Exploring potential impacts for early involvement of interior design in the early land development stage - Studying Taiwan Cosmos Group’s hotel development

ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to promote the importance of interior design during the early land development stage so that unnecessary design revisions and extra construction costs and time could be avoided. Traditionally, procedural architectural and interior conceptual design proposal is often used by developers when applying the land development permit. Due to land development financing and time pressure, this procedural design proposal often contains the brief site and floor plans, elevations, sections, and information to meet the local planning and regulation. However, after the license has been obtained, the discrepancies between submitted procedural design and actual functions are often identified by the hotel development stakeholders, hence revisions and extra costs are required. To explore the potential impacts of it, 48 semi-structured and unstructured interviews have been conducted. The process revealed how group experience helped decision-making at various stages of land development, design, construction, operation management and the potential impacts of traditional land development process. The results showed that the early involvement of interior design with hotel development and operational teams will enable an integrated design and production delivery process, a sustainable hotel development and efficient financing can then be achieved and applied to the future similar practice.


Introduction
Every country has its own plan reviews for large-scale land development projects, which are formulated by the government based on land development and urban planning policies. The plan reviews can be applied to any large-scale land development regardless the purpose of the land, the type of industry, whether the development of the area can be matched with the planning directions of the building, or whether the consideration of environmental protection is perfect. Regardless of whether the reviewers have too much subjective awareness; for developers, the initial project investment costs and time are often very large. From a government official standpoint of view, the contents of a project must meet the expectations of local economies and ought to be altruistic. The natural environment ought to be reasonably maintained during development (Egan and Nield 2000) and the local inhabitants must also be peacefully integrated. These are also expected by the government official. However, when the image of a city needs to be improved (Yang, Luo, and Law 2014); for developers, the most important factor is to have investment benefits which can be irrespective of whether the product's positioning is different from the market or whether the specified number of rooms can be effectively operated despite personnel input not being optimal or effectively managed and controlled (Wang 2005). Are there any extra elements to consider from a group perspective? From the perspective of a win-win situation and altruism, the question posed is whether the conflict between the local government and the developers in various stages of land development can be effective. These are the main inconsistencies in land development. For the development plan, the key issues are the plan, the order of content, and the implementation time.

Case background and research motivation
The Taiwan Cosmos Group (TCG) is a well-known hospitality group in Taiwan established in 1979. This group runs a chain of nine hotels and one golf course. The largest representative of the brand, the Cosmos Hotel, opposite Taipei Station, has been ranked as the best housing rate hotel in Taiwan for many years, and its housing rate has been above 90% in recent years ("Tourism Bureau of the Ministry of Transport Statistics of Tourist Hotel Operations" 2016). Its current Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Mike D. Chang, has been very instrumental in the dazzling achievements of the group's operations (Lee 2019). TCG obtained development rights to nearly 67,000 square meters of land in Mizuho, Hualien, Taiwan, in 2013. Here, the group established a new brand, the Grand Cosmos Resort at Ruisui-Hualien which is an international tourist hot spring hotel. The resort has 198 rooms and 7 meeting/banquet rooms can seats 760. Angsana Spa, restaurants and other hotel amenities information can be found in its website. Figures 1 showed the aerial view of Grand Cosmos Resort directly cited from its website main page (Aerial View of Grand Cosmos Resort). This development license was similar and followed to a general market rule. After obtain a professional feasibility study, the group applied to the local government for development rights. After obtaining the license, TCG started planning their new building. The blueprint was then delivered to the core team of the TCG to continue its execution.
With the interview record of this study, the core elements of a delivery plan are to draft the building volume according to regulations, to comply with land development requirements (such as sheltering rate and floor area ratio, and even fire regulations) for actual operating space planning, and to determine the operating financial scale; however, these elements can only be outlined. In practice, this kind of situation arises not because the building regulations are too rigorous or the developers cannot keep pace with the times, but because experience shows that before a development license is obtained, the building and space will not be designed directly in too much detail. The financial plan is considered for future operations, which are extremely costly. If a license is not obtained, all of the initial investments will become a sunk cost. However, if a development license is obtained, construction must be completed strictly according to the implementation of the development plan, the architectural design, and the interior space planning. Here, the interior space planning is based on the framework of plans and regulations and in accordance with future operational needs. Various conflicts and financial losses are commonplace, and the amount of such investments is often extremely high. It is thus important to determine how to create an adaptation plan and to re-examine the sequence of the entire development case, especially to prevent quotient and building designers from facing serious problems (Emerging Trends in Real Estate Europe, Creating an Impact 2019).
In the present case, the initial estimated development expenditure was $120 million dollars. The preliminary financial budget was about $20 million dollars during the planning stages. To respond to the revised drafts and to make the layout more complex and completed, the final budget climbed to about $200 million dollars. Therefore, time to actually implementing architectural planning and an operational plan layout becomes critical, and how one can adapt to government laws and regulations from an economic perspective is important as well. While costs can both constrain construction and yield substantial benefits, decision-making and the ability to address the service needs of target consumers in the design and planning of hotels are topics that need to be discussed urgently, and thus becomes a motivation of this study.

Research purpose
As the first author of this study is an experience interior design professional and his design team helped TCG to obtain the development license in 2014 and completed the interior design in 2019, the researchers had many years to contact the CEO of TCG and TCG's design and operating teams during the entire design, planning and construction process. Based on longterm observations of this industry phenomenon, the authors hope to use this research to explore a response plan for land development and design practices in the hotel industry, irrespective of the design results or investment costs. From this perspective, in-depth interviews with the development leader of the operators (Mike D. Chang, CEO of TCG) have been conducted. It is to determine how hotel operators make timely adjustments under huge financial pressures and time constraints of operational performance, and make plans, revise decisions, and determine how to maintain good decisions and positive thinking under such pressure.

Research objectives and limitation
The objectives of this study are to first learn the perspectives from the hotel developers and decisionmaking teams on how they examine and overcome the gap between regulations and reality at each practical stage. Then, to report the structural threats and common obstacles encountered in hotel land development from the stakeholders' perspectives. Last of all, based on the stakeholders' views, to develop a process adaptation plan in the decision-making and plan implementation stages in response to future practical difficulties.
The research limitation is based on the development of TCG's Grand Cosmos Resort in Ruisui, Hualien County, Taiwan. The main research subject is Mike D. Chang, CEO of the TCG.

Materials and methods
This study used the commonly applied Maxwell qualitative research design method (Maxwell and Loomis 2008) to interactively layout and reasoning the study with research purposes in the centre and tie to the conceptual framework (introduction), research questions (objectives), methods, and validity (interviews). As this hotel development and design study derived results on subjective point of views, below is the literature reviews of the importance of using qualitative research and critical thinking in the field.

The importance of qualitative research in the field of architecture
Qualitative research in the field of architecture has often being discussed elements of design such as design thinking, architectural style, and creative thinking (Katoppo and Sudradjat 2015). In the past few years, the stages of results in the design process or post-completion design reviews are discussed as well. For building development evaluations, in the Post-Occupancy Evaluation (POE) method proposed by Klaudiusz Fross, qualitative research methods pertaining to quality, technology, function, organization, behaviour, economy, observation, investigation, interview, wayfinding, and participation can provide an effective assessment of a building and its environment (Fross et al. 2015). As POE method is focusing on reviewing the building after development rather than reviewing it based on the decision-making process before development or reflecting on an early evaluation of the building's development, the decisionmaking process and reasoning assessment before designing is missing. Additionally, there is little discussion of the cost difference between the architectural design and actual operating functions.
The commonly used types of assessment in the early stages of land development are the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchical Process (Fuzzy AHP) (Saaty 2008). Both methods can effectively focus on the full aspects of case characteristics and the overall environment. Using weight analysis at an early stage of planning not only can help improve the quality of decision-making in the early stages of development but also serve as an important basis for development and design, especially in the evaluation of case characteristics (Wang 2005). However, this type of early analysis is based on quantitative research and uses data based on quantitative rather than qualitative research to review the problems and risks faced by developers early on without a follow up. Planning and design also expose the design plan to the risk of repeated revisions during subsequent development.
Additionally, in the field of architecture, especially in the early stages of development, if an action research perspective can be adopted (Somekh and Speicher 2008), one can usually escape from having to reference theory. Combining "action" and "research" (Emerging Trends in Real Estate Europe, Creating an Impact 2019) allows the actual actions of practitioners to become closely integrated with research. Although there are some differences in the definitions of action research proposed by various researchers, from the perspectives of improvement and practice, one can still summarize the basics of this spiralling process of inquiry: factfinding plan actions and fact-finding the results of action research after acting. However, this is a difficult tool to work with. The four most important stages in the whole process are the pre-diagnosis, planning, execution, and reflection. The four stages can provide the necessary link between repeated self-evaluation and review and professional development (Elliot 1991). This is based on the initiatives of the practitioners themselves to question the attitude of inquiry and criticism and constantly reflect on the situation in order to complete the relevant practical improvements of the professional work and to provide practical perspectives, practical reflections, and professional perspectives to facilitate a more comprehensive understanding and professional development.

Critical thinking is used to reflect on decision-making
Since the 1960s, critical inquiry and critical theory based on positivism, poststructuralism, deconstruction, Marxism, feminism, and critical theory have been widely used in the humanities and social sciences (Feenberg 1991). These modes of inquiry are often summarized from ideological perspectives to determine the spirit and research methods of critical inquiry; cultural studies, aesthetics, theoretical sociology, social theory, etc., are very important influences in this regard. After the Frankfurt School described their own research for the first time, a reflexive methodology based on critical theory emerged (Alvesson and Sandberg 2011). Many studies have discussed the theoretical origin of critical inquiry, usually based on Nietzsche, Freud, Saussure, or Hegel's negative philosophy or from the perspective of Kant's classical philosophical thought. However, if one insert inquiry into theory, only the dialectical, critical, and negative concepts, triple interpretations, and interlocking interactions (Bohman, 2005) used for the reflection and review of reality and practice have substantive meaning and value.
If one reflect on the methods of thinking from the perspective of triple interpretations, the dialectical process is actually a process of continuous denial, which repeatedly and constantly denies thinking and decision-making at each stage. Therefore, a dialectical way of thinking is also a negative way of thinking (Negative Thinking) and, essentially, changes social reality in a reasonable direction through continuous criticism and denial, regardless of whether it is used for social phenomena in breadth or for professional practice in depth. After the implementation of decision-making behaviours through theoretical analysis, at the level of criticism, material negative forces can be used to innovate old modes of behaviour. Theoretical criticism can be used to awaken or change the consciousness of the self and the group, and then to activate a new way of thinking and to organize the actions of the group to change actual living conditions. For practical case operations, we should repeatedly and critically think to carefully review the decision-making process and the implementational efficiency at each stage, using negative thinking to self-return the results to the decisionmaking process.

Research procedures and participants
Based on the above qualitative research literature reviews, one-to-one in-depth interview method was used in this study to learn the decision-making process from the participants. The interview outline was designed in advance. The interview structure was designed, and semi-structured and in-depth interviews were conducted during 2014/8/1 to 2019/6/30. The verbatim drafts of the interviews were then completed using sound recordings and interview record forms. For any meetings or interviews conducted via field surveys, if there was a third person present, all participants were notified before the records were used in this study (Boyce and Neale 2006).
The one-to-one in-depth interview method has received increasing emphasis in qualitative research literature in recent years, especially the relationship and actual experiences between the interviewer and the interviewee and their practical qualifications (Ryan, Coughlan, and Cronin 2013). The research subject in this study was a representative brand in the hotel industry that has extensive experience in the establishment and management of various hotel brands. To explore the case development process, the experiential reference for development should be able to demonstrate the project's representation and value. The first author of in this study was the head of a design firm who has practiced for more than 20 years and also has significant practical experience and a good reputation. Although both the relationship and in-depth interactions were helpful for the collection of research information, on the basis of research ethics, the researchers first had to obtain the approval of the subject in the research process. In addition to signing a consent form to allow for the release of information to the public, the research design was also disclosed. However, detailed financial information on trade secrets was not disclosed in the study; only experiential values that are helpful in understanding land development were included in this research. This also reflects the effective and practical contributions of the research subject to society. The professional qualifications of the interviewer and the interviewee allowed this study to avoid, as much as possible, the problem of biases seeping in after the interview (Ariffin, Rashid, and Salleh 2013;Freeman et al. 2007).
When all interview records and verbatim manuscripts had been obtained, thematic coding was carried out according to the type of text. Finally, the achievement trends were summarized, and the various summary results were compared with the interview outline to ensure the completeness of the data analysis. Figure 2 showed the segment of verbatim manuscript during interview with TCG's CEO in 2019.

Results
The results of this study are based on the interview questions.

Is there a difference in hotel development and other industry?
According to the industry experience of the respondents in this study, as well as the analysis of the interview data, the examined land development is used for housing, commercial buildings, and restaurants, and there are great differences between all of these aspects. According to the interviewees, the development purpose of collective housing is usually a one-time sale, so the land and building themselves are "products." For the early stages of development, the local government's regional planning is usually finalized as collective housing. Whether this housing includes purely residential, mixed residential and commercial, or purely commercial buildings is unlikely to cause conflicts with actual needs in the future. During the initial draft planning, the product must have already been sold, as it is not easy to significantly modify a building's design. This review must also follow the sales goals. In the overall plan, from the perspectives of planning, design, finance, regulations, product sales, etc., one can participate in early planning and think together with others or even engage in a certain degree of blueprint planning. However, the purchase of land is also required, which is very different from the land development of hotel buildings.
Respondents in this study said that the ultimate purpose of the hotel building is not to sell the building itself but to provide consumers with very short-term leases. The type of hotel building is more similar to residential buildings after obtaining the building, as many consumers sublease hotels for short-term use. There are many hotel buildings in Taiwan that have been converted to hotels after changing their use license or developed on land in a metropolitan area where the land was already in use. This phenomenon has been comprehensively reviewed by the government in terms of urban planning, so most hotels can achieve a large degree of balance in their design, regulations, and future performance in early planning, which also has great financial benefits.

In the early stage of land development, how do developer view and face the gap between regulations and reality?
This study found that developers in the early stages of land development usually focus their decision-making on the construction rate and the floor area ratio, which is done to consider how to obtain as much saturated floor area as possible during planning, making how it will be planned in the future immaterial.

What are the obstacles encountered in the practice of hotel land development?
During the research process, the interviewee stated several times that in the initial stage of development, this project actually focused on obtaining a development license approved by the local government and on meeting various government requirements; however, internally, it was necessary to meet the group's planned goals. These are the most basic practical problems.

When did the actual operational team of the hotel begin to intervene in architectural design and interior design during the architectural planning of the hotel?
In this case, the operational team formally entered the decision-making process after the base obtained the right to use the building. This phenomenon is also the same as the general time period for setting up hotels in existing buildings. The financial team also does not participate in decision-making before obtaining the base. In practice, only after the financial team completes the trial calculations, such as determining the number of rooms, house prices, etc., and then participate in the space design stage and start to determine the product and style according to the trial balance. According to this research interview and introduction, the actual process is still under development. In the early stage, the development and design requirements assumed the following order: (1) government requirements, (2) the developers' planned targets, and (3) targeting consumer needs. The operational and space designs were thus reversed to target consumer needs before being implemented.

Difference in hotel development and other industry
For the difference in hotel development and other industry, in terms of costs and significant financial burdens, according to the long-term experience of TCG, if a hotel is established in an existing commercial building, in practice, the long-term use rights of that building will generally be obtained by a lease. This is different from de novo land development or the establishment of a restaurant after sequential planning and execution, which are fundamentally different from their implementation. If one plans to set up a hotel using an existing building, first of all, the building construction costs are very different. Usually, the former requires no construction costs, while the latter does. Although this is obvious, the most fundamental difference is that the former directly engages in an indoor rectification project after investing in design costs during the early stages of planning; the maximum costs are incurred by indoor engineering, and the construction time is not long. The engineering and procurement costs have to be paid just for a few months, so the financial burden is relatively low if the cost of a hotel established in an existing commercial building is large and rushed. If developers begin with land development, in the business model, the developers can most probably obtain bank financing, and when the building enters its construction stage, the support from the financial industry can be obtained. Capital can even be obtained from the financing of the land. In the early days of the project in this case, selfowned funds were not as large as those accrued directly from existing buildings, and the construction time spans of these buildings are longer than those of indoor projects, usually taking several years to complete. Here, the implementation is different from its cost. According to the data collected from interviews, this is mainly because a hotel building can be used as collateral for bank financing. In practice (as in this case), the developer usually only bears the cost of interest. Bulk expenditures are usually incurred on indoor projects. These advantages of cost expenditures and financial investment time are not possible when planning a hotel using an existing building, because in such cases it is not possible to obtain a guarantee from a bank, as shown in relevant reference (Sahlins 2003;Majo 2018).
Another case may involve the developer acquiring property rights to an existing building by means of a purchase and then beginning the project, rather than obtaining the building by lease. This kind of implementation is rare, according to a statement by the CEO of TCG. In the early stages of land development in this case, the capital dividends of existing buildings were mostly obtained by the developers. This is why the TCG is investing heavily in their land. That is to say, from the perspective of capital, because the building can no longer finance the necessary funds, the direct developers who buy commercial real estate usually rent out property directly to acquire cash flow. There are a few cases where planned buildings are changed to hotels, while existing buildings already include cases of a restaurant type. If the equipment is not in good condition or if the layout is not suitable for future operations, the building will be directly converted into an interior space. In this way, the largecost investment is returned to the above state of a direct lease. In the case of planning, once the indoor project has been started, it represents the beginning of a large-cost investment.

Importance of early involvement of interior design
Hotel developer and its teams often perform decisionmaking based on the construction rate and the floor area ratio during early development stage. In this way, both the exterior design and the interior design can have greater design flexibility. Not considering architectural taste or space layout also yields the most effective investment recovery; because this is general thinking, developers are often motivated by efficiency. The relevant laws and regulations are deeply studied, but in the initial stage, such laws are rarely considered from the perspective of whether the interior design meets the product's positioning in the future. Therefore, in practice, after obtaining a development license from the local government, architectural design is immediately completed according to the proposal of the government. Often, after the architectural design is completed, the interior design plan will be slowly determined after the project construction begins. It is commonly believed that interior design traditionally starts only after construction is completed. Thus, the cost of design often neglects mechanical and electrical factors. Prevention and control regulations are based solely on the design of the building itself and are not arranged according to the actual future use of the indoor space. This thought process often results in the need to coordinate the building's design with the interior space design when the indoor project is in progress. Demolition and modification not only consume many of the costs that could be controlled, but also create a great deal of waste in construction and decoration materials. Demolition waste also puts a burden on the environment.

Identifying blind spots in the decision-making process
Using the interview record form and the verbatim draft, we learned that traditional hotel groups have very little experience with hotel development that begins from working the land. Most hotel establishments are changed to use existing buildings after obtaining the required rights. Usually, the decisionmaking focus is on investment efficiency, and the space design and hotel operation team are not included in decision-making at an early stage. For the draft plan when the development license is obtained, the core team does not need to discuss the future operations in depth. The members of the initial decision-making team all have financial backgrounds or corporate management backgrounds, so their decision-making perspectives are almost the same. Thus, when holding a decision-making meeting, the opinions of professionals from other fields cannot be obtained, resulting in a blind spot for the development case from a single financial perspective. In other fields, the criteria for consideration are not sufficiently quantified to be effectively measured, and there are few alternatives for decision-making results. Such blind spots in decision-making pose a higher risk during site selection in the early stages of development, in this case, the design planning cannot be used in the future. Thus, the importance of multi-criteria decisionmaking is noted Elsheikh (2017) and to maximized the profit of the development.

Actual execution process and case
Actual execution process revealed that the differences between the government's urban planning goals and the group's development plan goals are confronted, as well as to reasonably implement the drafts proposed when convincing the government at the design stage, are the greatest obstacle to early development. For example, in this case, several outdoor pools were built in the early setting, but when developers proposed their project to the government, the developers could only initially calibrate the location in the base rather than give its precise size or specific location. Once the design stage started, moving the line after installation of the equipment was difficult, even though actual factors such as water storage capacity could finally be taken into consideration. The location and size mentioned in the draft were not completely acceptable, but the design of the delivery could not be changed too greatly.

The importance of integrated design and production delivery concept
According to the results of this research, we obtained more information than expected from the unstructured in-depth interviews. The results determined that the draft and the real design cases often have great differences after implementation. Many international brands also experience a similar situation, such as the well-known international hotel brand Amman (The Report of the Register of Copyrights on Works of Architecture 1989; Fahmawee 2018), which not only had differences before and after its construction, but also underwent considerable revisions and reviews of the hotel space. The ideal land development process of a hotel should arrange the design and operational teams early in the financial planning period and split the design work into a plane planning section and an elevation and detail stage. The operational team's plan should also be divided into a planning stage for early product planning and a stage for product details and service processes. With this arrangement, one can effectively engage with the design and product during early planning. The design during this period is based on the product planning of the operating team and can achieve a balance between the design draft and the actual design plan in the future. Moreover, because of the penetration cost of planning in the plane layout, the overall design cost in this period is not high. Because design investment generates a great deal of cost during the facade design operation period, the facade design operation must be effectively arranged. After land development is completed, the investment risk is controlled, and it becomes safe and reasonable to reinvest in the design cost. This not only improves the efficiency from all perspectives, but also greatly reduces the "hotel replacement risk" (Cahill and Mitroka 2014).
The design in this stage is also based on a close connection with the operating teams for product details and service processes. After this rearrangement, during the stages of meeting government requirements and of meeting the developer's planned goals, a small amount of early design costs is invested. The early intervention of the operational team not only ensures that the final product will be close to the needs of the target customer, but alsoafter the acquisition of land development rightsreduces unnecessary redesign costs. Furthermore, because of the early entry of space design, architectural planning is mostly based on space design. In order to effectively meet future operational needs based on regulations, designs, and operations, when planning a land acquisition (in addition to various regulatory requirements), one must also consider the balance between future operations and design so that the project can be more effective in its construction costs (construction costs and interior decoration are the two largest costs). In this way, effective control is achieved, allowing the final development cost to achieve a relatively high maximum benefit.

Conclusions and suggestions
Based on this research, the laws and regulations of land development by the governments of various countries have policy positions based on urban and rural development and regional planning. The practical implementational work of local government agencies at all levels also follows the tradition of using paperwork, which cannot be integrated in the early stages of land development and which also has a decisive impact on early land development. In-depth research on the land development-related implementation agencies in the local government and an effective comparison with this research based on the developer's position, as well as more in-depth discussions using the theory of criticism and reflection are needed and these can allow greater optimization of the hotel land development implementation and decision-making processes and facilitate further exploration and verification of the relevant theory to produce more practical results. Keeping in mind sustainability-related issues, hotel developers can also be more systematic when it comes to environmental and societal impact (Pryce 2001). In practice, developers base their choices on market demand and industry development, but it is more effective for them to maximize their investments in cost efficiency and the impact of buildings on the environment, which can be based on integrated design process to make such designs more environmentally friendly. As the CEO of TCG said in an interview on 23 March 2016 "if I can redo this hotel development again, I would have design and operational teams join the early land development planning!" In short, the results of this study reviewed and learnt from the TCG's hotel development process and to promote an integrated design and production delivery ideas during the early hotel development stage. It can also be used as a reference for other hotel developers and operators in the future, as well as for the hotel architects, space designers, and the creators of government regulations and related implementation units. Moreover, besides meeting the aesthetic requirements of hotel design and optimization of the consumer experience, this approach can also help achieve a better balance between operator time and financial pressures. Last but not least, it can encourage government agencies to review the early design stages of land development, thereby allowing more flexible legal adjustments.
with the current situation. Therefore, in recent years, he has devoted himself to the development of his own Know what he has learned, and through more in-depth research and discussion, he will devote himself to the academic world and the industry.
Lucky Tsaih, Ph.D., LEED AP BD+C; is an associate professor in the Department of Architecture, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology to teach the environmental technology, sustainability and BIM course sequence at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Her research is in the area of architectural acoustics, building with well-being concern, sustainable K-12 school design, long term care facility IEQ assessment and design as well as sustainable design strategies and decision making. While working as a faculty member, Dr. Tsaih also works as an acoustical and green building consultant for projects where they allow her to transformed acoustic and sustainable design concepts into the reality of constructed architecture. She is a member of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA), Technical Committee on