Pedro Mêda

• Research Associate at University of Porto

The architecture, engineering, construction, and operation sectors face significant sustainability challenges. Environmentally, it contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions and resource depletion. Socially, it must address issues such as worker safety and community impact. Economically, the sector struggles to balance cost efficiency wi...

Digital Twins (DTw) in the construction industry combine multiple digital concepts aimed at achieving high levels of automation. While the industry pursues digital transition, professionals struggle to implement DTw due to their complexity and lack of standards. An incremental approach to deploying DTw can enable phased implementations, reducing co...

Human-Data Interaction (HDI) revolves around how humans generate, process, and utilise data. HDI plays a crucial role in evaluating data collection and use in the context of the construction industry, considering the impact on stakeholders such as site managers and labourers. One significant application of HDI is in on-site Electronic Performance M...

Digital Building Logbooks (DBLs) are the EU repositories for all building-related data. Logbook implementation conveys challenges, but it must be recognised that relevant things already exist. This article bridges the gap at the data discovery level by assessing the existing data and comparing it with EU DBL studies. Action research is the methodol...

Purpose This study explores the significance and implementation priorities for Digital Product Passports (DPP) in the context of building renovation projects. It aims to reveal bottlenecks and how a data-driven workflow bridges the DPP understanding/implementation gap, facilitating the transition towards practices aligned with the EU Green Deal goa...

Livro de atas do Congresso ptBIM 2024, onde se promove a discussão técnico-científica em língua Portuguesa da metodologia ‘Building Information Modelling’ (BIM), envolvendo a participação ativa das comunidades profissional e académica das áreas de Arquitetura, Engenharia e Construção. Pretende-se enfatizar os problemas e esforços de implementação B...

Lack of data and difficulty in tracking materials and elements are two major obstacles in the construction industry that hinder the realisation of a circular economy. Data templates, material passports (MPs), and digital product passports (DPPs) are passport instruments that provide valuable information about buildings. Data templates deliver digit...

Nowadays, the construction industry's digital transformation processes are challenging civil engineering education. In general,students and society underestimate the civil engineering field as an outdated and archaic knowledge area. Despite the defragmentation and heterogeneity of the sector, advances have been made on the path for Construction 4.0...

Health and Safety (H&S) should be a significant concern in construction projects. The quantification of the work injury accidents started with work A. W. Heinrich (1931), passing per Frank E. Bird Jr. (1969) to a study by ConocoPhillips Marine (2003). These theories, also known as the Accident triangle, Heinrich's triangle, or Bird's triangle, are...

Digital Twin is an ambiguous concept that is often misinterpreted and/or misapplied. It is a concept that can bring integrated value across the value chain and therefore needs focus and clarity. The paper presents a framework developed to assist Architects, Engineers, Contractors, Operators and Owners (AECOO) practitioners to determine the purpose...

Digitalization and sustainability are twin trends in the construction industry (CI). Mobile devices are becoming more and more powerful, gaining the ability to support tasks that, until recently, were unthinkable. One example is LiDAR. The use of this technology embedded in tablets and smartphones brings new possibilities at a scan-to-BIM level. Gi...

Model-based design enables automated quantity take-off. When it comes to challenges, most studies focus on the technological dimension. Therefore, we analyzed the suitability of three cost breakdown structures for automated quantity take-off and suggested improvements. We selected a qualitative research design based on a document review, interviews...

The domain of data processing is essential to accelerate the delivery of information based on electronic performance monitoring (EPM). The classification of the activities conducted by craft workers can enhance the mechanisation and productivity of activities. However, research in this field is mainly based on simulations of binary activities (i.e....

Digital building logbooks (DBLs), as repositories of building lifecycle data, can contribute to improving the performance of and decisions about buildings. However, for DBL concept, its required data and the roles of various stakeholders. These are all aspects that need to be investigated. We thus propose a process-based DBL framework integrating d...

Many standards for Building Information Modelling (BIM) have been published and more are being prepared. Practitioners and academics often struggle to understand the still-evolving relationships between them and how they can support day-today activities. In this research we collect data on BIM standards developed by CEN/TC 442. The standards are pr...

As aplicações de gestão da Construção incluem dados relativos à duração de tarefas, orçamentação, qualidade, segurança em obra, entre outros tópicos. No caso específico da orçamentação, as empresas de Construção são obrigadas a avaliar o âmbito de cada tarefa, mapeando as expectativas do cliente (expressas no mapa de quantidade de trabalho) para um...

A normalização é um dos elementos mais importantes para a implementação dos processos BIM. De facto, trata-se de fator primordial para colaboração eficaz entre os intervenientes da indústria AECO. Um dos importantes vértices a ter em conta na normalização diz respeito à definição da informação alfanumérica relevante, bem como a sua respetiva nomenc...

The construction industry faces multiple challenges, where transition to circular production is key. Digitalisation is a strategy to increase the sector’s productivity, competitiveness, and efficiency. However, digitalisation also impacts environmental goals, such as those concerning more eco-friendly solutions, energy efficiency, products recyclin...

Construction Industry (CI) is moving towards digitalisation. Yet, craft workforce is still the primary vector of on-site performance, accounting more than 50% of sector’s employment. Construction sites sensing should concentrate on workforce' performance monitoring. An in-depth understanding of the data process and the stakeholders' interaction is...

Construction Industry (CI) tasks often consist of manual work and work-machine systems. Still, the craft workforce is the primary site labour dimension. Construction tasks are mainly artisanal and low productivity is one of the CI main concerns. There is a gap in craftwork modelling methods and a lack of research on construction tasks mechanization...

Managing standards and environmental laws in the construction life cycle have become essential to constructors. In general, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methods quantifying environmental impact factors in the construction phase do not measure the impacts caused by the workers. This research introduces labour productivity as a possible LCA input-outp...

Automated Construction worker activity classification has the potential to not only benefit the worker performance in terms of productivity and safety, but also the overall project management and control. The activity-level knowledge and indicators that can be extracted from this process may support project decision making, aiding in project schedu...

Adicionar "dimensões" ou informação a modelos BIM tem o potencial de ampliar a compreensão sobre um projeto de construção. As dimensões BIM retratam a forma como esta metodologia é aplicada a todo o ciclo de vida da construção, nomeadamente: 4D (temporal); 5D (financeira); 6D (sustentabilidade); 7D (gestão das instalações); para além das três dimen...

The role, the economic relevance and the impacts of the construction sector in the world demand, in today’s society, increasing requirements in terms of sustainability and efficiency. According to ISO 15686, the LCC (Life Cycle Cost) methodology is a useful technique that allows the evaluation of comparative costs during a specific period of time,...

The digitalization of the construction industry (CI) has the aim—among others—to raise the bar of overall productivity. The craft workforce is very relevant on the overall value-chain. Therefore, a boost in this dimension impacts the entire sector. There is a gap in proper methodologies to measure and model productivity. Construction 4.0 novelties...

A Construtibilidade é uma ferramenta para optimização dos projetos de engenharia.

Construction sector digital transformation is an ongoing task engaged by the urgent goals of a more sustainable, efficient and competitive industry. Construction embraces these challenges quite behind. Given its unique environment, the success of transformation actions is fundamental. People, process and technology are essential analysis dimensions...

Craft workforce is the main productive factor in traditional construction. Construction 4.0 visions are based on automation and digitalization, meaning that human site activities will require/stipulate changes. The extent to which manual tasks done by humans in construction will be replaced is uncertain. This might vary considering the context or...

The built environment is composed by entities, elements and products. Construction products cut cross all stages from design to end use. Product information is used by all agents involved on the value chain but according with different needs and purposes. Digitalization is the driver for construction 4.0 and yet, information management has been les...

A Indústria da Construção é essencial para as economias e gera impactos nos países em várias dimensões. Para medir a produtividade na construção, haverá sempre a necessidade de medir aspetos fundamentais, como os produtos de construção, os equipamentos e os recursos humanos. A implementação de inovações em construção no contexto da Indústria 4.0 im...

Construction Industry is and will continue to be crucial for countries’ economies. The successful implementation of innovations on the context of the Industry 4.0 demands efforts in technology, processes, and people. The manufacturing industry increases its productivity faster than construction. Labour processes in the manufacturing industry are di...

This paper presents a BIMAsset Maturity Model (BAMM) which demonstrates how asset owners can appraise the maturity of their organisations in relation to their capability of realising Building Information Modelling (BIM) business value in Asset Management (AM). The study aims to develop and enhance the understanding of asset owners in relation to te...

Asset managers require meaningful asset data in order to effectively manage their assets. Asset owners from the public and private sectors are increasingly adopting Building Information Modelling (BIM) in the lifecycle of their investments in order to improve asset data delivery, operations and maintenance practices. Despite this momentum, there is...

The construction and building sectors are one of the highest consumers of resources and energy. Literature evidences the potentialities of the design phase towards the improvement of environmental, economic and social performance of buildings. Thus, the Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA). approach is recognized as suitable method. It is ba...

Many scholars claim that the impact of systemic innovation e.g. Building Information Modelling (BIM) is not as expected. Understanding the root causes, evaluating the implications and developing solutions should therefore constitute the main aspects of reflection. The literature contains numerous papers focusing on the adversarial and transient nat...

A supported decision-making based on aspects as the construction costs is considered essential in different stages of the construction process. The awareness of the relevance of each part of a building in its global cost is also helpful to the several actors involved and to a more efficient project management. Naturally, the economic relevance of e...

BIM methodology has gained great importance in the construction industry. This methodology introduces noteworthy changes in the way as building design, construction and maintenance are traditionally managed.

There is a broad range of information classification systems that can be applied to the construction sector. Many of them are not construction exclusive, meaning that they have the ability of reaching to a large number of activities, different stakeholders and wide number of users. Those that are specifically geared to the industry are designated a...

This article addresses the full integration of both drawn and written information into an automated process. The methods and processes showcased rely heavily on two types of platforms: (1) BIM applications, used for the development of design drawings; construction technical information standardization and generation protocols, to support the develo...