A preliminary study on building demolition engineering and management

In recent years, building demolition has been challenging urban developers due to the increased incidence of demolition projects and the elevation of demolition requirements. The importance of building demolition is also recognised by researchers and, given its environmental impacts, it is anticipated to achieve the same attention as conventional planning, design, construction and maintenance in the near future. In this article, the authors aim to develop a series of strategies for promoting building demolition practice. Environmentally-friendly demolition procedures are introduced through a waste minimisation decision that makes the approach on alternatives to demolition and an integrated demolition planning and design approach focus on a just-in-time (JIT) philosophy. A conceptual management framework is also presented for the implementation of demolition projects.</p

Electricity demand analysis for solar PV houses: Polyvalent heat pumps coupled with water storage tanks

Electricity demand analysis for solar PV houses: Polyvalent heat pumps coupled with water storage tank

Agents & Multi-agent Systems in Construction

Agents & Multi-agent Systems in Constructio

Incorporating Social Benefits in Concession Price Negotiation for Public-Private Partnership Contracts

Public-private partnership (PPP) has become the most popular contract agreement form for infrastructure projects. To fully enjoy the benefits of PPP contracting, the value of the concession price should be carefully determined with quantitative justification. Traditional methods of determining the value of concession price are based on the evaluation of financial indexes such as net present value and financial return on investment. However, more and more research has highlighted the importance of evaluating social benefits in decision-making due to its capability to assess not only the financial performance of the projects but also the social and environmental values. Therefore, this research innovatively investigates the role of social benefit in concession price negotiation and aims to determine the optimal concession price with a specific focus on government-pays PPPs. Following quantification of social benefits, the payoffs of project parties for concession price negotiation are modeled mathematically, and bargaining game theory is employed to explore the bargaining behaviors of project parties during negotiation. A numerical example is used to demonstrate the developed negotiation-based determination process. The data analysis results show that the proposed method can successfully determine the optimal concession price. Also, considering the monetary value of social benefits in concession price negotiation, the payoffs for the government and corporate social responsibility (CSR)-oriented concessionaire are significantly improved. When determining other critical concession parameters such as the concession period, scholars and practitioners can follow the modeling process developed in this research to incorporate social benefit into the discussion

Effects of Disruption Circumstances on Contract Renegotiation of Australian PPPs

Effects of Disruption Circumstances on Contract Renegotiation of Australian PPP

Issues in Compliance with Low-Carbon Requirements in the Australian Residential Building Industry

Issues in Compliance with Low-Carbon Requirements in the Australian Residential Building Industr

Influence of Interventions on Building Practitioners’ Beyond-Compliance with Residential Energy Performance Standards

Influence of Interventions on Building Practitioners’ Beyond-Compliance with Residential Energy Performance Standard

Examining the success drivers and barriers of modular building projects using qualitative comparative analysis

Examining the success drivers and barriers of modular building projects using qualitative comparative analysi

Determination of government guarantee and revenue cap in public–private partnership contracts

PurposeConsidering there is a lack of research in determining the optimal levels of government guarantee and revenue cap, the objective of this research is to determine their optimal levels to achieve a reasonable financial risk allocation between governments and private investors while avoiding overly lucrative conditions for private investors.Design/methodology/approachExpanded net present value (NPV) analysis and bargaining game theory are employed to construct the core of the determination process. The risk gap between governments and private investors is assessed via an expanded NPV analysis to see if the financial risk has been shared reasonably, based on which the range of the government guarantee is decided. A bargaining model is then created to help locate the optimal level of the government guarantee. Finally, a revenue cap, often combined with the government guarantee in public–private partnership (PPP) agreements, will be determined if overly lucrative conditions for private investors are observed or governments suffer a risk spillover.FindingsReferring to a real PPP project in Australia, Project BA is created to validate the applicability of the proposed determination process. The outcome shows that the proposed determination process in this paper is capable of determining the optimal levels of government guarantee and revenue cap. The government preferences towards risk allocation will influence the values of the optimal levels. Governments may also consider to alleviate the control over investors' net profits to mobilise private investors into PPP projects.Research limitations/implicationsThere is a potential possibility that the revenue cap fails to control the financial risk for governments or the overly lucrative condition for private investors. In other words, even though the revenue cap is set at the minimal level, the financial risk for governments still beyond their tolerance range or the overly lucrative condition for private investors still occurs. Future research may focus on other financial protective schemes which help to better control the financial risks for governments and profits for private investors.Originality/valueGovernment guarantees are frequently used as an investment incentive to reduce the probabilities of suffering loss for private investors. Nevertheless, the financial risks for governments may increase after providing guarantees and, as a result, revenue cap is required by governments to avoid placing themselves in an unprotected situation. By recognising the importance of the two contractual parameters, many scholars dig into their option values. However, there are very rare research works focussing on the method of determining the specific levels of government guarantee and revenue cap. To overcome the limitations of existing models and enrich the methodology for government guarantee and revenue cap determination, this paper contributes to the body of knowledge by developing a government guarantee and revenue cap determination process which contributes to a reasonable allocation of financial risks between governments and private investors

Internationalization of the construction industry in the global value chain

The construction sector plays a significant role in national economic development and accounts for a dominant portion of national economic growth. The international construction industry’s development has been explored from the perspective of the economy. Internationalization improves awareness about participation in international trade activities. This paper aims to quantify the internationalization of the construction industry in the global value chain. The sectoral participation index and interaction index are conducted to evaluate the internationalized degree of the construction industries. In the results, the distribution of the backward participation indices shows nearly all countries’ internationalization processes were still at the stage of benefiting from primary resources. The forward support index is easily influenced by the scale effect. The backward independence index accounts for a small percentage of national imports measured by value added. The main source of value-added supply was the local construction sector. This study proposes a comprehensive indicator to quantify the internationalization of the construction industries in the sight of national and global points. The references have a positive value for policymakers in the management of value-added flows in the international market and adjustment of the foreign trade environment