Despite substantial investments into new technologies, the adoption of systemic innovations such as construction robotics remains limited. Therefore, this study investigates the discrepancy between the assumed advantages of construction technologies and their actual performance during practical implementation, using construction robotics as the empirical case. Through an abductive thematic analysis of 127 interviews across Europe and North America, we identify six enablers of institutional misalignment: cognitive frame differences, divergent time horizons, conflicting market strategies, product versus revenue focus, varying risk tolerances, and information asymmetry. These misalignments between startup founders’ technological logic and investors’ economic logic constrain adoption, emphasizing the influence of institutional dynamics over technological feasibility. Our findings suggest these challenges are not unique to construction robotics but may extend to other emerging construction technologies. This highlights the critical need for aligning institutional logics to fully harness the potential of innovation in construction.@en

Healthcare facilities play a key role in responding United Nations goals, such as sustainability, health and welling. The outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic has driven much attention to expanding healthcare capacity through advanced digital technologies, such as Building Information Modelling (BIM). Nevertheless, a systematic review of research achievements is lacking. This research uses bibliometric and systemic literature review methods to investigate BIM applications in Healthcare Design and Construction (HDC). The bibliometric investigation focuses on country, journal co-citation, and keyword clustering analyses. The systematic review classifies application domains, BIM actions, and other digital technologies accompanying BIM. Finally, 17 major BIM actions are summarized for six major domains, including operability, resilience, collaboration, sustainability and constructability. This study reveals that the outbreak of COVID-19 has greatly stimulated the academic interest in digital technologies for HDC, and there is geographical uniqueness highly relevant to local government policies and national healthcare services. However, related research is still in a relatively preliminary stage.@en

The challenge of implementing industrialized construction to achieve sustainable future-proof healthcare facilities is not only about construction methods themselves but also about how to shift design methodologies. COVID-19 has raised the attention of research and practices in using modular design and construction for healthcare facilities. However, the lifespan and functional differences between general and emergency healthcare facilities mean that their sustainable design requirements are not exactly the same. Drawing from 27 interviews and design review sessions with 19 international groups of experts, this research proposes a modular adaptable hospital design (MAHD) approach based on the Open Building Concept (OBC). This includes an evaluation framework composed of five design categories and 23 subcategories complemented with a set of design guidelines and it concludes by identifying a future implementation pathway. This research extends the implementation of OBC through theoretical contributions for modular and adaptable designs and practical guidelines for future design implementation.@en

Embracing disruptive thinking toward ecosystem-level integration has become an urgent need for the construction industry and its fragmented building process. The application of Building Information Modelling (BIM) combined with Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DfMA) could allow the move from traditional to digital construction. Despite its advantages, however, most existing approaches to DfMA are project-based, i.e. DfMA strategies are conducted in a single project specifically to optimize one-off design. Significant challenges exist for the strategical establishment of a platform approach. To achieve successfully anchoring platforming strategies, a platform for BIM-enabled DfMA is proposed to accelerate platformisation across national and programme levels beyond the scope of single project, i.e. DfMA strategies are generated for an overall consideration of a series of different projects. The concept of product platform from the manufacturing industry is introduced and then a new BIM-enabled DfMA implementation framework and roles are proposed.@en

Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DfMA) is an emerging concept introduced from the manufacturing sector to transform the construction industry and accelerating “off-site” capabilities. Enhancing the sustainability of DfMA is challenging and requires accounting for various environmental and managerial impacts on the process of manufacture and assembly, especially for the parametric buildings with irregular shapes and unstandardised components. It is essential to compare and make decisions among design alternatives for the best-fit sustainability in the DfMA process. However, there is presently a gap in the DfMA field. This paper proposed a novel BIM-enabled Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) method for the sustainability assessment of parametric façade design. An under-construction parametric building was used to test and illustrate the method. A parametric façade was selected to demonstrate the application of DfMA to enable mass “off-site” customisation. This is a labour-intensive assembly process, which could significantly benefit from the implementation of such a method. Data collection involves archival data and semi-structured interviews. An integrated fuzzy AHP-TOPSIS was used to analysis the data. This research sheds new lights on DfMA sustainability and its decision support systems. Unlike the usual attention to the construction sustainability of on-site construction, the method involves consideration of both manufacture and assembly stages. It provides practitioners with a decision-making method to select the most sustainable façade alternative available for the parametric design. The findings carry implications for parametric façade design and show the deployment of mass customised unstandardised components. This research opens up new avenues for sustainable DfMA development.

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Rapid deployment of modular hospital facilities has become an essential action in the COVID-19 response. Design for manufacture and assembly (DfMA) has played a significant role, with governments commissioning emergency hospital projects. Due to the conflict between some DfMA strategies/guidelines, their integration requires further thorough investigation. This study aims to explore the integrated approaches to DfMA. A three-step method, including a focus group, 18 designer interviews, and archival study, formed the basis and validation of the case. Finally, the study identified 31 DfMA measures and revealed three organizational (concurrence, integration, and collaboration) and five design attributes that correspond with integration strategies for DfMA. Critical to the integrated approaches to DfMA is breaking the mirroring trap. This study contributes to the theory development of DfMA in terms of systems integration. Future practitioners can take the example by the case to adapt the project organizational structure to the building production.

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Integrating building information to support decision-making has been a key challenge in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry. The synergy of Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) is expected to improve information integration and decision-making. The aim of this paper is to identify strategies to improve the synergy between MCDM and BIM. From the earliest literature (2009) to the present, this study examines 45 articles combining MCDM with BIM. We find that the five major application domains are sustainability, retrofit, supplier selection, safety, and constructability. Five established strategies for improving the synergy between MCDM and BIM were discussed and can be used as a benchmark for evaluating the application of decision techniques in practice. This study points out gaps of combining MCDM and BIM in the current literature. It also sheds new light into combining MCDM with BIM for practitioners, as to promote integrated decision-making.

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Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DfMA) has been introduced into the construction industry to enhance production efficiency. DfMA is a design approach and evaluation system for improving manufacturability and assemblability. This paper outlines the past and ongoing Artificial Intelligence (AI) development in manufacturing-oriented DfMA, and provides a literature review of the concept and the use of DfMA in the construction. The applications, challenges and barriers of design optimization through DfMA and BIM-enabled DfMA are summarized. This desk study shows that studies related to construction-oriented DfMA are still in infancy. At present, articles about DfMA are focused on optimizing design and engineering for manufacturability and assemblability, but rarely describe its digital enablement. This study makes up for the lack of literature review in the evaluation of DfMA with concluding a preliminary application framework, and proposes a future-oriented study and new direction for BIM-enabled DfMA.

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