-law / Head of Legal Team

Published

9 September 2026

An effective way to stay on schedule and on budget in a smaller construction project

On a sunny day, we met Rasmus Biener de Taeje, project manager at Campus Service at DTU, and asked him to tell us about the project he had initiated and delivered as the client, with specialists from MOWE as his legal advisers.

DTU has worked closely with MOWE for many years, and Marianne’s colleague Anders Jost Buch has on several occasions assisted DTU in tendering and delivering larger construction projects under the Integrated Construction concept.

This time the project was much smaller, and Rasmus challenged Marianne to deliver a ‘stripped-down version’ of the Integrated Construction concept. The project was therefore carried out as ‘Participatory Construction’.

The wish for another efficient construction project at DTU

Rasmus was facing a smaller project with three laboratories and a new ventilation system that had to be built in a short time – while the building remained in operation. That challenge called for an efficient construction project – with a short time frame, but still of proper quality. Marianne was asked to look at the Integrated Construction process and strip away everything that could be left out, so that only the truly essential parts of the concept remained.

You have to start by recognizing that you need to put together a team that is going to build this project...

A shared framework from the start strengthens buildability

Early involvement of the contractor in the design phase is one of the central elements of both Participatory Construction and Integrated Construction. It was therefore also an important part of the collaboration that was established within a few weeks for the new construction project at DTU. This meant that all parties helped create the project and share key knowledge for the upcoming project – right from the very beginning.

Rasmus talks about the team focus in Participatory Construction:

“It requires you to invest in it. You have to start by recognizing that you need to put together a team that is going to build this project. If you put together a team that works well, you can bring each other’s skills into play and thereby, among other things, reduce the number of misunderstandings that end in claims for additional payment, avoid unforeseen changes, protect the budget and optimize time – that is, finish on time with the best quality for the budget”.

For the same reason, the team decided to hold a ‘team-building day’, where they made sure that all parties in the project met. In addition, Rasmus required everyone on the team to sit together in a project office for several days throughout the process to secure the shared foundation of knowledge.

The project was based on all parties having a shared direction and sharing knowledge, and on everyone taking shared responsibility for the project. This foundation reduced the risk of conflicts and helped ensure honesty about the schedule and budget. At the same time, it gave the parties an incentive to contribute – and as Rasmus puts it:

“As a client, I would rather have a budget and schedule that all parties in the project believe in from the start”.

It is quite simply about being open and honest about a risk.

Early involvement of all parties is the key to success with Participatory Construction

“Because we had the contractor on board so early, we agreed, for example, on where there was room for ventilation ducts. We simply walked around hand in hand and measured whether there was actually room for the things we wanted”

Rasmus describes, going on to explain the shared responsibility that created transparency about the opportunities and risks in the project:

“It is quite simply about being open and honest about a risk when it comes to avoiding conflicts and slippage in schedules. We become wiser together – for example about delivery times for components. But it can also be a kind of shared period of confusion, where, within the shared playing field, we explore together what we want to achieve and can achieve”.

With early involvement of the main contractor and its subcontractors, a shared overview is created of who can take on which tasks, who carries which risks – and what challenges there are in the project in general. That gives a shared understanding of how best to reach the goal.

A short design phase without administrative hassle

Rasmus says:

“Normally you produce a lot of paper on a project. On this project, we only produced exactly what was needed to be able to build”

In the design phase, too, everything was cut to the bone: from the first meeting with DTU’s framework agreement consultant, which took place just a few weeks before the team went on summer vacation, until three finished laboratories and a ventilation system were in place, just under 7 months passed.

With Participatory Construction, it was thus possible to bring all the important competencies together right from the start, make sure the contractor was involved early, and continuously evaluate and reduce paperwork, while both the schedule and the budget were kept and conflicts were avoided.