Mohamed Attalla

McMaster University | McMaster · Department of Civil Engineering

Abstract The lack of quantitative data relating initial investment to long-term costs has raised concerns about green buildings' long-term economic effectiveness. This study analyzed the operating, maintenance, rehabilitation, and total costs of 10 conventional, 20 energy-retrofitted, and three green Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design To...

Among the various asset management functions that support capital renewal decisions, both inspection and fund‐allocation are very challenging in terms of time, cost, and technology. To support these functions, this article introduces two unique techniques that can be implemented, individually or combined, into any asset management system: (1) Focus...

This study aimed to compare a number of quantitative and qualitative aspects of usage across a sample of 10 conventional, 20 energy-retrofitted and three green Toronto schools. Student, teacher and staff absenteeism data, as well as Grade 3 and 6 student performance data on reading, writing and arithmetic tests administered by Ontario’s Education Q...

Green buildings have been marketed as the economical, energy-efficient alternative to conventional buildings. This is despite little existing empirical evidence to prove their energy efficiency, especially in Canada. To overcome this limitation, the electricity and gas consumption quantities and costs of a sample of 10 conventional, 20 energy-retro...

There is a notable lack of empirical evidence to justify green buildings' long-term cost effectiveness. To overcome the lack of relevant quantitative data in the field, the documented electricity, gas, operating, maintenance, rehabilitation and total costs of 10 conventional, 20 energy-retrofitted, and three green LEED Toronto schools were analyzed...

Purpose – Sustaining the safety and operability of the civil infrastructure assets, including buildings, is a complex undertaking that requires a perpetual cycle involving inspection, and further decisions for renewal fund allocation. Inspection, which is the basis for all subsequent decisions, however, is subjective, costly, and time‐consuming. To...

This study analyzes the consumption quantities and costs of energy, water, and gas for a sample of 10 conventional and 20 energy-retrofitted public schools in Toronto over a 5 year study period to establish a benchmark for the consumption of energy in traditional versus more sustainable buildings. Through extensive statistical analysis of the data...

Constructing Sustainable buildings often require the use of unfamiliar materials, higher construction standards, extra site precautions, and unconventional construction project management methods. Efforts in the literature were found to target sustainable design process without a focus on construction methodologies. This paper studies the construct...

The aging infrastructure in North America and worldwide mandates large investments in repair and improvement (R&I) activities. For organizations that own many assets, managing a large number of R&I activities is not a simple task and requires accurate estimating and scheduling so that proper budgeting and resource allocation decisions can be made....

Measuring the performance of the construction industry is important for a number of reasons, particularly for increasing productivity, cost effectiveness, duration optimization, total quality, safety, participant satisfaction and sustainability. A committee of the Canadian Construction Innovation Council (CCIC) was established to measure the perfor...

The aging infrastructure in North America and Worldwide mandates huge investments in Repair and Improvement (R&I) activities. These R&I activities require accurate estimating of their time and cost so that proper budgeting decisions can be made. To support these decisions, this research presents a web-based system developed to estimate the cost and...

As compared with new construction, reconstruction of operational facilities exhibits a higher challenge, particularly when multiple projects are involved. For owner organizations involved in such projects, use of in-house resources versus outside contractors has been a major dilemma, with each approach having its potential benefits. This paper uses...

This paper investigates the challenging environment of reconstruction projects and describes the development of a predictive model of cost deviation in such high-risk projects. Based, oil a survey of construction professionals, information was obtained on the reasons behind cost overruns and poor quality from 50 reconstruction projects. For each pr...

In the field of civil engineering, municipal infrastructure projects encounter a high level of uncertainties as compared to other types of civil engineering projects. These uncertainties impose a high-risk potential that affects investments in municipal infrastructure, especially in developing countries. These uncertainties establish the need for a...

The total value of civil infrastructure (roads, buildings, and underground services) in North America is estimated at $20 trillion. Due to its large size and the need for minimal interruption to services, maintaining the infrastructure becomes a huge challenge. Motivated by the large cost overruns and delays in most infrastructure reconstruction wo...

Quality and safety are two crucial aspects to the successful delivery of any project. Despite of the availability of quality standards for testing individual materials and components, few guidelines exist for quality control on final products. This paper represents an effort to gather quality and safety information through a questionnaire survey am...

This article investigates the factors that contribute to the success of reconstruction projects through a statistical analysis of data obtained from a case study and a questionnaire survey. The success of the reconstruction projects was measured in terms of its cost performance factor (CPF) which represents the value of project cost overrun. The ar...

Cost, schedule, and quality are the main indicators of performance in construction projects. These indicators are highly interrelated and require some balance and trade-off among them to achieve efficient overall control over project performance. Focusing on these performance indicators, the primary objective of this study is to investigate the use...

While the infrastructure is the foundation for economic growth, a large percentage of existing facilities are rapidly deteriorating due to age, outdated technology, and insufficient capacity for population growth. Due to a large shortage in expenditures, however, maintaining the operation of infrastructure facilities becomes a huge challenge. Prope...