Analyzing Shared Value Creation in Korea’s Public Buildings: A Latent Dirichlet Allocation Analysis

Abstract

The recent expansion of function-driven public buildings constructed for the public interest has escalated conflicts over social issues, such as housing and the environment. Despite efforts, government-led public architecture projects often leave room for improvement in addressing social and environmental challenges. This study identifies shared value creation (CSV) factors in public buildings by employing Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) for topic modeling and the Delphi method for expert validation. The LDA analysis was conducted on 3,567 news articles to extract key themes, while the Delphi method integrated expert opinions to enhance validity and reliability. Key findings highlight the importance of stakeholder participation, local resource utilization, regulatory reform, and digital convergence in enhancing public building design and operations. Additionally, public buildings were identified as critical primary factor for promoting social cohesion, sustainability, and community development. The proposed CSV factors can provide actionable insights for policymakers and stakeholders, enabling the development of strategies that go beyond architectural elements to realize broader social and economic benefits.

Keywords

Shared value creation public buildings latent dirichlet allocation model Delphi method sustainable regional development

Introduction

The recent expansion of function-driven public buildings constructed for the public interest has escalated conflicts over social issues, such as housing and the environment. Moreover, in many building projects, various stakeholders’ conflicting interests further complicate things. Under these circumstances, the service/technology development capabilities that can redefine the relationships between companies, the government, society, and the environment need to be reinforced while creating a systematic social value creation model for seamless communication between stakeholders.

In terms of social contributions and activities towards public good, the concept of creating shared value (CSV) offers a new perspective that goes beyond the traditional corporate social responsibility (CSR) framework. While CSR has often been characterized by one-way, voluntary social contribution activities, CSV emphasizes two-way communication and mutual benefit between companies and society (S. K. Kim, 2014). In this context, the construction industry, given its broad social, economic, and environmental impacts, holds great potential for CSV implementation.

In Korea, although several large construction companies have begun to incorporate CSR strategies aimed at enhancing social value, CSV strategies that encompass industry-wide collaboration remain underdeveloped (Im, 2019). Especially in the context of public buildings, there is an increasing need to integrate their inherent publicness and potential for social value creation into strategic planning. This requires active collaboration among companies, the government, and local organizations to support policymaking and business decisions that foster social and environmental value.

Despite global discourse on sustainable construction and stakeholder engagement, research focusing specifically on CSV in the public building sector remains limited. Because public buildings must reflect the diverse needs of central and local governments, civic organizations, and community members, it is essential to consider a broad range of stakeholders when developing CSV strategies.

Therefore, this study highlights the need to identify the key factors of shared value creation in public buildings across four main focus areas. First, although public buildings enhance quality of life and community development, a comprehensive understanding of CSV-related factors remains lacking, making it essential to identify these factors to fully realize their social value potential. Second, the CSV success factors can facilitate the participation of various stakeholders, such as citizens, experts, and the government, and incorporate their demands and opinions into public and private sector decision-making in a balanced manner. Third, given the large-scale budget expenditure for public buildings’ sustainable operations, CSV-related factors will improve sustainability from the economic, social, and environmental perspectives. Fourth, adding objective value to subjective value can boost the synergistic effects of stakeholder goals (Forsythe, 2014). For this, big data based analyses of CSV-related factors are required. The derived CSV factors can enable objective and rational decision-making throughout the public buildings’ lifecycle.

This study aims to analyze the shared value creation factors in public buildings, based on the awareness that a broad socio-cultural approach is required—encompassing construction information, construction technology, regional policies, and urban planning, as well as urban sharing-based social innovation. The purpose of this research is to identify CSV elements that enable public buildings to contribute to enhancing citizens’ quality of life and promoting community development, and to scientifically analyze these elements to provide a foundation for future decision-making and policy formulation. Based on this objective, the study sets forth two main research questions. The first is to identify key issues related to shared value creation in public buildings. The second is to derive the core factors necessary for creating shared value in public buildings. The scope of this study is limited to news data related to public buildings in Korea over the past year. The subjects of analysis include construction information, construction technology, regional policy, and urban planning, thereby covering the overall socio-cultural context of public buildings. For the methodology, this study applied Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) to analyze news articles and used a three-round Delphi survey with experts to validate the results.

Conceptual Approach to Public Buildings and Shared Value Creation

Concept and Definition of Public Buildings

Public works are essential to addressing the complexity of cities and promoting shared goals among communities and should promote urban regeneration by improving public spaces and civic buildings essential to community interaction (Losasso, 2024). Public buildings are structures that epitomize the public interest and publicness. In Korea, they are defined as “structures or spatial environments constructed and created by public institutions” in accordance with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport’s Act on the Promotion of the Building Service Industry. Public facilities such as government offices fall into this category. Privately owned buildings can also be used as public facilities depending on their specific purpose.

Public buildings in the US are defined as “specific buildings owned by a city or state and used by the general public.” Specifically, public buildings primarily refer to buildings, and their internal passageways and auxiliary structures that can be used as offices, warehouses, or both by one or more federal government agencies and mixed-ownership government corporations. According to the CABE in the UK, good public buildings change the way people behave and contribute to improving their quality of life. Additionally, the UK’s Act on Public Design clearly states that the purpose of public design, including public buildings, is to improve the quality of users’ lives and create a high-quality, advanced culture. In Japan, structures constructed by central and local governments, as well as those constructed with public funds or public subsidies, such as industrial complexes and corporations, are considered public buildings. This definition is applicable regardless of the building type (Y. H. Kim & Park, 2018). Moreover, even buildings constructed with private funds can be regarded as public buildings when they are public in nature and widely open to the general public.

In summary, public buildings are tasked with improving the quality of people’s lives while pursuing the value of securing and promoting publicness. In this respect, CSV activities can help public buildings achieve both social and economic value.

Roles and Social Functions of Public Buildings

Public buildings reflect the collective life of citizens within the spatial environment of a city and function as symbolic landmarks (Kwon et al., 2011). Beyond their physical structure, they contribute to social cohesion, economic efficiency, and environmental sustainability. Furthermore, by enhancing design quality and offering inclusive spaces, public buildings facilitate urban regeneration and promote long-term urban sustainability (Caldarola, 2020).

Their roles in supporting a city’s environmental health and citizens’ well-being are threefold. First, they improve access to public spaces, encourage democratic participation, and strengthen social cohesion (Carr, 1992). Second, as products of legal and policy frameworks, they help ensure public safety and social welfare (Madanipour, 2003). Third, they hold symbolic value, distinguishing public from private spaces and reflecting institutional functions (Mazzetto, 2021).

These functions enable public buildings to generate both economic and social value, thereby enhancing sustainability and improving the quality of life. More than functional spaces, they cultivate a sense of belonging and civic pride (Meynhardt, 2008), while advancing the principles of public value and the common good (Moore, 2022).

Therefore, public buildings must balance efficiency, legality, and quality in both design and function, while meeting the needs of diverse stakeholders (Douglas & Noordegraaf, 2022). Involving stakeholders in spatial planning and utilization can foster trust and community satisfaction (Sami et al., 2018). Unlike private facilities, public buildings should be developed in close collaboration with communities to maximize mutual benefits. In this context, creating shared value supports public buildings in fulfilling their social responsibilities and boosting the economic value of the community.

Application of the concept of shared value creation to public buildings

The concept of CSV as a new value-creation model through which companies can simultaneously create economic and social value (Porter & Kramer, 2018). When applied to public buildings, the CSV concept can transform ordinary physical facilities into value-creation tools to promote community development and address social problems. In public building pro-jects, conflicts of interest between government, businesses, and local communities often occur, and these conflicts can be resolved through transparent communication and cit-izen participation in the early planning stages.

In Korea, the central government leads major policies, and local governments and businesses play a key role as coordinators by proposing customized solutions for the region, thereby creating economic value. Therefore, CSV in public buildings promotes public activities, communication, and co-operation (Zhu, 2022), and adds value to the community to ensure sustainability.

To make this happen, all public building projects must begin by identifying potential user needs and community demands, utilizing local resources throughout the construction lifecycle, and promoting harmonious coexistence between public buildings and their corresponding communities. Furthermore, public buildings can capitalize on innovative space utilization and eco-friendly technologies to enhance their publicness and contribute to revitalizing the local economy and strengthening social cohesion.

The Need for Shared Value Creation in Public Buildings

Design principles for value creation in building design focus on promoting collaboration among public leaders, stakeholders, and citizens to achieve common goals and outcomes (Bebbington et al., 2022). In addition, engaging the community in the design process serves as an important element in increasing social value and ensuring that public projects reflect local needs (Mussinelli, 2024). In addition, the reuse of public buildings has significant potential to create new economic, social, and environmental values through urban regeneration and collaborative space design (Bolici et al., 2020). These multidisciplinary prior studies demonstrate that public buildings can function as a core element of public value creation beyond mere physical assets.

In the construction industry, CSV creates economic, social, and environmental values through a process that occurs as early as the design stage (Andelin et al., 2015). In addition, corporate social responsibility means that companies take social and environmental responsibility beyond the simple purpose of disposal, and originally means going beyond what is justified. Since all parts of a public building project play a role in resolving social demands and the needs of the local community, the role of such CSR is even more important. CSR provides a particularly important foundation for helping public buildings strengthen the possibility of providing social integration and the environment through community cooperation. Therefore, CSR and CSV should act as a buffer to expand value creation as public buildings, and through this, public buildings should contribute to the development of usable communities.

A preliminary study on the shared value of public buildings

Previous studies have demonstrated that public buildings and spaces play a vital role in fostering community well-being. Public spaces enhance urban prosperity and sustainable development by encouraging social interactions and improving residents’ quality of life (Sajjad et al., 2018). These studies confirmed the value of public spaces in terms of social cohesion, environmental protection, and economic revitalization. Similarly, spatial and activity-based uses of public space have been shown to strengthen a sense of place and community relationships, particularly in coastal areas (Janmaimool & Khajohnmanee, 2019). On the other hand, the privatization of public spaces may reduce accessibility and equity, ultimately undermining their publicness (Nasution & Zahrah, 2017). Collectively, these findings highlight the importance of designing and managing public spaces to support psychological stability, physical health, and social interaction.

Moreover, previous studies have proposed strategies for promoting shared value in public buildings. For example, public building operating systems have been approached from a regional regeneration perspective to enhance their function as community hubs (H. R. Kim et al., 2020). The need to improve investment screening for public buildings in areas with declining populations has also been emphasized (J. R. Kim, & S. Y. Kim, 2021). In the context of sports facilities, issues in public architecture planning were analyzed with a focus on user-centered approaches and policy improvement (Baek & Im, 2022). From an international perspective, citizen participation and stakeholder management in Nigeria have been linked to cooperation, participatory control, and effective communication (Oyeyipo et al., 2019). These findings provide valuable practical implications for integrating CSV into public building planning and operations.

Theoretical Framework of the Study

Numerous studies have highlighted the necessity of shared value in public buildings and proposed various approaches to foster it. However, despite these contributions, the specific factors that enable the creation of shared value in public buildings have not been clearly identified. To address this gap, this study categorizes CSV in public buildings into three core components: shared value, communication, and social value.First, shared value means that public buildings must not only perform their original function as facilities but also simultaneously create economic and social value to realize publicness enhancement and community development. Second, communication implies that public building projects serve as a means of meeting diverse stakeholders’ needs and expectations through effective exchanges. CSV in public buildings is influenced by stakeholders’ perceptions, various goals, and initial participation, and can lead to stakeholder satisfaction despite their differing opinions (Farag, 2019). Finally, social value emphasizes how public buildings strengthen community identity and connectivity, and promote social interactions and cultural integration. In particular, in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the social value of public buildings refers to the impact of construction and infrastructure projects on stakeholders’ lives (Sancino & Schindele, 2022). These three factors indicate that public buildings, going beyond acting as physical spaces, can play an important role in both social and economic contexts.

However, a systematic analysis of how these three elements specifically contribute to the CSV in public buildings remains insufficient. To address this gap, this study employs a combined approach of LDA and the Delphi method to systematically derive the factors enabling CSV in public buildings.

Methodology

Table 1 presents the entire research procedure. All methods were performed in compliance with the relevant guidelines and regulations. In the data collection stage, Python 3.2 Selenium and Chrome Driver were used to collect Naver News data from March 31, 2023, to March 31, 2024. Tokenization was used in natural language processing to split sentences into smaller units according to certain rules. Using KoNLPy 0.6.0, morpheme tokenization was performed to derive a corpus of 2,678,257 tokens. In the data-cleaning stage, noisy data (e.g., special characters, numerical sequences, and meaningless symbols) and irrelevant words were removed, resulting in the deletion of 239,995 tokens. This benchmark was established based on frequency and contextual relevance. Tokens that appeared fewer than three times were considered statistically insignificant and removed to reduce noise in the dataset. Additionally, tokens that lacked semantic relevance, such as random characters or words without contextual meaning, were excluded. Furthermore, 84,586 particles and meaningless one-letter words were eliminated, as they contributed minimally to the context or the topic modeling process. These criteria were implemented to ensure that the resulting dataset retained only the most meaningful linguistic features for reliable analysis. For data analysis and model training, gensim 4.3.1 was employed to calculate the coherence score and subsequently derive the optimal number of topics for the latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) model. To determine the appropriate number of topics, both perplexity and coherence metrics were utilized, ensuring robust results. The LDA model’s training process fol-lowed an unsupervised learning approach, iteratively updating document-word matrices to refine topic distributions.

Table 1.

Data Analysis Stage.

Stage		Research method	Analysis tool
1	Data collection	• News scraping - Collected Naver News data (3,567) over period from March 31, 2023, to March 31, 2024	Selenium, ChromeDriver 113.0
2	Data preprocessing	• Tokenization - Derived corpus with 2,678,257 tokens • Deletion of stopwords and noisy data - Deleted 239,995 words • Deletion of one-letter words - Deleted 84,586 words	KoNLPy 0.6.0, Google Colab
3	Data analysis and model training	• Calculation of coherence score • LDA model training	pyvis 0.3.2, gensim 4.3.1

To ensure the model’s convergence, the training phase involved iterative computation of coherence scores until a convergence threshold was reached, further refining the LDA results. To visualize the inter-topic distance map and LDA, pyvis 0.3.2 was used. These steps, encompassing data collection, preprocessing, analysis, and model training, facilitated the systematic derivation of reliable and interpretable LDA results.

Data Collection

To derive the policy factors of CSV in public buildings, relevant news data were collected from the Naver News Library. It provides wide-ranging perspectives and analyses, enabling users to gain a holistic understanding of the social, economic, and environmental value related to public buildings. Using this database not only reduced research bias, but also facilitated an in-depth analysis of how public buildings create value in their interactions with the community and how they contribute to public policy. Moreover, deep insights into social contexts based on the diverse opinions and experiences of stakeholders in public buildings can be obtained. The data collection stage enabled the analysis of the effect of public buildings on the community, identification of various factors that could contribute to CSV, and exploration of the implications of these factors for public policy.

Considering the scope and characteristics of the target public buildings, keywords representing public buildings, public facilities, infrastructure, public assets, and public institutions were derived and used as search words to extract the social value of public buildings. Using the keywords of public buildings, public facilities, and infrastructure helped us approach public buildings from a broader perspective encompassing the physical properties of buildings as well as infrastructure-driven public services and networks. Public asset-related keywords facilitated the understanding of economic value and resource management, whereas keywords related to public institutions provided a general picture of the operations of and responsibility for public buildings. All these keywords contributed to providing keener insights into stakeholder interests and public buildings’ social value. Based on a comprehensive review of previous CSV literature (Bebbington et al., 2022; Farag, 2019; Porter & Kramer, 2018; Sami et al., 2018; Sancino & Schindele, 2022; Zhu, 2022), we identified three fundamental dimensions of shared value creation in public buildings: stakeholder collaboration, value co-creation, and social impact. Accordingly, we selected “shared value” to capture CSV implementation strategies, “communication” to examine stakeholder interaction patterns, and “social value” to assess community benefits and social outcomes. These keywords were systematically chosen based on their demonstrated relevance to public building development in prior studies. Table 2 shows a total of 3,567 datasets (documents) on keywords for public buildings and shared value creation collected through the Naver News Library from March 31, 2023, to March 31, 2024.

Table 2.

Breakdown of the Collected Data.

Keywords× (head keyword)	Breakdown of data by head keyword (case)
Keywords× (head keyword)	Shared value	Communication	Social value	Total
Public buildings × ( )	32	335	124	123
Public facilities × ( )	12	61	50	491
Infrastructure × ( )	191	0	468	659
Public assets × ( )	139	685	561	1,385
Public institutions × ( )	600	20	289	909
Total	1,101	974	1,492	3,567

Data Analysis Using LDA

Topic modelling is used to identify and understand topics or themes within a collection of documents. It involves analyzing the terms contained in each document, grouping the documents according to similarity, and presenting the main terms of each group as topic keywords. LDA is widely used for topic modelling, and makes it easier to interpret the analyzed results and represent topics than other techniques. The topic classification process within a document is as Figure 1 (Blei et al., 2003).

Figure 1.

LDA model.

A document topic comprises a set of words that are highly related to the words that constitute the document. Through this probability distribution, the researcher repeats the evaluation process to measure the similarity between the topic and document, and finally, selects the document’s topic through LDA (Blei et al., 2003). In topic modelling analyses such as LDA, the number of topics appropriate for categorization needs to be determined (Lee, 2016). For the coherence score was used to derive the number of topics for optimal categorization (Röder et al., 2015). The coherence score ranges from 0 to 1. It measures the coherence of the topic model by counting document pairs that contain co-occurring words (Röder et al., 2015). Specifically, coherence scores are calculated for each topic and averaged across all topics to produce the final coherence scores. Coherence increases when co-occurring words include words with high similarity scores. Thus, the higher the coherence score, the more coherently the LDA model explains a given phenomenon.

Application of Delphi Technique

This study collected news text data and applied topic modeling to analyze the relationship between public buildings and creating shared value. However, the interpretation of topics and keywords derived from topic modeling may appear overly simplistic, and the involvement of researchers’ subjective judgment can potentially limit the objectivity and validity of the results. To address these limitations, this study also employed the Delphi method, utilizing the knowledge and experience of a panel of experts to interpret and validate the data analysis results. Through this approach, the study enhanced the analytical depth and strengthened the validity and reliability of its findings.

The Delphi technique, a research method that addresses problems through a step-by-step judgment process based on expert opinions, is used when reference data are lacking or expert opinions are required. In other words, when there is no true or knowable answer, the Delphi method is employed based on the principles of democratic decision-making (i.e., the majority’s judgment is more accurate than that of the minority) and quantitative reasoning (i.e., the opinions of two people are more accurate than those of one person; Lee, 2001).

To identify the key influencing factors of CSV in public buildings, we performed Delphi analyses to rationally and objectively interpret the factors preliminarily derived from big data analysis. Experts were selected based on their professional backgrounds, expertise, and relevance to public buildings and shared-value policy. Specifically, we targeted nine experts from diverse fields, including urban planning, public administration, construction management, and social value policy, ensuring a multidisciplinary perspective. Selection criteria included a minimum of 10 years of professional experience, academic or practical contributions to public building development, and CSV expertise.

The Delphi method consisted of three rounds of analysis. In the first round, initial findings were shared, and experts provided feedback on the factors derived. In the second round, consolidated opinions were refined through iterative discussion, focusing on alignment and consensus. In the final round, results were verified, and areas of dis-agreement were resolved. To save time and overcome geographic limitations, individual phone interviews and online surveys were conducted at all stages, ensuring efficient and inclusive participation. To eliminate errors, expert opinions were iteratively collected and integrated in each round, with any discrepancies resolved through additional discussions to reach consensus. Tables 3 and 4 summarize the outcomes of each round.

Table 3.

Delphi Method Design and Number of Participants.

Stage	Design	Number of participants
Delphi expert	Area of expertise	(A)	(B)	(C)	(D)	(E)	(F)	(G)
First	• Review of crawled keywords	2	1	1	2	1	1	1
Second	• Review of derived data keywords	2	1	1	1	1	1	1
Third	• Topic identification and naming	2	1	1	1	1	1	1

(a) Construction management, (b) Architectural environment, (c) Public administration, (d) Public policy, (e) Social welfare, (f) Urban planning, and (g) Space philosophy.

Table 4.

Performance Results from the Delphi Method.

Stage	Research performance	Research effect
First	• Keyword crawling ✓ Public buildings: public buildings, public facilities and infrastructure, public assets, and public institutions ✓ Factors of CSV: shared value, communication, and social value	Selected final keywords based on evaluation of importance, representativeness, and relevance
Second	• Review of major keywords derived from the LDA analysis	Verified reliability of derived main keywords and determined follow-up measures
Third	• Topic identification and naming	Increased validity of topic interpretation by collating opinions on the meaning and appropriate name of each topic

Analysis Results

Coherence Score Analysis

The LDA model was trained based on the number of topics to select the optimal value reflecting the analysis results. As shown in Figure 2, the topic modeling was optimized at a coherence score of 0.4849 for 25 topics. A coherence score of 0.4 or higher generally indicates good coherence of topic modelling results, while a score between 0.4 and 0.6 is known to be appropriate (Röder et al., 2015). To validate this further, we used perplexity scores to measure predictive accuracy, manually reviewed topic-word distributions for interpretability, and consulted experts to ensure clear topic separation. These methods confirmed that 25 topics offer the best balance between coherence, interpretability, and relevance to the study’s objectives.

Figure 2.

Estimated coherence score depending on the number of topics.

LDA Analysis

The primary keywords for the core topics are listed in Table 5. The topic size is the proportion of documents that a specific topic represents among the total number of documents collected. The higher the proportion, the more important the topic and the more frequently the topic has been mentioned. “Society,” “government,” “project” and “support” are at the top of the list. Topic 5, which accounted for the highest percentage among the 25 topics, comprises “resident,” “space,” “project,” “region” and “support,” and represent the spaces of local residents. The main keywords of Topic 11 are “project,” “rural area,” “urban area,” “citizen” and “creation,” which can be interpreted to reflect public building infrastructure. The primary keywords of Topic 21 include “national,” “president,” “government,” “we” and “politics,” representing stakeholder composition and relationships.

Table 5.

Primary Keywords by Core Topic (25 Topics).

Ranking	Total		Topic 5 (7.4%)		Topic 11 (7.3%)		Topic 21 (6.8%)
Ranking	Keyword	Frequency	Keyword	Frequency	Keyword	Frequency	Keyword	Frequency
1	Society	12,190	Resident	2332	Project	3,022	National	3,753
2	Government	11,165	Space	2152	Rural area	2,854	President	2,189
3	Project	11,149	Project	1973	Urban area	2,850	Government	2,033
4	Support	9,878	Region	1614	Citizen	1,679	We	1,407
5	Company	9,840	Support	1255	Creation	1,511	Politics	1,251
6	National	9,405	Operation	1255	Industry	1,511	Korea	1,094
7	Region	7,999	Facility	1255	Promotion	1,343	Society	1,093
8	President	7,237	Center	1255	Initiative	1,175	Crisis	1,088
9	Korea	7,179	Society	1255	Economy	1,007	National Assembly	1,084
10	Policy	7,060	Library	1076	Culture	1,006	North Korea	955
11	Industry	6,850	Participation	1075	Facility	839	Diplomacy	938
12	Promotion	5,977	Education	897	Future	821	Economy	782
13	Initiative	5,785	Provision	896	Tourism	811	Nation	782
14	Technology	5,579	Activity	896	Development	810	Representative	780
15	Selection	5,510	Progress	895	Traffic	809	People’s livelihood	777
16	Market	5,434	Safety	895	Support	808	Problem	756
17	Investment	5,399	Culture	890	Center	674	Peace	756
18	Innovation	5,387	Corona	717	Hub	671	Policy	625
19	Information	5,276	Adolescent	715	Development	670	US	621
20	Service	5,209	Town	715	Attraction	666	Future	620
21	Problem	5,155	Initiative	714	Life	666	Basic	620
22	Value	5,136	Resident	714	Communication	664	Reform	618
23	Seoul	5,127	Creation	712	Space	641	Ruling/ opposition parties	611
24	Nation	5,021	Installation	710	Administration	503	Country	469
25	Expansion	4,866	Use	710	Construction	502	Situation	469

Figure 3 depicts the inter-topic distance map, which visualizes the topics analyzed using the LDA model in a two-dimensional space. The area of the topic circles is proportional to the number of words belonging to that topic across all documents. The smaller the distance between topics, the higher the correlation, and vice versa (Park & Oh, 2017). We observe that the topics are gathered in a specific area centered on Topics 12, 11, 5, 25, and 9, whereas Topics 15 and 20 were relatively distant. Figure 4 presents the top-30 most relevant terms for Topic 1, listing the most important keywords by ranking to help under-stand the meaning of each topic. The “Slide to adjust relevance metric” feature allows users to adjust the balance between term frequency and topic-specific uniqueness. For example, when λ = 1, the terms with the highest overall frequency across topics are prioritized, whereas when λ = 0, the terms most frequent within the specific topic are emphasized. The x-axis represents the frequency of the terms, while the y-axis lists the top-30 terms associated with the topic. Blue bars indicate the overall frequency of the terms in the dataset, while red bars show their frequency within Topic 1. The top-30 most relevant terms for Topic 1, which has high correlations with Topics 12, 23 and 11 as well as relatively high correlations with other topics, include “society,” “company,” “support” and “economy.”

Figure 3.

Inter-topic distance map.

Figure 4.

Top-30 most relevant terms for Topic N.

As the inter-topic distance map in Figure 3 is two-dimensional, expressing the dimension of the number of words (n terms) for each topic is difficult (Sievert & Shirley, 2014). To compensate for this, principal component analysis (PCA), the most representative dimensionality re-duction technique, was conducted to extract principal components using correlations between various characteristics and reduce the high-dimensional vectors to two-dimensional ones (Shin et al., 2023). An inter-topic distance map of the distances of each topic is shown in Figure 5. Topics positioned in similar locations can be interpreted as having similar contexts (Sievert & Shirley, 2014).

Figure 5.

PCA results.

After structuring topics close to each other, nine topics with a grouping ratio of 5% or higher were selected considering their importance and suitability for the research goal. Table 6 summarizes the results. The topics were named “public sale,” “corporate social value,” “public nature of citizen participation,” “local resources,” “regulatory protection,” “government complex,” “urban environment improvement,” “public decision making” and “digital convergence.” We identified the factors influencing the CSV in public buildings through these topics. “Public nature of citizen participation” and “public decision making” highlighted the active participation of citizens, and opinion-gathering process when planning, designing, and operating public buildings. “Local resources” and “urban environment improvement” suggested that public buildings contribute to community development and coexistence, for which community-driven public architecture is required. “Corporate social value” underscored the role of public architecture in realizing various types of social value, such as sustainability and social responsibilities. “Digital convergence” emphasized the need to enhance global competitiveness by incorporating digital technologies into public architecture. Finally, “public sale,” “government complex,” and “regulatory protection” stressed the need for the government to redefine public architecture policies, and streamline relevant regulations and promotion systems.

Table 6.

Topic modelling results.

Group	Topic	Grouping ratio	Topic name	Topic keywords
A	6, 9, 13	13.6%	Public Sale	Rental housing, rental, homestead, REITs, good house, rent, contributed acceptance, market price, income tax, land
B	1, 12, 23	11.7%	Corporate Social Value	Sustainability, contribution, pursuit, governance structure, shipment, community, offering, impact, utility
C	2, 3, 5	11.4%	Public Nature of Citizen Participation	Spontaneity, induction, subject, participant, community, member, agreement, regionality, cooperation, stakeholder
D	11, 18	10%	Local Resources	Customization, welfare, focus, promotion, self-reliance, procurement, ladder, exploration
E	17, 22	9.7%	Regulatory Protection	Rationalization, separation of industrial and financial capital, elimination, relaxation, rules and regulations, abolition, statute, right to life
F	4, 14	8.9%	Government Complex	Blue House, superiority, cabinet meeting, negligence, national property, transition committee, new government, office, Ministry of Economy and Finance, reduction
G	8, 24	8.7%	Urban Environment Improvement	Urban regeneration, decline, high-quality, modelling, design, rental housing, small scale, New Deal
H	21	6,8%	Public Decision Making	Architect, party, public sphere, presentation, view, collection, democracy, public goods, Freiburg
I	16, 25	5.7%	Digital Convergence	Creativity, discovery, part, convergence, cultivation, hopefulness (promising), promotion, cooperation, overseas expansion

Discussion

We trained an LDA topic model on news data and used the Delphi method to identify the factors related to the CSV in public buildings.

The top LDA-based keywords included “society,” “government,” “project,” “support” and “company.” Thus, the government and relevant stakeholders must take the initiative to empower public architecture to go beyond architectural elements, and promote social and economic benefits. The core keywords of the main topics call for urgent attention toward expanding the roles of public buildings to create shared value. Specifically, be-sides their general functions, public buildings must contribute to promoting social interactions and facilitating community formation. Here, the government must leverage appropriate instruments (e.g., policies, financial support, and regulations) to play a central role in the CSV of public architecture, and channel corporate technologies and workforces into public building projects through policy incentives, subsidies, and technical consulting. A total of 25 topics were reduced to 9 through PCA while maintaining the existing distance between them. The main keywords of each topic and their implications are described next.

Public Sale

The main keywords of Topic 1 include “rental housing,” “rental,” “homestead,” “real estate investment trusts (REITs),” “good house,” “rent,” “contributed acceptance,” “market price,” “income tax” and “land,” representing various elements of policies governing sale and rentals. These keywords cover the financial and policy aspects of public real estate sales, and provide information on various housing supply and financing methods such as REITs and land acquisition through contributed acceptance. Furthermore, we found supporting evidence reaffirming that public architecture deals with issues related to public housing policies, such as public housing pricing, rent valuation, and the method of securing land. This topic was named "Public Sale" because it implies the potential for public sales to promote public housing accessibility and economic sustainability.

Corporate Social Value

The main keywords of Topic 2 represent the effect of corporate activities on society and CSR, such as "sustainability", "contribution", "pursuit", "governance structure", "shipment", "community", "offering", "impact" and "utility". This topic suggests how sustainable development can be achieved through CSR when companies participate in infrastructure projects such as public building construction. With environmental, social and governance (ESG) management taking center stage in the construction industry, “sustainability” refers to long-term corporate activities driven by environmental, social, and economic factors. Meanwhile, “contribution,” “pursuit,” “offering” and “utility” refer to setting goals and making efforts to deliver them to promote social value. “Governance structure” shows how corporate internal decision making is linked to corporate social goals. Finally, “shipment” and “community” provide the general picture of how corporate activities interact with the local community. This topic was named “Corporate Social Value” because it highlights the importance of CSR and corporate value creation in the public architecture industry.

Public Nature of Citizen Participation

The main keywords of Topic 3 include “spontaneity,” “induction,” “subject,” “participant,” “community,” “member,” “agreement,” “regionality,” “cooperation” and “stakeholder,” emphasizing the voluntary and proactive participation of citizens in the public building planning, design, and operation. This topic suggests that the success of a public building project is heavily dependent on the active participation of citizens, and fulfilment of their demands and expectations. By transcending their physical spaces, public buildings must reflect local characteristics and identities, and play an integral role in creating local communities. In this respect, local residents must proactively participate in the planning and operation of public buildings, present their opinions, and promote cooperation and communication among stakeholders, thereby instilling a sense of community. Therefore, this topic was named “Public Nature of Citizen Participation.”

Local Resources

The main keywords of Topic 4 comprise “customization,” “welfare,” “focus,” “pro-motion,” “self-reliance,” “procurement,” “ladder” and “exploration,” demonstrating that the prioritization of the use of local resources tailored to local characteristics and needs. Each keyword is related to a local-oriented approach, promotion of social welfare, focus on resource utilization, promotion of the local economy, strengthening of local self-reliance, resource procurement methods, improvement of social mobility, and exploration of local resources, respectively. Based on these keywords, one can understand the ways in which local resources can be integrated into the design and embodiment of public buildings, and the positive changes this integration may bring. This is consistent with the findings of studies on cultural heritage restoration projects in the Middle East, which confirmed that public buildings, beyond their role as historical landmarks, significantly contribute to creating cultural and social value for the community and strengthening social cohesion (Mazzetto, 2021). This topic was named "Local Resources", as it suggests that public buildings should be constructed to reflect local characteristics and demands, thus enabling local-specific designs and the use of local resources.

Regulatory Protection

Topic 5 covers various public architecture-related laws and regulations, encompassing the keywords “rationalization,” “separation of industrial and financial capital,” “elimination,” “relaxation,” “rules and regulations,” “abolition,” “statute” and “right to life.” This topic refers to legal restrictions on public architecture, the need for protective measures, and action plans for improvement. “Rationalization,” “relaxation,” “elimination” and “abolition” indicate the need to streamline laws and regulations to facilitate public building projects. Meanwhile, “separation of industrial and financial capital” and “rules and regulations” emphasize the need for industry-specific restrictions. Notably, “right to life” suggests that regulations on public architecture interact with the basic rights of individuals. Thus, this topic was named “Regulatory Protection” as it implies that public safety and welfare must be guaranteed by reforming unreasonable regulations on public architecture while introducing valid and effective ones.

Government Complex

Topic 6 offers keen insights into the functions, symbolism, and spatial management of government buildings. Its main keywords include “Blue House,” “superiority,” “cabinet meeting,” “negligence,” “national property,” “transition committee,” “new government,” “office,” “Ministry of Economy and Finance” and “reduction,” focusing on the significance and functional changes of the government complex. These keywords facilitate the understanding of government buildings as political centers, as well as the inherent functions and quality of public buildings. However, “negligence” and “reduction” cast doubts on the efficient management and use of these public buildings. This topic was named “Government Complex” because it provides policy implications for the rational and efficient operation of government buildings as the symbolic and functional spaces of the government.

Urban Environment Improvement

The main keywords of Topic 7 include “urban regeneration,” “decline,” “high-quality,” “modelling,” “design,” “rental housing,” “small scale” and “New Deal.” This topic was named “Urban Environment Improvement.” These keywords suggest that public architecture plays a pivotal role in promoting urban regeneration projects in underdeveloped areas, improving residential environments, and creating high-quality living and commercial spaces through public design and modelling. “New Deal” represents government efforts, indicating the need to lay financial and legal foundations for comprehensive urban regeneration strategies. Given that urban regeneration strategies driven by public architecture can effectively address urban decay from social, economic, and environmental perspectives, and improve housing environments, the future stra-tegic planning and design of public buildings must be pursued in the context of urban regeneration policies.

Public Decision Making

Topic 8 comprises keywords related to the democratic process of collecting and publicizing the diverse opinions of the general public in the planning and design stages of public buildings. The main keywords include “architect,” “party,” “public sphere,” “presentation,” “view,” “collection,” “democracy,” “public goods” and “Freiburg.” The topic prioritizes the process by which architects present design proposals in the public sphere and collect opinions from various stakeholders. This suggests that public buildings can serve as public goods to realize democratic values. Furthermore, the keyword “Freiburg” suggests the need for Korea to examine the cases of advanced countries on green city guidelines and pursue relevant public building projects in a balanced and democratic manner. This topic was named “Public Decision Making,” since it emphasizes the importance of stakeholders’ involvement in the design and policymaking processes of public buildings.

Digital Convergence

The main keywords of Topic 9 include “creativity,” “discovery,” “part,” “convergence,” “cultivation,” “hopefulness (promising),” “promotion,” “cooperation” and “over-seas expansion,” highlighting the need to leverage the integration of digital technology to discover and foster creativity, and ultimately, strengthen global competitiveness. Thus, this topic was named “Digital Convergence.” In public architecture, the government is taking the lead in turning creative ideas into promising new industries to stay ahead of the curve in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Relevant policies and strategies that exploit digital technology are being developed. Digital tools must be leveraged and digital functions should be introduced into architectural design and construction to expedite the smartization of public spaces. This will increase the value and convenience of public buildings and contribute to securing a global competitive edge.

Conclusions

Conclusion and Suggestions

This study identified the influencing factors of shared value in public buildings by applying (LDA) and the Delphi method to news article text data and drew the following conclusions. First, Public buildings secure transparency and publicness through citizen participation and public decision-making, and create various values based on this. Second, corporate social values and local resources strengthen the economic foundation of public buildings. Third, regulatory protection and urban environment improvement ensure environmental sustainability. Lastly, to increase the effectiveness of these factors, digital convergence provides a technological foundation for enhancing efficiency and publicness.

In this way, the nine core keywords identified in this study show a high degree of alignment with the strategic directions of the 3rd Basic Plan for Architectural Policy (2021–2025). This national plan outlines key initiatives such as enhancing everyday spatial environments through innovation in public architecture, fostering community-centered and safe living spaces, managing balanced urban development, strengthening the competitiveness of the architectural industry, and promoting smart architecture. These policy directions closely correspond to the multidimensional roles of shared value creation in public architecture proposed in this study.

Furthermore, Korea is advancing a Living Social Overhead Capital (SOC) Complex Project, which integrates multiple public facilities—such as sports, cultural, childcare, and welfare services—within a single site. This initiative is implemented through a local government-led and central government-supported approach, emphasizing local demand and citizen participation. The model is closely tied to shared value creation factors, including civic engagement, publicness, regional resources, and inclusive public decision-making.

Also, the growing emphasis on shared value creation in public architecture is reflected in a range of international policy frameworks and evaluation systems. In the United States and Europe, sustainability-focused systems such as LEED, BREEAM, and EPC have accumulated long-term performance data primarily centered on energy efficiency and environmental impact, enabling cross-national benchmarking and improvement. In contrast, the United Kingdom’s DQI and CABE frameworks emphasize the social and cultural value of architecture, institutionalizing governance-based quality management. Korea, while operating systems such as environmental impact reviews and green building certifications, remains primarily focused on ecological criteria, with relatively underdeveloped evaluation tools for assessing design quality, social value, and local contextuality.

These international frameworks illustrate that the pursuit of shared value in public architecture is a growing global trend. They also suggest that the core elements of shared value creation can be adapted to diverse national and sociocultural contexts, particularly when supported by institutional continuity and a long-term policy orientation.

The recommendations of this study are as follows. First, policymakers and public project stakeholders should adopt CSV principles as a core framework in public architecture. Public buildings should be designed as multifunctional platforms that promote cultural identity, community development, and social welfare. Exemplary cases such as the Tate Modern in the UK and Aore Nagaoka in Japan demonstrate how public facilities can revitalize local economies and generate cultural value through strategic spatial programming.

Second, the integration of CSR, CSC, and ESG principles into public building projects should be institutionalized. Despite growing attention to sustainability, public-sector projects often overlook social and governance dimensions. To address this, governments and architectural agencies should encourage practices that enhance financial efficiency, community benefit, and long-term competitiveness. Skanska’s Culture House in Sweden is a notable example where repurposed public space serves both ESG goals and local needs.

Third, citizen participation and multi-stakeholder engagement must be formalized in all phases of public building development, from planning to management. Ensuring inclusivity and transparency in public decision-making is essential for generating shared value. Best practices include the Seattle Public Library’s public consultation process (U.S.), Vinci’s open data initiative (France), and inclusive procurement strategies in Lancashire and Milton Keynes (UK).

Implications of the Study

This study is original in that it identifies shared value creation factors in public buildings by analyzing social discussions reflected in news media and interpreting them in the context of architectural policy and community development. This study makes the following contributions by applying a mixed-method approach that combines LDA analysis of unstructured data from news articles with the Delphi technique reflecting expert opinions, in order to systematically identify the shared value creation factors in public buildings.

First, this study has academic significance in that it systematically introduces the concept of social value and CSV into the field of public architecture. In particular, by structuring key factors through the analysis of unstructured news data and expert discussions, it strengthens the theoretical framework on CSV in public buildings and expands the scope of existing research.

Second, this study makes a policy contribution by presenting practical policy directions for CSV in public buildings. The policy proposals—such as enhancing citizen participation, encouraging corporate engagement, applying digital technologies, and establishing institutional foundations—can serve as actionable guidelines for central and local governments in planning and managing future public architecture. Furthermore, by providing grounds for integrating socially responsible policy frameworks into architectural governance, the study contributes to improving the sustainability and social acceptability of the policy system.

Third, the CSV factors identified in this study can be used as practical decision-making criteria for various stakeholders—including public institutions, architectural practitioners, private companies, and local residents—involved in public building projects. In particular, these factors can be applied throughout the entire project cycle, including the development of design and operation guidelines, stakeholder decision-making, and preliminary feasibility assessments, thereby offering substantial practical value.

Future Research Directions

The directions for future research are outlined as follows. First, our analysis results are not representative, as the samples were only derived from Korean news data. Future studies should diversify data (e.g., international data, policy data, SNS data, and aca-demic papers) to increase research reliability and comprehensiveness at a global level. Second, this study could not ascertain time-varying trends and changes because the data collection period was limited to 1 year. Therefore, future research should employ continuous data from multiple years to determine period-specific policy effects and changes. Third, this paper explains the analysis results by relying on the frequency and occurrence of keywords and fails to explore the deep meaning of these keywords and their specific expressions in various social and cultural contexts. In future research, it is necessary to confirm the correlation and causality between factors through social network analysis, regression analysis, etc. Fourth, the factors derived through news keywords may not sufficiently reflect the architectural language of architecture and urban planning. In future research, it is necessary to compare and analyze factors according to architectural form, functional characteristics, and regional characteristics by utilizing research materials, design reports, and actual architectural cases in the fields of architecture and urban planning. Finally, future studies need to introduce Coherence Score and additional validation methods to enhance the reliability and validity of the potential topic selection process.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF).

ORCID iD

Jiwon Jun

Ethical Considerations

This study did not involve any human participants or animals. Therefore, ethical approval was not required.

Informed Consent

There were no human participants in this study, and informed consent was not applicable.

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2024S1A5C3A01042885).

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Data Availability Statement

Data can be accessed by contacting the first author or the corresponding author.

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