The construction industry contributes a significant amount to a nation's Gross Domestic Product and National Income. The industry products are enormously important to other organisational sectors, and provide a considerable amount of employment to the nation's populace. However, the industry is significantly under-achieving in terms of clients' and stakeholders' satisfaction. In addition, the resources in the industry are currently under-utilised. It is affirmed that resources' wastes management in the industry is far behind that obtainable in other organisational sectors. Thus, there is a need for re-assessment of the way in which the industry generates its products towards utilising the scarce and costly resources efficiently. It is noteworthy that a project could be completed, within the estimated cost, time frame and quality expected, and even satisfying the clients' and stakeholders' implied needs, with lots of resource wastefulness during the construction production process. Despite the lean construction techniques being effective in reducing resources utilisation wastefulness; currently there are difficulties in achieving the approach objectives adequately. Thus, to maximise resources utilisation and avoiding inefficiency, it is paramount to critically evaluate, identify, and establish the several wastage occurrences, occurring either consciously or unconsciously during the project construction process. This research responded to the need for the construction industry to review the use of resources during production process, and to minimise the "gap" between the construction industry and the other sectors in efficient resources utilisation. To establish a valid and reliable best practice operational framework, towards utilising construction resources optimally, this research study was triangulated. Both structured and unstructured questionnaires and in-depth interview research surveys were exploited for its data collection. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 13, (SPSS 13), software was used to analyse the data obtained through the questionnaire research survey, while NVivo, (version 8) statistics software was explored to analyse the information collected through the in-depth interview research survey. This research was grouped into three main studies. The first study evaluated the issues associated with site managers' efficient performance, and causes of site managers' inefficiency in performances established were identified. In this respect, the factors that will enhance site managers to optimally utilise resources were established. Secondly, the scenarios of budgeting for resources' wastes were investigated, and factors that will reduce their effects on optimal resources utilisation were established. Lastly, the causes and modalities of averting resources wastefulness during the production process were investigated and ascertained. The success factor of these studies is the evaluation of the knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions, (KAP), of construction participants on resources utilisation. Based on these three main research studies and their sub studies, an operational framework for optimal utilisation of construction resources during the production process was developed, validated and established. This research study was conducted within the UK construction Industry. The implementation of the research findings and inferences will not only enhance optimal resources utilisation in the UK construction industry. In respect that the UK construction industry is vast in innovations, research development and construction reengineering, the established framework is significant for global construction industry adoption.

0.1 . The particular field that has been the concern of this work is that of Building Science. The porous media of interest are consequently those commonly used as absorbents in Architectural Acoustics The object of the work has been to formulate quantitatively a theory of the dissipation of sound in such materials, so that a basis can be laid for optimising and predicting their coefficients of absorption. The theory has aimed at avoiding the inclusion of empirical constants. 0.2 A review of literature is made involving a somewhat wider range of porous media, including those of interest in the fields of Geophysics and Engineering Geology. Porous fluids, a term employed by A.B. Wood (in "A textbook on Sound" Ch.3 ) , as they occur, for instance, in Underwater Acoustics are also considered. Further, the literature concerned with sound propagation in more general inhomogeneous and composite fluids and solids, is examined, where the theoretical techniques are relevant to our study. 0.3 It is found that the literature specifically related to sound absorbing materials and also to unconsolidated or consolidated granular media:- (a) develops theories which are essentially macroscopic and do not allow adequately for the microstructure of non-isotropic flexible framed media i.e. fibrous media. (b) provides little realistic description of the dissipation in closed pore viscoelastic absorbers e .g. cellular rubber. 0.4 A theoretical technique, previously reserved for problems in under- water acoustics and sound propagation in suspensions is applied, as an alternative, to cases of fibrous and viscoelastic foam media. The predictions of absorbtion thus obtained for fibrous media are found to correlate reasonably with experimental data on glass fibre block samples. Further, an explanation of the physics of sound absorption in cellular viscoelastic media is suggested and conclusions and observations of previous literature are corroborated. The literature is examined in the wider context previously mentioned. As might be expected 9 the field of interest has determined the particular type of porous medium considered; the model assumed; and often the theoretical technique. The foldout diagram shows these links, together with those discussed in the thesis and provides a classificaion for the review. Models numbered in the chart are now discussed.

The management and control of the evolution of the building design process is mainly reliant on a project manager's experience and intuition, without a comprehensive and analytical appreciation of its inner workings. Moreover, most process development methods in building design lack a mechanism of directly addressing the customer's satisfaction. More recently there has been a growing understanding of the importance of effective design planning and management to overall project performance, and hence ensure the smooth running of a project within the time schedule and the budget. Furthermore, the current shift in industry thinking towards the value of a construction product to all stakeholders requires an alignment of each element of the design and construction process to the requirements of customers. A Staged Evolving Analysis Technique (SEAT) has been developed in this research, comprising two hierarchically structured design product models and two information flow-based design process models to cover conceptual and scheme design stages.

Large-scale building design is a constantly evolving discipline. Design managers are consistently trying to identify means for producing a better product in a shorter period of time. Hence there is a need for design assistant tools that can help designers understand the big picture. It is becoming hard to improve the system performance of building design based merely on advances in individual disciplines. In other words, improvements in individual disciplines alone are not sufficient to affect the improvements in the whole system. To achieve higher quality, system-orientated, holistic, multidisciplinary approaches to building design are needed (NSF, 1996). For this reason, this research investigates the applicability of multidisciplinary disciplinary optimisation (MDO) methodology in building design. The MDO methods divide a single system into a group of smaller sub-systems and effectively manage interactions between sub-systems. In the context of building design, the single system refers to the whole building design, and sub-system could be each disciplinary design. Such approaches could reduce the time and cost associated with the multidisciplinary design cycle. This thesis describes the work of developing collaborative optimisation framework with a Pareto based genetic algorithm (COPGA).

Over the past decades, there has been a realisation that safety, within the Saudi construction industry, has been facing challenges. Even though there are good safety practices in many organisations, the industry lacks well publicised legal provisions and standards for employers to use as a means with which they can incrementally develop a safety culture in the workplace, and eventually, improve the safety performance of the industry. This research, therefore, explores and evaluates the influence of current safety culture on safety performance in the Saudi Arabian construction industry. It aims to develop a framework that could be used as a stepwise process for improving safety culture, and positively impact the safety performance in Saudi Arabian construction. The research adopted interpretivism philosophy as the epistemological position and subjectivism as the ontological assumption, which depends on people’s interpretations and their actions. In line with the philosophical stance, the research adopted a deductive reasoning by developing a theory of the issues of safety culture through research questions; and then adopted a research strategy of case study and survey to execute the research. It also adopted a mixed methodology where both qualitative and quantitative methodologies were envisaged to be relevant to the research. The survey approach included semi-structured interviews and questionnaire as techniques. For the questionnaire survey, 135 responses were received from the ranks of managers, engineers, foremen, and labourers in Saudi Arabian construction companies. Using SPSS software, and with the help of the ANOVA test for correlations, the research was able to isolate 29 factors that were associated with commitment to safety procedure, including training and practices. The highest ranked factor was on helping workers secure necessary training in order to avoid accidents and ensure safety. The results from the survey were corroborated by interview results from the three case studies. Using thematic analysis, interview data identified six main factors as components of safety culture in construction organisation in Saudi Arabia. Based on the empirical evidence from the data, the research concludes that the industry, as a whole, has a positive appetite to improve safety culture; and that there is a good realisation that safety performance can only be achieved if there is a good safety culture in the industry. The research also found that even though there is a positive outlook for safety culture, the industry struggles to operationalise it and make it pervasive industry wide. The major reason for weak operationalisation of the safety culture has been the lack of strong framework for consistent implementation of safety practices, which can integrate regulations, standards and best practices from local and international organisations that operate in the Saudi Arabian industry. The value of this research lies in the potential is has to helping stakeholders realise the highly correlation between the safety and organisational culture, and to make a connection with the overall improvements in the productivity of the industry while reducing number of accidents in their work places; hence developing a sound safety culture. The research has a two tiered recommendation, short term and long term recommendations that need to be instituted on a continuous basis. The first tier recommendations relate with the short term improvement in improving commitment to safety practice in order for employees to feel that the safety culture is relevant such as the habit of using PPEs in the workplace is recommended. The second tier recommendation relates to improving the commitment to safety procedures, proper training for construction activities and applying reward management system in the workplace. The two tier recommendations require a regulatory and standards based framework from the industry in order to localise safety culture for improved safety performance in Saudi Arabia.

The purely physical approach used to characterize thermal comfort is not informative for many urban designers and landscape architects. Significantly, this theoretical approach has been criticized due to the lack of consideration of human sensations and perceptions. Recent research has shown an increased consideration for the psychological and behavioural aspects of outdoor thermal comfort. However, the theoretical and methodological bases employed to consider the human aspect raise questions which may argue the quality of the produced knowledge. On the other hand, the perceptual links between microclimate and spatial configurations studied in a few studies is an interesting subject for landscape architects; nevertheless, it remains poorly researched. Therefore, this study takes an atypical approach to understanding outdoor comfort in the Egyptian summer climate, aiming to inform the design of open spaces which people would perceive as comfortable. The study offers a possible phenomenological understanding of the inherent sense of microclimate (dis)comfort in view of phenomenological notions of embodiment and multi‐sensory perception. The phenomenology of atmosphere and weather offered a theoretical perspective to approach and understand human relations to the microclimates. The methodological approach taken to understand the microclimate perception was inspired by Heidegger’s philosophy, with its emphasis on the occurrence of understanding while being in the world, and valuing subjectivity and historicity in understanding. The researcher’s prolonged touring and immersion in the microclimates was followed by investigation of 17 participants’ intentional walking experiences within the microclimates. The findings went beyond the intuitive knowledge held in mind about shade and water preferences as related to comfort in the Egyptian climate context. The study disclosed new insights into understanding outdoor comfort, originally within sunny microclimates. It was found that the microclimate perception is a perception of an atmospheric configuration, which is affected by the deep interplay of humans, place, and time. The perceived spatial physiognomies intruded with variant levels upon human perception of (dis)comfort. Interestingly, the concluded design implications do not often support the conclusions of previous experimental studies in hot, arid regions. This emphasizes the differences between subjective and objective examinations of microclimate and comfort. The study concludes that the issue of evoking and promoting comfortable feelings outdoors should be given more focal consideration in open space design than the expected impacts recommended by experimental investigations.

In the hot arid contexts, the impact of urban climate is often associated with negative effects on outdoor thermal comfort and an increase in the urban heat island (UHI) effect. The primary aim of this research is to investigate the outdoor thermal performance of traditional commercial urban streets located in the hot arid context of Cairo in Egypt. A number of methods were used including field measurements and social surveys. Consequently, urban air flows, temperature and daylight simulations to assess existing and possible improvement scenarios to extend pedestrian thermal and visual comfort were tested. The field measurements were conducted in order to first assess the UHI intensity in the urban street, and to investigate the effectiveness of the traditional design solutions in ensuring comfortable outdoor conditions based on human-biometeorological assessment methods. Validation of results was carried out by comparing measured and simulated results of thermal conditions in the commercial spine ENVI-met is a three dimensional microclimatic model based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models and is designed to simulate surface-air interactions in urban environments. It was used to calculate the mean radiant temperature and obtaining the microclimatic maps with problematic areas concerning the pedestrian's thermal comfort for the existing urban configurations. Outdoor thermal comfort was assessed based on a thermal sensation survey and the physiological equivalent temperature (PET), with a comfort range of (24oC - 32oC). To improve outdoor thermal conditions at pedestrian level seven different shading scenarios addressing the form and the opening of shading devices were simulated using CFD Fluent, based on two dependant variables including air temperature distribution and wind velocity. The daylight analysis software (DIVA) was used to evaluate the solar access for the tested cases. The findings show that typology and the opening locations are one of the paramount factors in providing a temperature reduction in the urban scale. As the air temperature was reduced by (2.3oC) for the best case compared to the base leading to a lower PET for the best case recording 32.9oC against 35oC for the base case.

Implementing zero carbon homes within commercial housing developments has proven difficult. This has resulted in a stagnated zero carbon housing sector and a lack of truly innovative designs within national house builder portfolios. Key industry stakeholders justify this by reference to a number of economic, regulatory, market, technological and structural based issues. This research develops an approach to zero carbon homes that brings design and commercial perspectives together to address these major issues. Out of this approach, an optimised design with a unique economic model has been developed. The economics of this design challenge the widely accepted notions of house price and affordability in traditional builds. The research findings are presented through a life cycle cost analysis. A significant finding from this research is that zero carbon homes could be better marketed on economic rather than environmental benefits so long as the user practice, technological and structural barriers are also addressed at the design stage. An exploration of stakeholder attitudes towards the mainstream take up is also carried out. It identifies and positions the key stakeholders involved in the implementation process using the Multi-Level Perspective (MLP) and Transitions Theory, generating a better understanding of what and who is required to transition the sector towards decarbonisation. In depth interviews and an observation study were conducted with these participants. This section of the research examines stakeholders opinions on whether the optimised zero carbon home is commercially viable. New insights are generated and existing insights from the literature are contextualised using the optimised design. This creates an analysis of its commercial potential. The research concludes by demonstrating the need to conduct further studies into wider systemic issues and to explore alternative routes to market.

Current statistics on Health and Safety (H&S) outcomes the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) public construction sector demonstrate the need for academic and practical assessment of the current environment for the purpose of improving outcomes. Even though the construction public sector in Saudi Arabia has been rapidly expanding, the H&S record of this industry remains considerably poor, as evidenced by the rising figures of injuries and deaths. The purpose of this research is to assess the current use of H&S technologies and, therefore, possibilities for the use of building information modelling (BIM) in the industry. The research aims to enhance H&S management in Saudi public sector construction projects by exploring integrated approaches to project design and delivery using BIM-based technologies and processes This research uses a mixed method approach to assess the current H&S environment to develop a framework suitable for the unique environment aimed at improving the current outcomes. The data collected through a survey and interviews with subject matter experts has been analysed to outline the major issues facing the implementation of innovative technologies to improve current business processes and provide a roadmap to enhance the predominant H&S policies and activities in Saudi Arabia. Challenges identified through these efforts include the Saudi environment as having high levels of fragmentation, a low skilled, multilingual and multi-ethnic workforce and inefficient use of BIM technologies being made. Based on these findings, a framework, which incorporates BIM to include automated hazard identification and correction during design and during construction, has been developed. The framework is initially devised based on a synthesis of the literature and further refined based on findings from questionnaires. The result of this research is the identification of 18 factors impacting H&S. The framework is developed and validated using interpretive structural modelling (ISM). Through these methods, the key driving factors for improving H&S outcomes in the public construction sector in KSA are identified. Among these, better enforcement of regulations and laws is identified as the key factor needed for improving outcomes. The study concludes with a discussion of the applications of the proposed framework and recommendations for future research. Specifically, this research advocates for the inclusion of BIM technologies in H&S frameworks as a method of addressing the specific challenge of communicating with a predominately migrant workforce. This new approach for H&S analysis during construction focuses on the integration of construction simulation, 3D/4D/5D construction management and safety analysis through the incorporation of technology for both planning and communication.

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