Information Technology and Human Factors to Enhance Design and Constructability Review Processes in Construction

abstract: Emerging information and communication technology (ICT) has had an enormous effect on the building architecture, engineering, construction and operation (AECO) fields in recent decades. The effects have resonated in several disciplines, such as project information flow, design representation and communication, and Building Information Modeling (BIM) approaches. However, these effects can potentially impact communication and coordination of the virtual design contents in both design and construction phases. Therefore, and with the great potential for emerging technologies in construction projects, it is essential to understand how these technologies influence virtual design information within the organizations as well as individuals’ behaviors. This research focusses on understanding current emerging technologies and its impacts on projects virtual design information and communication among projects stakeholders within the AECO organizations.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Civil and Environmental Engineering 201

A conceptual framework for multi-modal interactive virtual workspaces

Construction projects involve a large number of both direct stakeholders (clients, professional teams, contractors, etc.) and indirect stakeholders (local authorities, residents, workers, etc.). Current methods of communicating building design information can lead to several types of difficulties (e.g. incomplete understanding of the planned construction, functional inefficiencies, inaccurate initial work or clashes between components, etc.). Integrated software solutions based on VR technologies can bring significant value improvement and cost reduction to the Construction Industry. The aim of this paper is to present research being carried out in the frame of the DIVERCITY project (Distributed Virtual Workspace for Enhancing Communication within the Construction Industry - IST project n°13365), funded under the European IST programme (Information Society Technologies). DIVERCITY's goal is to develop a Virtual Workspace that addresses three key building construction phases: (1) Client briefing (with detailed interaction between clients and architects); (2) Design Review (which requires detailed input from multidisciplinary teams - architects, engineers, facility managers, etc.); (3) Construction (aiming to fabricate or refurbish the building).Using a distributed architecture, the DIVERCITY system aims to support and enhance concurrent engineering practices for these three phases allowing teams based in different geographic locations to collaboratively design, test and validate shared virtual projects. The global DIVERCITY project will be presented in terms of objectives and the software architecture will be detailed.149-162Pubblicat

Mapping e-Science’s Path in the Collaboration Space: Ontological Approach to Monitoring Infrastructure Development

In an undertaking such as the U.S. Cyberinfrastructure Initiative, or the UK e-science program, which span many years and comprise a great many projects funded by multiple agencies, it can be very difficult to keep tabs on what everyone is doing. But, it is not impossible. In this paper, we propose the construction of ontologies as a means of monitoring a research program’s portfolio of projects. In particular, we introduce the “virtual laboratory ontology” (VLO) and show how its application to e-Science yields a mapping of the distribution of projects in several dimensions of the “collaboration space.” In this paper, we sketch out a method to induce a project mapping from project descriptions and present the resulting map for the UK e-science program. This paper shows the proposed mapping approach to be informative as well as feasible, and we expect that its further development can prove to be substantively useful for future work in cyber-infrastructure-building.e-Science, virtual laboratory ontology, collaboration space, project mapping, cyber-infrastructure building

Virtual architecture: reconstructing architecture through photography

The concept of construction in architectural design process is a temporary action that exists for a while and transforms itself into another product; i.e. the final building to be inhabited. Construction site can be taken as a podium where a play-to-remain-incomplete is being staged. The incompleteness causes us to dream, due to the fact that a complete building loses its narrative potential as it informs us about all the necessary pieces that constitute the whole: There is no puzzle to solve... Construction in this sense is like a historical ruin; Paul Zucker asserts that "ruins have held for a long time a unique position in the visual, emotional, and literary imagery of man. They have fascinated artists, poets, scholars, and sightseers alike. Devastated by time or willful destruction, incomplete as they are, they represent a combination of man-made forms and of organic nature." Architectural photography has the potential of re-creating this puzzle back again in order to bring an alternative representation to architecture. The architectural photographer is sometimes offered the freedom of reinterpreting, reconstructing architecture in order to be able to present a novel virtual perception to the audience. The idea here is to get some spatial clues that can later be used in other architectural projects. I was personally invited to two different concept exhibits in which I was given the freedom of inventing a virtual architecture through photography. The concept text written for one of these exhibits goes as follows: “I went, saw, stopped, attempted to grasp and enter it, looked at construction process and workers with respect, tried to internalize, wanted to claim it for a while, dreamed of creating a microcosm out of the macrocosm I was in, shot and shot and shot and finally selected: The created world, though intended for all, was probably quite a personal illusion...” Virtual architecture is a term used for architecture specifically created in the computer environment and never used in the realm of architectural photography. People like Piranesi, Lebbeus Woods, M.C. Escher, Marcos Novak, etc. previously dreamed about architectures that could exist virtually on paper, screen, digital environments. This paper will try to prove that this practice of (re)designing architecture virtually can be transferred to one of the most important realms of visuality: Photography. Various digital processes like stitching multiple photos together and mirroring images in image editing software like Photoshop, allow this virtual architecture to take place in the computer environment. Following this, I propose to raise the term “snap architecture” to connect it to the frequently referred concept of “paper architecture.” Keywords: virtual, (re)construction, snap architecture, paper architecture, illusion, puzzle, incompleteness, representation, perception, reinterpretation, microcosm vs. macrocosm, fictional architecture, metaspace, narrative space, generative architecture

Transforming the construction industry towards the next normal.

The conjecture of the "next normal in construction industry" was catalysed by the impact and gaps created by the COVID-19 pandemic on the construction industry in the year 2020. More significantly, principles underpinning the drive to "Construction Industry 4.0" became more pronounced in terms of their application during the COVID-19 pandemic with increased application of digitalisation through virtual environments for enhanced construction collaborations, sustainability and productivity. Consequently, this special issue (SI) proposed a nexus between the construction industry trends within the niches of the circular economy (CE); building information modelling (BIM); cost reduction and maintenance; construction digitalisation; designing for sustainability; low-zero carbon technology and transitioning construction stakeholders, projects and organisations towards the next normal

Effectiveness of Building Information Modeling in Existing Structure Construction Compared to New Structure Construction

Over the last decade Building Information Modeling has become a crucial aspect of the construction project for larger construction firms in the United States. BIM has many different facets and can be used to effectively manage construction projects in various ways. Modeling a structure in a virtual setting in preconstruction allows for adequate preparedness for the construction process and has been shown to be effective, on a broad scale, to reduce cost, compress schedules, and allow for a more fluid construction process overall. The goal of this paper is to look more closely at BIM and its effectiveness on existing structures as it compares to new structure construction. A qualitative analysis survey was conducted with a single construction company in San Francisco, California. The company is a commercial general contractor that completes work in both the existing and new construction areas. The company’s unique experience with both types of construction processes and the use of BIM, made the company a good candidate for conducting a comparison on the challenges that are presented with utilizing BIM in existing construction. It was found that a lack of formal timeline structure for executing BIM on projects more greatly impacts successful timely completion of existing structure projects. Furthermore, the additional costs of laser scanning for existing structure projects create a greater barrier to entry in executing BIM

Architectural Information Modelling for Virtual Heritage Application

In today’s AEC industry (Architecture, Engineering and Construction industry), there has been a vast evolution in the usage of information and communication technology (ICT) for describing and managing construction projects. During the past years this led to the elaboration of the technique Building Information Modelling or BIM for describing buildings and building information according to their different composing elements. One of the major advantages in this BIM approach is the possibility to use this building information for calculation, simulation and analysis in related, more dedicated ICT applications. Starting from the building information model, these applications are accessible through an interoperability language, namely the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC), elaborated by the International Alliance for Interoperability or IAI. This paper proposes the development of an approach similar to BIM, namely Architectural Information Modelling (AIM), which describes more theoretical and historical building knowledge instead of the explicit and component-based descriptions inside BIM. It illustrates several possible advantages of this AIM approach for application in building documentation for virtual heritage, combined with possible historical analysis tools. It also makes a short comparison of this technique with procedural methods, a similar technique that is gaining much interest during the past few years in the domain of virtual heritage. Finally, this paper proposes future research ambitions and some conclusions of this first, conceptual research about an architectural information modelling approach