A review of cloud-based bim technology in the construction sector

Cloud computing technology is regarded as a major transformational force that is causing unprecedented change across the communication and business disciplines. In the architecture, engineering and construction sector, cloud-BIM integration is considered to be the second generation of building information management (BIM) development, and is expected to produce another wave of change across the construction industry. Despite this, few studies to date have attempted to summarise the research literature on cloud-BIM. This paper explores the literature to identify the substantive work on cloud-BIM, particularly regarding building life cycle management, to provide valuable insight for practitioners and to propose avenues for further research. Thirty academic sources, including refereed journal articles and conference papers, were retrieved and analysed in terms of their research focus and nature of application. The review revealed that most cloud-BIM research has focused on the building planning/design and construction stages. The findings suggest that more research should be directed towards operation, maintenance and facility management, energy efficiency and the demolition and deconstruction stages of building life cycle management. Further empirical research on organisational and legal issues, including security, responsibility, liability and model ownership, of the cloud-BIM model is also needed

Enabling the Development and Implementation of Digital Twins : Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Construction Applications of Virtual Reality

Welcome to the 20th International Conference on Construction Applications of Virtual Reality (CONVR 2020). This year we are meeting on-line due to the current Coronavirus pandemic. The overarching theme for CONVR2020 is "Enabling the development and implementation of Digital Twins". CONVR is one of the world-leading conferences in the areas of virtual reality, augmented reality and building information modelling. Each year, more than 100 participants from all around the globe meet to discuss and exchange the latest developments and applications of virtual technologies in the architectural, engineering, construction and operation industry (AECO). The conference is also known for having a unique blend of participants from both academia and industry. This year, with all the difficulties of replicating a real face to face meetings, we are carefully planning the conference to ensure that all participants have a perfect experience. We have a group of leading keynote speakers from industry and academia who are covering up to date hot topics and are enthusiastic and keen to share their knowledge with you. CONVR participants are very loyal to the conference and have attended most of the editions over the last eighteen editions. This year we are welcoming numerous first timers and we aim to help them make the most of the conference by introducing them to other participants

Sonic Interactions in Virtual Environments: the Egocentric Audio Perspective of the Digital Twin

The relationships between the listener, physical world and virtual environment (VE) should not only inspire the design of natural multimodal interfaces but should be discovered to make sense of the mediating action of VR technologies. This chapter aims to transform an archipelago of studies related to sonic interactions in virtual environments (SIVE) into a research field equipped with a first theoretical framework with an inclusive vision of the challenges to come: the egocentric perspective of the auditory digital twin. In a VE with immersive audio technologies implemented, the role of VR simulations must be enacted by a participatory exploration of sense-making in a network of human and non-human agents, called actors. The guardian of such locus of agency is the auditory digital twin that fosters intra-actions between humans and technology, dynamically and fluidly redefining all those configurations that are crucial for an immersive and coherent experience. The idea of entanglement theory is here mainly declined in an egocentric-spatial perspective related to emerging knowledge of the listener's perceptual capabilities. This is an actively transformative relation with the digital twin potentials to create movement, transparency, and provocative activities in VEs. The chapter contains an original theoretical perspective complemented by several bibliographical references and links to the other book chapters that have contributed significantly to the proposal presented here.Comment: 46 pages, 5 figures. Pre-print version of the introduction to the book "Sonic Interactions in Virtual Environments" in press for Springer's Human-Computer Interaction Series, Open Access license. The pre-print editors' copy of the book can be found at https://vbn.aau.dk/en/publications/sonic-interactions-in-virtual-environments - full book info: https://sive.create.aau.dk/index.php/sivebook

Integration of Blockchain and Digital Twins in the Smart Built Environment Adopting Disruptive Technologies—A Systematic Review

The integration of blockchain and digital twins (DT) for better building-lifecycle data management has recently received much attention from researchers in the field. In this respect, the adoption of enabling technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), the In-ternet of Things (IoT), cloud and edge computing, Big Data analytics, etc., has also been investigated in an abundance of studies. The present review inspects the recent studies to shed light on the foremost among those enabling technologies and their scope, challenges, and integration potential. To this end, 86 scientific papers, recognized and retrieved from the Scopus and Web of Science databases , were reviewed and a thorough bibliometric analysis was performed on them. The obtained results demonstrate the nascency of the research in this field and the necessity of further implementation of practical methods to discover and prove the real potential of these technologies and their fusion. It was also found that the integration of these technologies can be beneficial for addressing the implementation challenges they face individually. In the end, an abstract descriptive model is presented to provide a better understanding of how the technologies can become integrated into a unified system for smartening the built environment

Architecture design studio pedagogy for translating environmental sustainable elements

Sustainable design helps reduce negative impacts on the environment and improve building performance. The architectural educators strive to impart the sustainable requisite to students. Based on the literature review and the results of an exploratory study conducted, it is evident that the pedagogy employed by Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) architectural educators follows reflective-in-action and Kolb‘s theory. However, the environmental sustainable design elements are not reflected in most architectural design studio curriculum. In fact, only a few courses have elements of environmental sustainable design embedded in them. This research aims to determine the manner in which architectural educators in UTM translate environmental sustainable design elements to students. A mixed method was employed in this study: observation on the second year environmental design studio was done for four (4) months (n=7); a questionnaire was distributed to all architectural students (n=150), and interviews of educators (n=17) involved in workbase studios in the department of Architecture were conducted. The data from the observation was analyzed with categorical data analysis with a percent agreement set at 70% inter-coder reliability coefficient. The questionnaire was analyzed using SPSS version 20, with a one way ANOVA set at p<0.05 significance level to obtain results for inferences, while the interviews were analyzed by content analysis. Results on the analysis show that the architectural educators imparted aspect of environmental sustainable design elements directly to the students through various pedagogies, and the students used those environmental sustainable design elements in their design studio work. The results also reveal that the architectural curriculum is a hidden curriculum which embeds sustainable design elements; however, understanding of building ecosystem and ability to design sustainable buildings are not enforced on the students across all the design studios. It is only mandatory in the second semester of the second year studio since the theme is on the environmental paradigm. This implies that in order to empower students with the ability to design environmental sustainable buildings, more sustainable core subjects could be included in the studio curriculum. Findings could be employed by architectural educators and policy makers as a guide for future curriculum upgrading and development