Cynthia Changxin Wang

UNSW Sydney | UNSW · Faculty of Built Environment

Globally, young construction workers aged 18 to 35 years have an abnormally high prevalence of poor mental health and its outcomes of substance abuse, long term disability, and suicide. This is because they are more susceptible to the many psychosocial risk factors associated with construction work. Current efforts at addressing this problem have l...

Young construction workers employ different practices to cope with psychosocial risks, most of which prevent them from achieving mental well-being. Managing this problem has been a challenge because research on the topic is fragmented. To contribute to addressing this problem, we systematically reviewed the literature on young construction workers’...

Prefabrication construction has gained popularity in the construction industry during the last few years. Due to the complexity of prefabrication design, building information modelling (BIM) is adopted in the design stage to improve efficiency and accuracy. Many previous studies have examined the adoption of BIM in the design stage and explored the...

Decision-making on whole-life-cycle net-zero-carbon buildings is critical for addressing carbon emission and environmental problems. However, there is a lack of a data integration framework and an open international standard approach integrating key decision variables to support scientific computations and decision-making for whole-life-cycle net-z...

Present urbanization influences urban morphology by the increasing number of dense buildings and infrastructure, which effects climate change. Microclimate simulations including urban vegetation help in mitigating climate change. Most of existing microclimate simulations simplify trees and thereby may introduce some erroneous estimates. Tree models...

Verticality check of prefabricated elements is an essential part of prefabrication construction. Currently, it is mostly carried out by manual methods, which is slow and inefficient. Previous studies have used laser scanning for the quality check but mainly focused on surface defects, flatness, and the dimension of construction elements. Very few s...

With the development of the times, the challenge of the construction industry entering Construction 4.0 and surviving in it is still formidable. Although many studies state the importance of effective leadership in the context of Construction 4.0, there is a need to investigate what leadership qualities can eectively provide guidance on leading con...

The potential to promote health and safety (H&S) through public procurement has resulted in increased expectation for public sector clients to integrate H&S matters into their procurement decisions and practices. Developing countries are however far behind in this endeavour. Using qualitative research, therefore, this study explored how public clie...

In engineering construction, displacement measurement of existing surrounding buildings is related to construction safety and quality. However, the conventional method using total station is slow and labour intensive, and more advanced laser scanning technology is expensive. To address these issues, a UAV-based approach is proposed to measure build...

Age-friendly communities (AFCs) are an important measure for fostering active aging. The key to achieving an age-friendly living environment is to construct or renovate it according to the residents’ demands. To date, very few studies have attempted to delve into the AFCs’ environmental demand from different groups’ perspectives. Based on the theor...

This paper presents the results of a systematic narrative review on the mental health of young construction workers. By means of a thematic analysis of fifteen studies, two themes of mental health conditions were identified: (1) behavioural and emotional problems and (2) substance use disorders. Most of the studies reviewed focused on male manual w...

Despite being a key provider of employment, construction work significantly contributes to poor mental health among young construction workers worldwide. Although there are studies on the psychosocial risk factors (PRFs) that make young construction workers susceptible to poor mental health, the literature is fragmented. This has obscured a deeper...

Public clients are increasingly expected to integrate health and safety (H&S) matters into their procurement decisions and practices to promote H&S on their projects. However, there is limited guidance on how clients, particularly those in developing countries, can promote H&S matters through the procurement of public projects. This study proposes...

Digital technologies are supposed to be used to obtain higher efficiency and quality in off-site construction. This research is an on-going thesis project and aims to identify the challenges and expectations of digital technologies’ implementation in off-site construction and develop a practical application for promoting one of the promising digita...

Purpose This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of different prefabricated construction (PC) policies using a case study in Wuhan, considering the local context. Design/methodology/approach The effectiveness of PC policies is falling behind expectations. The main reason lies in an insufficient understanding of the policy impacts. An agent-ba...

Poor health is increasing significantly among young construction workers worldwide. However, the case of young workers in the Global South is not well understood. We sought to identify the physical and mental conditions that affect young workers and measure their levels of prevalence. We also sought to analyze the influence of age and work location...

Off-site construction has generally been regarded as a more productive construction method, and digital technologies are considered to provide higher productivity and safety. However, there is a lack of research on how digital technologies can be best utilized to achieve the potential advantages of off-site construction. Some literature has made ex...

Construction waste reduction (CWR) is one of the important requirements for waste management and plays a vital role in saving resources, protecting the environment, and achieving sustainable development. Identifying the triggering factors of CWR behavior can facilitate the development of environmentally and economically sustainable development stra...

Gender equality at work in male-dominated industries is conditioned by intrinsic systemic issues which established policies have, to a significant extent, failed to address, as women’s participation remains under-represented. This study argues for the reappraisal of the issue through a different lens and carries out a systematic and thematic review...

The aim of this research is to empower female students who are studying construction related disciplines to be successful professionals in the Indonesian construction industry. The women’s empowerment is in line with the Indonesian Government’s long-term national development plan year 2005-2025. This research also contributes to improving the skill...

Mobile construction machineries are accident-prone on a dynamic construction site, as the site environment is constantly changing and continuous safety monitoring by human beings is impossible. These accidents usually happen in the form of machinery overturning or collapsing into risk areas, including the foundation pit, slopes, or soft soil area....

Public clients are generally expected to consider health and safety (H&S) in the project procurement process. However, there is evidence that in many developing countries, public clients do not adequately consider H&S in the procurement of public projects. This study therefore sought to understand this issue by exploring the constraints that hinder...

This study explored the impact of considering health and safety (H&S) in the construction procurement process based on the extent of H&S implementation on projects. Underpinned by information integration and rational decision-making theories, the study evaluated how the integration of H&S objectives into the overall project objectives, and the subs...

The negative climate change induced by rapid urbanization has become a global environmental issue. Numerous studies have been devoted to the microclimate regulation functions performed by urban vegetation. Digital city information modeling provides a powerful tool for various simula-tions and data analytics for the sustainable development of urban...

Prefabricated construction has gained increasing popularity to meet the needs of rapid city development in recent years. Installation quality check is a critical task in prefabricated construction, and currently mostly still carried out manually, which is slow and ineffective. To provide an efficient and practical quality check method to replace th...

The construction industry accounts for an enormous quantity of construction and demolition waste (CDW) where its improper management jeopardizes social, environmental, and economic resources. Although several studies have investigated some aspects of construction and demolition waste management (CDWM), there is a substantial need to empirically ana...

With the large-scale development and construction of urban underground spaces, the safety monitoring of foundation pit construction has gained much attention. Current safety monitoring of foundation pits is often achieved through manual onsite measurements with complex equipment and relies on complicated methods, which are labour intensive, time co...

Construction and demolition waste (C&DW) has a deleterious impacts on sustainability not only in developing countries but also in developed nations. For example, Australia generated more than 27 million tonnes of C&DW in 2018–2019; however, only 60% of this waste stream was recovered. Considering this low recovery rate, lower than many developed na...

Most countries have developed green building rating tools that are based on social, environmental, and economic dimensions. Pakistan followed a similar approach and has developed a rating tool known as Sustainability in Energy and Environmental Development (SEED). However, SEED is built on developed western countries’ rating tool standards which do...

Real Estate Online Platforms (REOPs) are used for conveying real estate and property-related informationto potential users (buyers, renters, or sellers). The information leveraged through REOPs supports theseusers in reaching conclusive rent or buy decisions. Despite their promised utility, user perception aboutaccepting online information through...

Purpose Modern construction projects are increasingly complex and rely heavily on multi-discipline collaboration, and this leads to a more and more decentralized project-based structure widely adopted in the construction industry. While job satisfaction (JS) and job performance (JP) have been heavily studied previously, few considered the impact of...

There has been growing interest in how to foster collaborative relationships between facility managers and end-users to obtain user-centred post-occupancy data for improving design and user satisfaction. Despite this attempt, there is little understanding on how facility managers respond to user feedback and its impact on user post-feedback behavio...

This study explored the extent to which health and safety (H&S) are considered in the procurement of public sector projects in Ghana. This is based on the background that procurement decisions have implications for project H&S management. The enormous size of public procurement projects offers opportunities for public clients to influence the behav...

Many previous studies have reported that the occupational health and safety (OHS) enforcement is poor in developing countries, however these studies have mainly focused on the broader enforcement problems and not fully considered the challenges confronting the institutions responsible for enforcing OHS standards at workplaces. In this study, twelve...

Construction and demolition waste (CDW) is described as a material which is indispensably arisen from construction and demolition (C&D) activities and ought to be effectively managed, otherwise, its improper management can produce negative economic, environmental, and social impacts. Effective management of CDW leads to the corroboration of structu...

Off-site construction (OSC) is known as an efficient construction method that could save time and cost, reduce waste of resources, and improve the overall productivity of projects. Coupled with digital technologies associated with the Industry 4.0 concept, OSC can offer a higher rate of productivity and safety. While there is a rich literature focu...

From both practical and theoretical perspectives, understanding the health and safety (H&S) implications of the characteristics and foundation upon which the construction industry in developing countries is built and operates is essential for H&S management within the industry. While many studies have provided evidence of factors affecting construc...

The construction industry is the second largest contributor to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and a significant driver of economic activities in Ghana. Given the importance of the construction industry in boosting the national economy, it is essential to develop effective strategies to keep improving the performance of the industry. To achieve this a...

Construction and demolition waste (C&DW) as a direct consequence of rapid urbanization is increasing around the world. C&DW generation has been identified as one of the major issues in the construction industry due to its direct impacts on the environment as well as the efficiency of construction industry. It is estimated that an overall of 35% of...

Purpose This study aims to explore the various approaches used in the general customer service industry to develop a conceptual framework for evaluating the responses of facility managers to user post-occupancy feedback. Design/methodology/approach This study uses conceptual analysis based on a comprehensive review of relevant literature. Finding...

The location of temporary facilities in a construction project and the entire site layout plan directly affect project objectives such as time, labor cost, and material transportation and handling. The layout of construction sites also affects entrainment factors such as energy consumption, carbon footprints, and overall construction operation prod...

Purpose This paper aims to identify user-centred facilities performance attributes of higher education buildings and how they can be used to evaluate individual learning spaces. These attributes are then consolidated for developing a post-occupancy evaluation (POE) framework in this context. Design/methodology/approach A systematic review of the l...

Post-occupancy evaluation (POE) is the process of collecting users' feedback on the performance of buildings. These feedbacks are essential for informing future design and improvement of existing buildings. The questionnaire survey is mostly adopted for the collection of users' post-occupancy experience of higher education buildings. This questionn...

The sustainability of facility performance is essential to meet users’ expectations. Post - occupancy evaluation (POE) is the process of collecting feedbacks from facility end-users on their perception about facility performance. These feedbacks are the confirmation or disconfirmation of the expected facility services performance of the buildings t...

Facility management (FM) relationship with users and client organizations has been said to be adversarial in nature. For FM to be able to successfully capture post occupancy information of massive constructed facilities the perceptions of the users are paramount. This necessitates the need for a collaborative practice between FM and the users to fo...

Real estate needs to improve its adoption of disruptive technologies to move from traditional to smart real estate (SRE). This study reviews the adoption of disruptive technologies in real estate. It covers the applications of nine such technologies, hereby referred to as the Big9. These are: drones, the internet of things (IoT), clouds, software a...

The vast majority of accidents in construction are generated by unsafe behaviors. Some researches also find that the behaviors could be influenced by the awareness and safety climate. The safety behavior and awareness belong to individual levels, while the safety climate belongs to the organization level. Previous studies mainly focus on the relati...

This paper aims to visualize the future of building rating systems by providing a novel building rating model. It begins with a review of building rating systems and their practices. Building rating tools have primarily been criticised from mainly three perspectives; first is the triple bottom line which necessitates that the building rating tools...

Buildings are the reasons of significant amount of global energy usage, carbon dioxide emissions, resource consumption, waste water production. To tackle these problems, building rating tools have been developed by different countries so that buildings could be constructed and evaluated according to a better sustainable culture. However, these tool...

Acquiring 3D building geometries is crucial for rapid energy exchange modelling of buildings. With a significant potential to contribute to high-performance built environment, positioning systems and laser scanners are being increasingly utilised to the construction industry for acquisition of 3D models of buildings. However, there are major barrie...

Higher education institutions (HEI) produce critical human resource and innovation needed to facilitate economic development. In today’s knowledge driven economy, constructed spaces at HEIs are critical components, which support learning activities. However, performance of learning environment tends to decline due to design, age, use and maintenanc...

Off-site construction involves the process of designing, fabricating, transporting and installing building elements for rapid site assembly to a greater degree of finish than in other types of on-site construction methods. However, some pieces of the building depending on the geometry, materials and weight can be produced using 3D printing on-site....

Regulated exit from public rental housing (PRH) after lease expiration plays a crucial role in fair allocation of the PRH units in China. There were incidents of exit difficulty happened previously which undermined the PRH allocation and its principles of fairness and efficiency. However, very few studies have directly investigated the determinants...

While urban rail transit has gained increasing popularity, there are still many problems related to obtaining financial resources for constructing it in China. It is proved that the Land Value Capture (LVC) theory can provide theoretical support for exploring new financing mode of urban rail transit to solve these problems. This paper reviews the c...

Higher education institutions (HEIs) infrastructure asset is a complex and massive investment, with high operational and management cost. The functionality of this infrastructure facility is paramount to the performance and well-being of its users. The effective and efficient operation and management of this facility required adequate knowledge and...

The 'flipped classroom' approach has received much attention in small-class teaching and to a lesser extent in research. However, the implementation of this approach has not systematically been reviewed, as applied to construction education, particularly not for larger class sizes. Focusing on this gap, the current learning and teaching methods in...

Australia has long been renowned for its vigorous immigration program. The Lebanese immigrants are one of the top 15 contributing countries to the population increase in Australia as a result of immigration. Since the 1980s, the Lebanese immigrants have contributed to the cultural landscape of Sydney especially in the suburb of Punchbowl where they...

Public-private partnerships (PPPs) are becoming increasingly popular around the world. While a large number of studies have explored the contractual mechanisms by which risks are distributed on such projects, none have explored the opportunistic behaviour which often drives the end result. This study uses tort law theory and organizational misbehav...

Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology is relatively mature when used as a pre-construction design tool; but, it has not been widely used in the construction phase due to a range of technical and management issues. This research investigates the use of BIM in the area of project planning and scheduling in the Australian construction industr...

It is well known that the rapid development of building information modeling (BIM) has provided the construction industry with a more advanced tool for project information sharing. The standardized IFC format, centralized information storage and consistent information flow could potentially help all construction professionals, including quantity su...

The first stage of sustainable construction has been going on for perhaps 15 years and has made big progress. Various research states that green buildings have been produced to lower the impacts on the environment and enhance the health quality of the occupants. Studies also show that universities and colleges put emphasis on the importance to buil...

Most of the previous research on determining the reliability level of building structures focused on the initial state of the structures, while the influence of the construction process and the service period has been ignored. In this research, a multi-criteria approach is used to determine the reliability level of building structures. Taking into...

Self-Directed Learning is generally regarded as an important skill throughout life and is encouraged in the tertiary education. However, in the courses implemented with self-directed learning approach, we also see students get off track, fail to make progress, or complain not being assessed fairly. It is observed that many of our construction proje...

Building Information Modelling (BIM) has been widely accepted as an advanced technique and can be applied throughout the project lifecycle including design, construction, OH&S, maintenance, and demolition. Estimating software is a significant management tool for project development; and currently there are two main categories: one type is BIM compa...

Document and information management is important in any project environment, especially in the building and construction industry. As a large amount of project information is exchanged and shared in the project life cycle, good document management is essential for efficient communication and decision making. Although the use of electronic and web-b...

Construction industry contributes to about 40% of the world's energy consumption and is related to 1/3rd of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions throughout its life cycle. Most of the current research on sustainability has been focusing on the life-cycle analysis, building operational phase or on the embodied energy of the building materials, and...