Building design can have a major impact on sustainability through material efficiency and construction waste minimisation (CWM). The construction industry consumes over 420 million tonnes of material resources every year and generates 120 million tonnes of waste containing approximately 13 million tonnes of unused materials. The current and on-going field of CWM research is focused on separate project stages with an overwhelming endeavour to manage on-site waste. Although design stages are vital to achieve progress towards CWM, currently, there are insufficient tools for CWM. In recent years, Building Information Modelling (BIM) has been adopted to improve sustainable building design, such as energy efficiency and carbon reduction. Very little has been achieved in this field of research to evaluate the use of BIM to aid CWM during design. However, recent literature emphasises a need to carry out further research in this context. This research aims to investigate the use of BIM as a platform to help with CWM during design stages by developing and validating a BIM-aided CWM (BaW) Framework. A mixed research method, known as triangulation, was adopted as the research design method. Research data was collected through a set of data collection methods, i.e. selfadministered postal questionnaire (N=100 distributed, n=50 completed), and semistructured follow-up interviews (n=11) with architects from the top 100 UK architectural companies. Descriptive statistics and constant comparative methods were used for data analysis. The BaW Framework was developed based on the findings of literature review, questionnaire survey and interviews. The BaW Framework validation process included a validation questionnaire (N=6) and validation interviews (N=6) with architects. Key research findings revealed that: BIM has the potential to aid CWM during design; Concept and Design Development stages have major potential in helping waste reduction through BIM; BIM-enhanced practices (i.e. clash detection, detailing, visualisation and simulation, and improved communication and collaboration) have impacts on waste reduction; BIM has the most potential to address waste causes (e.g. ineffective coordination and communication, and design changes); and the BaW Framework has the potential to enable improvements towards waste minimisation throughout all design stages. Participating architects recommended that the adoption of the BaW Framework could enrich both CWM and BIM practices, and most importantly, would enhance waste reduction performance in design. The content should be suitable for project stakeholders, architects in particular, when dealing with construction waste and BIM during design.

The building sector is one of the largest energy consumers and there are global efforts toward sustainable and energy-efficient new buildings and existing buildings retrofit. The application of Building Information Modelling (BIM) in environmental assessment was practiced and studied following the increasing number of projects adopting the BIM workflows and pursuing green building certifications. The interest of this thesis is to study the use of different Building Information Modelling tools used globally for energy and environmental assessment to examine their practical benefits and challenges. Case studies of two primary school buildings that achieved the Swedish Miljöbyggnad system were used to compare what could have been achieved with Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) categories of energy and atmosphere and indoor environmental quality to what has been achieved in similar Miljöbyggnad areas. A review and summary of energy and atmosphere and indoor environmental categories in the LEED version 4 user’s guide is presented to evaluate the case study potential score in them. The early adoption of modeling in the evaluation from the conceptual design is the best approach to achieve better performance. It will improve the way of working and result in a more efficient and sustainable building. The Building Information Modelling software can be used directly in assessment using the integrated modules within the popular authoring tools such as Revit’s lighting and Insight the cloud base service or by transferring the model data to a stand-alone tool like IDA-ICE. The energy plug-ins of the authoring tools such as Revit are still lacking full control over the analytical model and the limited input options. The identified and discussed advantages of Building Information Modelling implementation are collaboration, accuracy, time, and cost saving. Data exchange issues, knowledge, and the differences in assessment tools were discussed as implementation barriers. Although the full comparison of certification systems is difficult, the comparison between the potential LEED score and achieved Miljöbyggnad rating showed some differences and similarities in the rating systems. The comparison requires rearranging the rating system indicators into unified categories. The framework that compares the scope, structure, content, and aggregation, would give a meaningful comparison. The way that the LEED and Miljöbyggnad are rewarding the indicators and the aggregation of aspects towards the final rating is totally different.

The concept of BIM is nascent but evolving rapidly, thus, its deployment has become the latest shibboleth amongst both academics and practitioners in the construction sector in the recent couple of years. Due to construction clients buy-in of the BIM concept, the entire industry is encouraged to pursue a vision of changing work practices in line with the BIM ideas. Also, existing research recognises that the implementation of BIM affects all areas of the construction process from design of the building, through the organisation of projects, to the way in which the construction process is executed and how the finished product is maintained. The problem however is that, existing research in technology utilisation in general, and BIM literature in particular, has offered limited help to practitioners trying to implement BIM, for focusing predominantly, on technology-centric views. Not surprisingly therefore, the current BIM literature emphasises on topics such as capability maturity models and anticipated outcomes of BIM rollouts. Rarely does the extant literature offer practitioners a cohesive approach to BIM implementation. Such technology-centric views inevitably represent a serious barrier to utilising the inscribed capabilities of BIM. This research therefore is predicated on the need to strengthen BIM implementation theory through monitoring and analysing its implementation in practice. Thus, the focus of this thesis is to carry out a sociotechnical systems (STS) analysis of BIM implementation in construction organisations. The concept of STS accommodates the dualism of the inscribed functions of BIM technologies and the contextual issues in the organisations and allows for the analysis of their interactive combination in producing the anticipated effect from BIM appropriation. An interpretive research methodology is adopted to study practitioners through a change process, involving the implementation of BIM in their work contexts. The study is based on constructivist ontological interpretations of participants. The study adopts an abductive research approach which ensures a back-and-forth movement between research sites and the theoretical phenomenon, effectively comparing the empirical findings with the existing theories and to eventually generate a new theoretical understanding and knowledge regarding the phenomenon under investigation. A two-stage process is also formulated for the empirical data collection - comprising: 1) initial exploratory study to help establish the framework for analysing BIM implementation in the construction context; and 2) case studies approach to provide a context for formulating novel understanding and validation of theory regarding BIM implementation in construction organisations. The analysis and interpretation of the empirical work follows the qualitative content analysis technique to observe and reflect on the results. The findings have shown that BIM implementation demands a complete breakaway from the status quo. Contrary to the prevailing understanding of a top-down approach to BIM utilisation, the study revealed that different organisations with plethora of visions, expectations and skills combine with artefacts to form or transform BIM practices. The rollout and appropriation of BIM occurs when organisations shape sociotechnical systems of institutions, processes and technologies to support certain practices over others. The study also showed that BIM implementation endures in a causal chain of influences as different project organisations with their localised BIM ambitions and expectations combine to develop holistic BIM-enabled project visions. Thus, distributed responsibilities on holistic BIM protocols among the different levels of influences are instituted and enforced under binding contractual obligations. The study has illuminated the centrality of both the technical challenges and sociological factors in shaping BIM deployment in construction. It is also one of the few studies that have produced accounts of BIM deployment that is strongly mediated by the institutional contexts of construction organisations. However, it is acknowledged that the focus of the research on qualitative interpretive enquiry does not have the hard and fast view of generalising from specific cases to broader population/contexts. Thus, it is suggested that further quantitative studies, using much larger data sample of BIM-enabled construction organisations could provide an interesting point of comparison to the conclusions derived from the research findings.

<div>Cost estimation is an integral part of any project, and accuracy in the cost estimation process is critical in achieving a successful project. Manually computing cost estimates is mentally draining, difficult to compute, and error-prone. Manual cost estimate computation is a task that requires experience. The use of automated techniques can improve the accuracy of estimates and vastly improve the cost estimation process. Two main gaps in the automation of construction cost estimation are: (1) the lack of interoperability between different software platforms, and (2) the need for manual inputs to complete quantity take-off (QTO) and cost estimation. To address these gaps, this research proposed a new systems to support the computing of cost estimation using Model View Definition (MVD)-based checking, industry foundation classes (IFC) geometric analysis, logic-based reasoning, natural language processing (NLP), and automated 3D image generation to reduce/eliminate the labor-intensive, tedious, manual efforts needed in completing construction cost estimation. In this research, new IFC-based systems were developed: (1) Modeling – an automated IFC-based system for generating 3D information models from 2D PDF plans; (2) QTO - a construction MVD specification for IFC model checking to prepare for cost estimation analysis and a new algorithm development method that computes quantities using the geometric analysis of wooden building objects in an IFC-based building information modeling (BIM) and extracts the material variables needed for cost estimation through item matching based on natural language processing; and (3) Costing – an ontology-based cost model for extracting design information from construction specifications and using the extracted information to retrieve the pricing of the materials for a robust cost information provision.</div><div><br></div><div>These systems developed were tested on different projects. Compared with the industry’s current practices, the developed systems were more robust in the automated processing of drawings, specifications, and IFC models to compute material quantities and generate cost estimates. Experimental results showed that: (1) Modeling - the developed component can be utilized in developing algorithms that can generate 3D models and IFC output files from Portable Document Format (PDF) bridge drawings in a semi-automated fashion. The developed algorithms utilized 3.33% of the time it took using the current state-of-the-art method to generate a 3D model, and the generated models were of comparative quality; (2) QTO – the results obtained using the developed component were consistent with the state-of-the-art commercial software. However, the results generated using the proposed component were more robust about the different BIM authoring tools and workflows used; (3) Extraction – the algorithms developed in the extraction component achieved 99.2% precision and 99.2% recall (i.e., 99.2% F1-measure) for extracted design information instances; 100% precision and 96.5% recall (i.e., 98.2% F1-measure) for extracted materials from the database; and (4) Costing - the developed algorithms in the costing component successfully computed the cost estimates and reduced the need for manual input in matching building components with cost items.</div>

The aim of the work was the usage of the Building Information Modelling system to ensure the complete building-up, including the working part of the line constructions. In the first part of my thesis I was dealing with the costs of the total life of the line construction, the line construction life-cycle, with the difference between the Building Information Modelling model and traditional projecting, with the participators participants of the Building Information Modelling model and which levels in the Building Information Modelling exist. In the practical part I was dealing with two levels of the Building Information Modelling designing, in which I set the total price of the building researched and then I was comparing them. In the final chapter of the thesis working expenses were set which are involved in the expenses of the total life.

The Swedish Government has set a goal to reach net zero emissions of greenhouse gases by 2045, which together with the commissioning to the Swedish Housing Agency to prepare requirements for a climate declaration that shall reduce the climate impact from buildings, has enforce the AEC industry to provide solutions that help reach these targets. The introduction of the integration of BIM technologies, together with the LCA methodology has been suggested as a key solution to solve this problem. To achieve the results for this study, two main objectives were stablished. The first objective was to develop a BIM model in SMC able to produce automated climate calculations. The second objective was to perform interviews with relevant actors about this tool. The integration of those objectives helped to answer the research questions of this study. This study provides a way of performing automated climate calculations for construction projects using classification of materials in SMC and calculations in Excel. It also has the ability to perform data visualization of the carbon footprints of the complements in the 3D models of the project using the GWP of the chosen materials. It can be said that it is a great tool to introduce to decision-makers an easy way to identify the hotspots of carbon emissions and choose more sustainable alternatives. / Den Svenska Regeringen har fastställt ett mål att nå utsläppen av växthusgaser netto noll till 2045, som tillsammans med uppdraget till Boverket att förbereda krav på en klimatdeklaration som ska minska klimatpåverkan från byggnader har tvingat AEC-industrin att tillhandahålla lösningar som hjälper till att nå dessa mål. Införandet av integrationen av BIM-teknologier tillsammans med LCA-metoden har föreslagits som en nyckellösning för att lösa detta problem. För att uppnå resultaten för denna studie fastställdes två huvudmål. Det första målet var att utveckla en BIM-modell i SMC som kunde producera automatiserade klimatberäkningar. Det andra målet var att genomföra intervjuer med relevanta aktörer om detta verktyg. Integrationen av dessa mål hjälpte till att besvara forskningsfrågorna i denna studie. Denna studie ger ett sätt att utföra automatiserade klimatberäkningar för byggprojekt med klassificering av material i SMC och beräkningar i Excel. Det har också förmågan att utföra datavisualisering av kolavtryck av komplementen i projektets 3D-modeller med GWP för de valda materialen. Det kan sägas att det är ett bra verktyg att introducera för beslutsfattare ett enkelt sätt att identifiera de hotspots som koldioxidutsläpp och välja mer hållbara alternativ.

Life Cycle Assessments on buildings and various environmental certificates are starting to become customary for newbuilding projects in Sweden. Building materials play a big part in a building’s environmental impact. Earlier research indicates that Life Cycle Assessments is not a routine in today’s construction process and it may depend on uncertainties in the methods of quantifying carbon dioxide emissions. This master thesis focuses on how equivalent carbon dioxides, a standard unit to quantify greenhouse gas emissions, of building materials can be integrated with Building Information Modelling. Through meetings with experts in the field, data has been collected. A 3D model of a house was built in order to evaluate both an integration with a cost calculation tool and directly with the 3D model. The results showed how the cost calculation tool works for calculations of equivalent carbon dioxides, early in the pre-construction phase. Difficulties in finding corresponding materials in their database were found and issues with summarizing carbon dioxide data. The integration directly into the 3D model, with visual programming, proved an insert for each materials’ carbon dioxide emissions worked. This allows further updates throughout the building process. It was also possible to import material information to a carbon dioxide calculation tool. This evaluation opened up a possibility to change and update carbon dioxide emissions at an early design stage of a building process with Building Information Modelling along with a need of organizational change due to today's traditional building processes. / Livscykelanalyser på byggnader och olika typer av miljöbyggnads-certifieringar blir allt vanligare för nya byggprojekt i Sverige. Materialet i en byggnad spelar en stor roll av hela byggnadens miljöpåverkan. Tidigare forskning indikerar att livscykelanalyser inte är en rutin i dagens byggprocesser vilket kan bero på att osäkerheter i de olika metoderna bakom koldioxidberäkningar. Den här artikeln fokuserar på hur koldioxidekvivalenter av byggnadsmaterial kan bli integrerade med Byggnadsinformationsmodellering. Genom möten med experter i området har datainsamling gjorts för det ändamålet. För att undersöka integreringen byggdes en 3D-modell upp och som senare användes för beräkningar av koldioxidutsläpp i ett kostnads-kalkyleringsverktyg samt undersöka hur en införing av koldioxidekvivalenter direkt i 3D-modellen kunde göras. Resultaten visade hur kostnads-beräkningsverktyget fungerar för beräkningar av koldioxidekvivalenter, tidigt i byggprocessen. Svårigheter i att hitta motsvarande material i kalkyleringsverktygets databas upptäcktes under utvärderingen samt en sammanfattande rapport för beräkningarna. Integrationen direkt i 3D-modellen med visuell programmering visade att en inmatning av koldioxidutsläpp för varje material fungerade vilket möjliggör uppdateringar under hela byggprocessen. Det var också möjligt att importera materialinformation till ett koldioxidberäkningsverktyg. Det öppnar upp möjligheter att ändra och uppdatera koldioxidutsläpp för material tidigt i byggprocessen med hjälp av Byggnadsinformationsmodellering och visar behov av organisationsförändringar på grund av dagens traditionella byggprocess.

Sustainable performance of buildings has become a major concern among construction industry professionals. However, sustainability considerations are often treated as an add-on to building design, following ad hoc processes for their implementation. As a result, the most common problem to achieve a sustainable building outcome is the absence of the right information at the right time to make critical decisions. For design team members to appreciate the requirements of multidisciplinary collaboration, there is a need for transparency and a shared understanding of the process. The aim of this study is to investigate, model, and facilitate the early stages of Building Information Modelling (BIM) enabled Sustainable Building Design (SBD) by formalising the ad hoc working relationships of the best practices in order to standardise the optimal collaboration workflows. Thus, this research strives to improve BIM maturity level for SBD, assisting in the transition from ad hoc to defined , and then, to managed . For this purpose, this study has adopted an abductive research approach (iterative process of induction and deduction) for theory building and testing. Four (4) stages of data collection have been conducted, which have resulted in a total of 32 semi-structured interviews with industry experts from 17 organisations. Fourteen (14) best practice case studies have been identified, and 20 incidents narratives have been collected applying the Critical Decision Method (CMD) to examine roles and responsibilities, resources, information exchanges, interdependencies, timing and sequence of events, and critical decisions. As a result, the research has classified the critical components of SBD into a framework utilising content and thematic analyses. These have included the definition of roles and competencies that are essential for SBD along with the existing opportunities, challenges, and limitations. Then, Schedules of Services for SBD have been developed for the following stages of the RIBA Plan of Work 2013: stage 0 (Strategic Definition), stage 1 (Preparation and Brief), and stage 2 (Concept Design). The abovementioned SBD components have been coordinated explicitly into a systematic process, which follows Concurrent Engineering (CE) principles utilising Integrated DEFinition (IDEF) structured diagramming techniques (IDEF0 and IDEF3). The results have identified the key players roles and responsibilities, tasks (BIM Uses), BIM-based deliverables, and critical decision points for SBD. Furthermore, Green BIM Box (GBB) workflow management prototype tool has been developed to analyse communication and delivery of BIM-enabled SBD in a centralised system (Common Data Environment, CDE). GBB s system architecture for SBD process automation is demonstrated through Use Case Scenarios utilising the OMG UML (Object Management Group s Unified Modelling Language) notation. The proposed solution facilitates the implementation of BIM, Information Communication Technology (ICT), and Building Performance Analysis (BPA) software to realise the benefits of combining distributed teams expertise holistically into a common process. Finally, the research outcomes have been validated through academic and industrial reviews that have led to the refinement of the IDEF process model and framework. It has been found that collaborative patterns are repeatable for a variety of different non-domestic building types such as education, healthcare, and offices. Therefore, the research findings support the idea that a detailed process, which follows specified communication patterns, can assist in achieving sustainability targets efficiently in terms of time, cost, and effort.

<p>The construction industry contributes significantly to the GDP of the United States, attributing to its growth at an unprecedented rate. Efficient planning on all stages of construction is the only way to combat dynamic obstructions and deliver projects on time. The first element involved in the planning phase deals with the layout of the Construction Site. It significantly regulates the pace at which construction operations function and directly affects the time, cost, and safety linked to the successful delivery of the target project. Hence, it is paramount to ensure that every component of the construction site maneuvers with the utmost productivity. One such equipment that occupies significant attention while carrying out the CSLP process is Tower Crane. Tower crane optimization is pivotal to ensure proper lifting and handling of materials, and warrant conflict-free work zones. This research, therefore, aims to optimize its position by maximizing the lift ability. To achieve the goals, Generative Design- a paradigm that integrates the constructive features of mathematical and visual optimization techniques, is used to develop a relatively comprehensible prototype. The first part of the research, thus, utilized Generative Design on two construction sites- one from the United States and one from India. After implementing the visual programming algorithm, an improvement of 40% was warranted in the lift score. A pool of potential alternatives was explored and supplemented by the trade-off illustrations. The concept of trade-off was substantiated by allowing a framework for prioritization of lift cycles, and facilitating a holistic decision-making process. To evaluate the usability, 12 participants were chosen based on their previous experience with tower crane operations. The participants witnessed a live demonstration of the algorithm, answered a Likert scale questionnaire, and appeared for an open-ended interview to provide feedback about the proposed Generative Design technique. After carrying out narrative analysis for the usability aspect- it has been unanimously observed that the technique has extreme efficiency of usage and can evidently prevent the occurrence of errors. The study concludes by providing recommendations to augment the significance and usability of Generative Design for tower crane position optimization. </p><br>