M. Reza Hosseini

• BSc (Eng), MSc (Eng), PhD, ASCE
• University of Melbourne

This paper discusses a case study of Australia’s most technologically advanced health facility to address an identified gap in the body of the knowledge. That is, no comprehensive study has hitherto attempted to draw upon virtual team working theories to enhance collaboration in BIM-based construction networks (BbCNs). In response to this, the prese...

Despite the envisaged benefits of BIM adoption for SMEs, BIM in SMEs has remained an underrepresented area within the available academic literature. This study proposes and draws upon a framework grounded on innovation diffusion theory (IDT) to provide an illuminating insight into the current state of BIM and the main barriers to BIM adoption withi...

In response to the growing attention to sustainable built environment, this study aims at introducing an approach in construction waste optimization through integrating parametric design with offsite construction methodology. To this end, a generative algorithm was developed within the integrated platform of Rhino and Grasshopper software based on...

Implementation of global virtual engineering teams (GVETs) commenced since at least two decades ago, but construction has been behind other industries in terms of harnessing this new paradigm. Nevertheless, GVETs are receiving increasing attention within the construction context due to numerous potential benefits they can bring about for the projec...

The intense competition between the Iranian construction companies has led them to take all appropriate measures to decrease the costs as much as possible. Hence, due to the pivotal role of human resources in construction projects cost, a major part of Iranian construction companies seek their profitability and survival in maximizing the productivi...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present a quantified model for influential factors in the collaboration process in Building Information Modelling (BIM). BIM-based Construction Networks (BbCNs), which comprise teams of specialist organisations engaged to execute BIM-related activities, have become the centrepiece of collaboration in construc...

Purpose This study aims to investigate the complexity factors associated with BIM-enabled projects. BIM has been widely promoted as a potential solution to numerous challenges that hinder productivity in construction projects, owing to its numerous advantages. Nevertheless, it is crucial to acknowledge the heightened complexity it introduces to pro...

Purpose There is an urgent call for transitioning towards a circular economy (CE) in housing. Pivotal to this transition is implementing business models aligned with CE principles, such as the ones informed by the product-service system (PSS). However, incorporating the PSS into housing to realize a CE faces significant challenges within an industr...

Transitioning to a circular housing economy necessitates innovative business models informed by Circular Economy (CE) principles. Yet, a business viewpoint is almost absent from the current circular housing discourse. Of various applicable business approaches, the Product-Service System (PSS) has frequently been put forward due to its resource redu...

Purpose Predictive digital twin technology, which amalgamates digital twins (DT), the internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) for data collection, simulation and predictive purposes, has demonstrated its effectiveness across a wide array of industries. Nonetheless, there is a conspicuous lack of comprehensive research in the built...

The architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry has struggled in its efforts to transition to a circular economy (CE) due to lock‐ins, where the industry remains entrenched in practices that resist this much‐needed transition. The solutions implemented so far have been unsuccessful. This failure can largely be attributed to the preva...

Purpose A lack of suitably qualified Building Information Modelling (BIM) professionals is understood to be a major barrier towards higher uptakes of BIM in the Australian construction industry. In response, Australian universities have tried to integrate the teaching of BIM into construction-related curricula, but with limited success. The acknowl...

Purpose Previous studies have established to a great extent that regulatory frameworks and, in particular, procurement approaches – that are common in a particular context – have a major impact on the success of building information modelling (BIM) implementation in construction projects. Despite the close links between these two concepts, research...

Despite the urgency of environmental concerns, a transition to Circular Economy (CE) housing has been slow to unfold. The challenge lies not just in technically designing houses and their elements to function within a closed system, but also in cultivating stakeholders' commitment to managing them in circular ways. This underscores the need to reth...

Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) have emerged as a promising solution for effectively handling non-Euclidean data in construction, including building information models (BIM) and scanned point clouds. However, despite their potential, there is a lack of comprehensive scholarly work providing a holistic understanding of the application of GNNs in the co...

Machine learning models have seen widespread application in predicting building thermal loads. Yet, these existing models generally predict the thermal load for a single thermal zone or an entire building, overlooking buildings with multiple thermal zones. Moreover, interactions between thermal zones are seldom accounted for these methods. Addressi...

Building defects are becoming recurrent phenomena in most high-rise buildings. However, little research exists on the analysis of defects in high-rise buildings based on data from real-life projects. This study aims to develop dashboards and models for revealing the most common locations of defects, understanding associations among defects and pred...

The architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry in Australia holds significant potential for driving the adoption of a circular economy (CE). With a contribution of up to 9% to the country's gross domestic product (GDP) and an anticipated annual growth rate of 2.4%, the AEC industry is poised to play a crucial role in advancing CE pr...

The construction industry is a hazardous industry with significant injuries and fatalities. Few studies have used data-driven analysis to investigate injuries due to construction accidents. This study aims to deploy machine learning (ML) models to predict four injury types (ITs): Upper limbs, lower limbs, head/neck, and back/trunk. A total of 16,87...

Sewer pipeline failures pose significant threats to the environment and public health. To tackle these repercussions, many deterioration models have been developed to predict the conditions of sewer pipes, most of which are based on CCTV inspection reports. However, these reports are prone to errors due to their subjective nature and human involvem...

Housing practices are forcing accelerated demand for natural resources and flow-on effects contribute to severe environmental consequences. Transition to a Circular Economy (CE) offers some respite from this mounting pressure. To date, however, efforts to implement a CE have primarily focused on addressing the technical challenges associated with t...

Blockchain and smart contracts are measures to speed up the diffusion of circular economy into construction processes. Nevertheless, integrated solutions that cover all the aspects of circular supply chain including network structure, business processes, and the products are still missing. This paper is an attempt to bridge this gap, through offeri...

Building thermal load prediction plays an essential role in reducing building energy consumption. However, most of the existing machine learning-based methods can only predict the thermal load of a single zone or the whole building, and it is difficult to perform multi-zone prediction. This study proposed a graph-based method to achieve simultaneou...

Purpose To come up with a prudent decision on the installation of an appropriate green wall (GW) on buildings, this study presents a novel decision-making algorithm. The proposed algorithm considers the importance of barriers hampering GW adoption, as well as their relationships with regard to different types of GWs existing in a contextual setting...

As two essential components of Industry 4.0 in the construction industry, building information modelling (BIM) and the Internet of things (IoT) tend to be integrated. Research in the field has increased significantly in recent years, yet previous reviews on this field are limited, and a review study with both quantitative and qualitative analysis o...

Dam-building projects in Iran procured under buyer credit arrangements from foreign providers experience high rates of construction stoppages. An understanding of the financial and technical issues that give rise to problems is needed. This study provides an analysis of internal and external factors impacting Iran’s bank-to-bank buyer credit-based...

Purpose Public–private partnerships (PPPs) are notoriously prone to disputes among stakeholders, some of which may unduly jeopardize contract performance. Contract disputes arising in Iran are often due to inefficiency of PPP concession agreements and practice. This study presents a causal-predictive model of the root causes and preventive measures...

The present study proposes a novel hybrid methodological approach for meticulously investigating the factors causing Sewer Overflow (SO). The proposed framework is based on a systematic literature review, experts’ interviews, PLS-SEM statistical technique, and system dynamic modeling. Based on a large number of data collected from experts having ri...

Purpose This paper aims to explore the various sociotechnical dimensions of building information modelling (BIM)-induced changes associated with stakeholder management of projects. Design/methodology/approach This paper relies on grounded theory and data collection from two case studies – one in the public sector and one in the private sector – an...

The architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry has a reputation for low resource efficiency worldwide. Policymakers are exploring various avenues to address the issue, with one option being a shift toward a circular economy (CE). However, first one must identify how the relevant stakeholders perceive the concept. Hence, this study ai...

Existing systems that employ Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) technology to retrieve information from the BIM model fail to provide remote interaction, retrieve a wide range of data, and automate the entire process. This is particularly a problem for users with disabilities. The paper offers a two-way, automated, and agnostic solution to this the...

Graph neural networks (GNNs) have attracted much attention in the field of machine learning because of their excellent performance on graph data. Graph data in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) sector is very common, such as bubble diagrams for space planning and point clouds for scan-to-BIM models. Some studies in AEC have adopt...

Establishing high-quality communication in construction projects is essential to securing successful collaboration and maintaining understanding among project stakeholders. Indeed, poor communication results in low productivity, poor efficiency, and substandard deliverables. While high-quality communication is recognized as contingent on the interp...

The social dimensions of sustainability’s three bottom lines are often overlooked in the construction industry. This is despite attempts to fnd optimal trade-ofs between economic growth, environmental impacts, human health and well-being, as well as social considerations. This study reviews the literature on social sustainability (SS) within the co...

There is high demand for heavy equipment in civil infrastructure projects and their performance is a determinant of the successful delivery of site operations. Although manufacturers provide equipment performance handbooks, additional monitoring mechanisms are required to depart from measuring performance on the sole basis of unit cost for moved ma...

A transition to circular economy (CE) is a sociotechnical phenomenon that relies on adopting innovative methods and technologies, as well as changes in behaviour across the construction supply chain. Although a lot of ground has been covered on developing methods and technologies, there is little research on stakeholders’ change of behaviour. Infor...

Purpose – Universities have recognized their rich endowments in research, academic skills and facilities, as uniquely suited to finding “green” solutions. Moreover, the campus setting itself presents as a microcosm of greater society through which to investigate and test innovations. Thus, the “living lab” was born, a means of coupling sufficient r...

Purpose – In the study, a five-dimensional-safety risk assessment model (5D-SRAM) is developed to improve the construction safety risk assessment approaches available in the literature. To that purpose, a hybrid multidimensional fuzzy-based model is proposed, which provides a comprehensive ranking system for the safety risks existing in a project b...

Though some studies have explored the causes of accidents on construction sites, the interdependency among the underlying causes remains elusive. This undermines the efficacy of any decision made by safety experts in reducing accidents' impact. To fill this gap, a hybrid fuzzy-based framework is developed in this study to comprehensively identify a...

Purpose The business benefits envisaged for BIM represent the main criteria for decision-making about BIM implementation – or shy away from BIM. Despite the significance, traditional evaluation techniques have difficulty to capture “the true value” of BIM from multiple levels and dimensions – as an effective evaluation method is supposed to. This s...

Building Information Modelling (BIM) has been widely praised as a new paradigm and the next digital transformation in the architecture, engineering, construction and owner/operator (AECO) industry, moving towards a more productive and agile industry. Global scholarly and industry works provide evidence that replacing conventional non-digital pract...

This paper proposes a novel interconnected financial management system based on Hyperledger fabric and chaincode solutions to address endemic problems with financial management practices adopted within construction projects. Increasingly complex construction projects have necessitated a corresponding evolvement of financial management tools and sys...

Purpose Legal remedies are incorporated into international construction joint ventures (ICJVs) to mitigate contractual breaches. The effectiveness of remedies is predicated on two conditions; the comprehensiveness of the contract and its enforceability within the jurisdiction of interpretation. Relational-related weaknesses contribute to contractin...

This Book is a Printed Edition of the Special Issue which covers sustainability as an emerging requirement in the fields of construction management, project management and engineering. We invited authors to submit their theoretical or experimental research articles that address the challenges and opportunities for sustainable construction in all it...

In today's changing conditions, the random disturbances have caused complexity into the construction project management. In this study, a multi-objective approach is proposed to determine the size of the time buffers in engineering and construction projects. The problem is formulated as a two-stage stochastic programming model. In order to exami...

In adopting digital asset management (DAM), various technological innovations centred around BIM/DE can be integrated to manage data and information across the life cycle of built assets, to provide the right data and information to the right stakeholder at the right time. Though the great potential of adopting DAM is well recognised in Australia,...

The housing sector consumes a significant amount of energy worldwide, which is mainly attributed to operating energy systems for the provision of thermally comfortable indoor environments. Although the literature in this field has focused on investigating critical factors in energy consumption, only a few studies have conducted a quantitative sensi...

The construction sector is vulnerable to safety risk incidents due to its dynamic nature. Although numerous research efforts and technological advancements have focused on addressing workplace injuries, most of the studies perform empirical and deterministic postimpact evaluations on construction project performance. The effective modeling of the s...

The Special Issue covers sustainability as an emerging requirement in the fields of construction management, project management and engineering. We invited authors to submit their theoretical or experimental research articles that address the challenges and opportunities for sustainable construction in all its facets, including technical topics and...

The construction industry accounts for 9% of global GDP. Efforts at addressing construction’s inherent inefficiencies have over the last decade increasingly involved the deployment of web-based collaborative tools. Consequently, much research has been devoted to assessing these platforms; including interoperability, workflow management and technolo...

Purpose - High-level labor waste is a major challenge in construction projects. This paper aims to identify, quantify and categorize labor waste in the context of Iranian housing construction projects. Design/methodology/approach – This research uses a case study approach, with empirical data collected through direct observations and semi-structure...

The report provides a picture of the CE landscape in Australia, with discussions on the main areas (i.e. research and industry) as follows: Research • A surge in the number of research outputs on the CE–AEC industry is apparent from 2010–2020. China, with 139 documents, had the highest number of publications on the CE–AEC industry, followed by Spa...

Purpose - High-level labor waste is a major challenge in construction projects. This paper aims to identify, quantify and categorize labor waste in the context of Iranian housing construction projects. Design/methodology/approach – This research uses a case study approach, with empirical data collected through direct observations and semi-structure...

Various applications integrating Blockchain with the Internet of Things (IoT) have emerged in recent years. While industries such as automotive have embraced this integration, application in other areas such as construction remains limited. The scientometric analysis is applied to 648 papers, identifying the use of IoT and Blockchain in engineering...

Cash flow management analyzing various scenarios is still a problem for contractors, yet it is of paramount importance, with direct implications for the success of projects. Recent developments in the field rely on complicated procedures that necessitate the integration of Building Information Modeling (BIM), coding procedures, and advanced cost es...

Purpose Green walls (GWs), comprising living walls and green facades, have been touted as environmentally friendly products in architectural design. GWs can be viable in every aspect of sustainability; they provide residents of buildings with a wide range of economic, social and environmental benefits. Despite this, the adoption rate of GW is still...

The Australian construction industry is transitioning to becoming more sustainable. Despite their crucial role, Australian communities as the end-users of this transition have been overlooked. Buildings contribute as much as 30% of the total waste produced and as much as 40% of total greenhouse gases. Residential construction makes up the biggest s...

This article provides a picture of the latest developments in providing BIM-based tools for construction and demolition waste (CDW) management. The coverage and breadth of the literature on offering BIM-based tools and technologies for dealing with CDW throughout the whole life cycle of construction are investigated, and gaps are identified. Findin...

Purpose Reverse logistics (RL) is a waste revaluation process aimed at reintroducing once-used materials back into the production cycle. Public administration (PA) plays a strong role in influencing the implementation of RL in the construction industry through policy and laws. While much research identifies PA as an important driver in RL, no resea...

Making project management practices sustainable is an essential component to the broader mission of making the construction industry, as a whole, truly sustainable. In pursuit of this objective, numerous studies have collectively identified a plethora of barriers inhibiting construction project management sustainable transition. While such knowledg...

Purpose This paper aims to Test the capabilities/accuracies of four deep learning pre trained convolutional neural network (CNN) models to detect and classify types of highway cracks, as well as developing a new CNN model to maximize the accuracy at different learning rates. Design/methodology/approach A sample of 4,663 images of highway cracks we...

Construction is a complex activity, characterized by high levels of capital investment, relatively long delivery durations, multitudinous risks and uncertainties, as well as requiring the integration of multiple skills delivering a huge volume of tasks and processes. All of these must be coordinated carefully if time, cost, and quality constraints...

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to present a modified model for collaboration in BIM-based construction networks (BbCNs). Though BIM is increasingly adopted and implemented across the construction industry, the problems associated with the lack of collaboration among teams in BbCNs remain a major hindrance to reaping the full potential of BI...

Critical issues surrounding the promotion and adoption of building information modeling (BIM) for construction projects are largely country-specific due to contextual socio-cultural, economic, and regulatory environments impacting construction operations and outcomes. There is little information on BIM adoption issues specific to the Cambodian cons...

Whilst smart building technologies (SBTs) implementation ensures sustainability, their adoption is hampered by latent barriers, especially in project management processes. These latent barriers must be addressed in order to facilitate the successful and widespread adoption of SBTs. This study explores the significant latent barriers inhibiting the...

Purpose-This paper aims to explore the potential capabilities of the application of computing features (CFs) in resolving the most common issues that adversely affect performance in architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) projects. Design/methodology/approach-Through a comprehensive review of the literature, 10 most significant CFs were id...

Construction and demolition waste (CDW) substantially contributes to environmental degradation because of its intrinsic characteristics of fast and high generation volume, low recycling rate, and low revenue margins. A systemic problem is that recycling facilities are not usually a part of a reverse supply chain (RSC) specific for CDW. This makes t...

The decision-making towards the adoption of Smart Building Technologies (SBTs) is not sufficiently informed by pertinent expertise in developing countries such as Ghana, in terms of energy-efficient building design methods and associated technologies. This study aims to assess the decision level on adopting SBTs and identify the factors that influe...

Various risks significantly influence pricing of bids and a wide range of factors impact bid pricing risks. Of these, client’s reputation and the record of projects owned by a client have vital contribution on the issue. Current practices however fail to capture the impacts of client-related factors. There is a need for developing a practical quant...

Purpose The barriers to integrating sustainable practices into construction project management require extensive resource allocations to resolve. Within developing countries such as Iran (where resources are scarce), remedial strategies adopted must prioritise tackling those barriers that can be expected to yield maximum return on investment. The c...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the awareness level of smart building technologies (SBTs) among construction professionals in developing countries such as Ghana, and identify the key factors that have the significant capability of influencing the awareness level. Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected through ques...

Purpose This position paper urges a drive towards clarity in the key definitions, terminologies and habits of speech associated with digital engineering and building information modelling (BIM). The ultimate goal of the paper is to facilitate the move towards arriving at an ideal definition for both concepts. Design/methodology/approach This paper...

Integrated project delivery (IPD) is a mode of project procurement recognised as facilitating superior project performance. However, this success is contingent on effective cost management practices that share cost data with all project stakeholders in an accurate, timely and transparent manner. Despite an extensive literature on aspects of cost ma...

Occupational Health and Safety (OHS)-related injuries are vexing problems for construction projects in developing countries, mostly due to poor managerial-, governmental-, and technical safety-related issues. Though some studies have been conducted on OHS-associated issues in developing countries, research on this topic remains scarce. A review of...

Despite the increasingly widespread adoption of building information modeling (BIM) in Australia, a steady pipeline of BIM-ready graduates required to meet industry demand remains elusive. Anecdotal evidence suggests that universities in Australia have not been successful in delivering BIM-enabled graduates of the correct caliber, due to a plethora...

ABSTRACT Purpose: Human vibration exposure from hand-operated equipment emissions can lead to irreparable and debilitating hand-arm vibration syndrome (HAVS). While work-place health and well-being (H&WB) policies, strategies and procedures have been extensively researched and documented, little has been done to develop a specific strategic framewo...

Off-site construction is receiving increasing attention as this construction method offers such benefits as improved productivity, shortened duration, greater quality, less whole-life cost, and less environmental impact. The concept of just-in-time has been applied in the manufacturing industry, improving performance and reducing waste; however, it...

This paper argues that development of students’ evaluative judgement capability, which encapsulates a range of cognitive and social skills, should be considered as a primary objective of the collaborative problem-solving assessment practices in engineering. This is a response to call for preparing job-ready students. To meet the multiple demands of...

Purpose This paper is anchored in a premise of a universal call to action by all UN member states in 2015 to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity by 2030 within the blueprint of the sustainable development goals (SDGS). The purpose of this study is to mainstream the SDGs in Ghana’s energy sector with...

Construction industry has one of the highest rates of fatalities and injuries compared to other industries, despite technological advancements and implementations of occupational health and safety initiatives. In this paper, a systematic review has been conducted on the contemporary literature of safety risk management. The interface with system mo...

Purpose In this study, a critical literature review was utilized in order to provide a clear review of the relevant existing studies. The literature was analyzed using the meta-synthesis technique to evaluate and integrate the findings in a single context. Design/methodology/approach Digital transformation in construction requires employing a wide...

Purpose The Internet of Things (IoT) provides exciting opportunities for the construction industry to solve its time and resource constraints and frequent defaults. This study seeks to identify and rank the perceived importance level of principal research areas associated with the IoT and the construction industry by utilising a scientific mapping...

Globally, green bonds have experienced a fair share of handicaps within the countries of issuance. In lieu of Ghana announcing the possibility of its first green bonds, it is crucial that lessons are taken from the past developments to reinforce the prospects of a salutary rollout. This paper explores factors recommended as success dependent in the...

Despite the unprecedented permeation of Building Information Modelling (BIM) and collaboration platforms, architects and structural engineers, for the most part, act as separate entities. That is, linking architectural models with those of structural engineers remains labour-intensive and cumbersome; structural engineers can generate few alternativ...

Defects and quality problems in off-site manufacturing of building parts are caused by different variables. Subsequently, rework is required during on-site subassembly aggregation. Rework and tampering with prefabricated parts has implications including suboptimal structural/non-structural performance, delays and increased costs. Currently there is...