Architectural, spatial and infrastructure planning, and the fourth Industrial Revolution (W096, W101 & TG91)

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Before the pandemic, society stood on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. In its scale, scope, and complexity, this transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before. Set against great uncertainty, responses will need to be integrated and comprehensive, involving stakeholders from the public and private sectors, academia and communities. This session will bring together two commissions and one task group to address some of the issues that will shape architectural design, architectural management, spatial planning, and infrastructure. Topics may include: * The processes and quality of design; * Architectural, urban, cultural and management contexts; * Procurement to improve the quality of the built environment; * The relationship between research, education  and  practice; * Theoretical approaches for planning and development; * Designing cities and the built environment for social inclusion; * Informal cities; * Improving the delivery of infrastructure from economic and social perspectives; and * Approaches to infrastructure assessment, sustainable solutions and whole-life use. The intent is that this will be an interactive session, in which contents of the papers will be discussed and research strategies devised to take the topics forward to generate journal papers and funded research projects.

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Accelerating innovation in construction (TG96)

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Watch this space for further details about this category - coming soon!

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Advancements in utilizing expertise and automation to increase project performance (W117)

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Our areas of emphasis will be:

• New project management model based in information systems.

• New risk management model that minimizes contractor change orders to 1%.

• Procurement approach that forces the identification and utilization of expertise.

• Automation of many project management roles in the supply chain.

• Using simplicity instead of a complexity approach to increasing project success.

• Using the Best Value Approach (BVA) to project management.

• The implementation of the BVA approach in a large international client.

• Why the use of performance information to make contractors accountable will end in failure.

• The problems that large contractors have encounter with the latest delivery approaches in construction.

• What is an accurate use of performance information for contractors?

• The latest successes of minimizing cost and improving performance in government procurement.

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Building stronger legal foundations for our construction future (W113)

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The CIB W113 Law and Dispute Resolution session invites academic and case study contributions that address the challenges impacting the future of the construction industry from a legal perspective. Interpretation of construction contracts, on global projects impacted the COVID-19 pandemic, by the courts is anticipated. The evolution of construction contracts to incorporate pandemic provisions is underway. Building and fire safety issues look set to take centre stage in the future. The widespread use of non-compliant building materials, specifically combustible cladding, has been foremost in the minds of regulators globally. Building safety reforms introduced in Australia over the past 20 years are viewed as the ‘gold standard’ by regulators across many jurisdictions. Other countries have committed to introducing similar reforms. Virtual court hearings and mediations, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, have demonstrated the legal process can continue remotely. The introduction of new arbitration rules in 2021 include provisions to streamline the arbitral process and expedite proceedings. Construction Law may be defined as the vast body of legislation and case law governing the rights and obligations arising from or connected to the built environment. We look forward to learning about international construction law developments.

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Circular Built Environments (TG88, T1-SC, W116 & One Planet SBC)

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The world is becoming increasingly urbanised with the building stock set to double by 2050. According to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs [DESA] (2019), 68% of the world’s population is projected to be urban by 2050, with almost 90% of the world’s population growth expected to be in the urban regions of Asia and Africa. While increased urbanisation has its problems, populations are expected to have higher incomes, leading to a global demand for more goods and services. Globally, the focus of higher usage of materials and increased materials intensity is shifting towards the emerging and developing economies.

Global material use is projected to more than double from 79 Gt in 2011 to 167 Gt in 2060 (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD], 2018, p. 3). Of the total volume of material used a third is expected to be used in the building and construction industry such as sand, gravel and limestone. Material extraction and use has an impact on GHG emissions. By 2060, emissions are expected to reach approximately 50Gt CO2-e and concrete alone is expected to contribute to 12% of global GHG in 2060 (OECD, 2018).

Decarbonising the building and construction sector is therefore critical. The sector is responsible for almost 40% of energy- and process-related emissions and it has been touted that investment in building and construction is the best option for reducing GHG emissions. The final energy demand in buildings in 2018 rose 1% from 2017, and 7% from 2010 (GlobalABC, IEA and United Nations Environment Programme [UNEP], 2019).

This session aims to bring circular economy to the forefront and demonstrate how it can be applied in the building and construction sector in different parts of the world. Topics may include:

• Integrating circular principles into planning and design
• Developing and applying circular built environment indicators theoretically or practically
• Building and material lifecycles
• Developing innovative and new circular building materials and techniques
• Planning for resilience, adaptation and mitigation using circular economy principles
• Drawing on local and indigenous solutions
• Developing new circular business models
• Developing a culture of collaboration for circular economy outcomes among stakeholders
• Supporting skills and capacity building for circular economy
• Creating new financing and procurement models for circular economy
• Case studies of various aspects of circular economy in practice.

This interactive session will be developed further into applied research components and disseminated through academic and other publications. The session is supported by the peer reviewed international journal Building Research & Information (BRI), which will host a Special Issue on Circular Built Environments. BRI is a CIB Recognised Journal and has a long history of publishing research on sustainable buildings.

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Collaborating for innovation in the built environment: re-energising CIB

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Watch this space for further details about this category - coming soon!

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The common good (W099 & W123)

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People are the most precious resource in construction. In our joint sessions, W099 (Construction Safety, Health and Wellbeing) and W123 (People in Construction) bring together colleagues for whom people matter most: be that their safety, health and wellbeing, their work and labour conditions, their struggles with equality and diversity, or the technological, economic and social changes from local to global scales that affects them both positively and negatively.

Respect for people is critical, and here we focus on the Common Good, asking what do we, can we, and could we do better to bring shared benefits to all members of our construction industry community?

We encourage research from across all fields of academia that impacts people in construction, from ‘boots on the ground’ to more systemic industry issues, with the goal of continuing to work towards the common good collectively. For more information about either W099 or W123, including further details of relevant areas of interest, please see the CIB website or contact the co-ordinators directly.

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Construction's vital role in economic recovery (W055)

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Governments have begun to implement policies designed to salvage their crippled economies. To ensure that the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic do not lead to social and economic disaster, stimulating construction activities needs to be at the heart of economic recovery plans. Investing in construction leads to immediate results that affect the whole value chain of the economy, and such investment in the sector will produce huge environmental, economic and social spill-overs by creating value-added jobs that positively contribute to the recovery of economies at both the local and national levels. Infrastructure projects have been proven to boost economic recovery and create jobs during economic crises and infrastructure spending has the most ‘bang for the buck’ when it comes to GDP. Submissions are particularly invited on topics dealing with issues at the economy, industry and organizational levels, such as: * Determining which core infrastructure should be prioritised to achieve maximum benefits.
* Can building better and building faster go hand-in-hand?
* Are green infrastructure investments the key to achieving the economic recovery?
* How to provide the necessary conditions for private and public sector activity. * The necessity of expenditure in skills training. * Issues facing the construction industry and the economy in individual countries

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Durability & climate change: Implications for building design & construction practice

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This category focuses on contributions related to climate resilient buildings, with an emphasis on aspects related to estimating the long-term performance of building elements, such as wall and roof assemblies, fenestration components and related building products. Such studies are directly related to the loads to which these elements are subjected over time. Hence, contributions on the characterisation of both historical, as well as projected future climate loads—i.e., loads that may arise from the effects of climate change—are particularly relevant to this issue. Other contributions of interest would include those demonstrating:

• The use of standard approaches for estimating the durability and long-term performance of building elements in the context of the effects of climate change;
• Methods for the design of longevity and resilience of building elements on the basis of climate loads;
• How estimated changes in longevity of building elements, that arise from the effects of climate change, affect the maintenance management of buildings;
• Natural weathering and risk of the premature aging of building products, such as sealants, roofing and sheathing membranes, and the consequences of such degradation actions on the long-term performance of building assemblies.

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Enhancing the education and work environment for people in construction (W089 & W123)

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The focus of the joint CIB Workgroups W089 & W123 conference session is disseminating research on how both the education and work environment can be enhanced for those people studying and working in the construction industry.

Submissions are particularly invited on topics related to:

• High Impact Educational Practices (HIEP’s) that promote deep learning by promoting student engagement. Common examples in construction education include: internships, job placements, competition teams, study abroad, capstone or summative projects.
• Curriculum development that is reflective of the skills and knowledge required for the current and future work environment
• Creating environments that enhance or enrich teaching and learning
• Education and Training technologies for working people in construction
• Occupational Safety and Health Training models and mentoring construction workforce
• Skills transfer from aging workforce in construction
• Work Integrated Learning (WIL) models in the 4th Industrial Revolution and COVID-19 era
• Service-Learning models in the 4th Industrial Revolution and COVID-19 era

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General (other)

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Abstracts and papers that do not align with other categories or topics may be submitted to the General (other) category.

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Implications for infrastructure of electro-mobility (TG91)

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This session will focus on the implications of electro-mobility on infrastructure and cover topics including: * Key infrastructure related barriers to uptake; * New and emerging business opportunities and models; * Implications for infrastructure design, construction and maintenance; and * Novel approaches to integrated transport.​

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Intelligent buildings for the future (W098)

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Intelligent buildings integrate Environmental-Socio-Economic values throughout the whole building lifecycle. Utilising a holistic decision-making approach, intelligent buildings: * Enhance our connection with nature, * Optimize resources utilization, * Provide agile digital platforms to harness emerging technologies, and * Ensure interoperable transformation which ensure flexible and responsive operation. The focus is on occupants’ wellbeing and provision of stimulating environments in which creative minds flourish whilst providing planning and design for all the measures that enable architecture to meet the challenges of climate change. Already intelligent buildings, whether new or old, are being installed with sensor networks that provide real-time data about not only the building performance but also the physiological and psychological states of occupants so providing feedback on the interaction between the building, the environment and people.

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Learning from the pandemic for a smart and sustainable future (W102, W112, W116, W118 & W123)

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The pandemic forced new ways of working, producing numerous tactics and adaptions among different built environment groups. As a result, major technological and organizational shifts were devised that are reshaping the foundational distinctions of work. How will these impact work/life balance, health, safety, and knowledge sharing? How will these transformations influence the way we procure, design and construct buildings and what are the cascading impacts? Are these changes sustainable? Will they result in more resilient environments and systems in the future?

To address these multifaceted questions, focused, as well as interdisciplinary, investigations will be required. Thus, five CIB commissions are sponsoring this broad-based, wholistic research in an attempt to capture and understand what occurred, how the industry responded, what innovations resulted, and how lessons learned from the pandemic can improve responses to unforeseen contingencies to obtain a more sustainable future. Research that addresses any of these aspects will be considered.

Sponsored by:

* W102: Information and Knowledge Management in Building

* W112: Culture in Construction

* W116: Smart and Sustainable Built Environments

* W118: Clients and Users in Construction

* W123: People in Construction

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Managing risk through knowledge management (W102)

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Many risks can be managed by proactive best practice planning and management of the construction enterprise. Some, however, are outside of one’s ability to prevent, thus one has to mitigate their impacts and offset their financial, quality and schedule impacts by leveraging contract provisions, discovering alternatives in collaboration with one’s team and vendors, and discovering shortcuts or fast-tracking opportunities. These include unforeseen site or subsurface conditions, legal challenges to the project by impacted parties, labour shortages or labour disputes, natural disasters, and unavailability or increased cost of building materials.

Managing these numerous risks requires a high level of collaboration, communication, and knowledge management across the team as well as outside the team -- with vendors, authorities having jurisdiction, the surrounding neighbourhood or region, and the press. While communication and collaboration are well known and understood by most, knowledge management often lags, is ill considered, or is not valued as a means of mitigating risks. Data gathered during and at the end of the project have value – but consideration of how the information that results can inform and impact decision-making in the future, be translated into innovation, and be adapted to provide knowledge that fosters best practices may not be occurring. Even more critical, when knowledge is shared during the project, it can serve as the core collaborative tool to propel the team forward in the mitigation of risk and the shared reward of unprofitable job avoidance, unhappy client avoidance, and negative financial impacts like legal costs or liquidated damages.

Research that addresses all aspects of knowledge-related risk management in construction will be considered. Especially welcome are perspectives and ideas that we have not yet considered or contemplated.

Sponsored by W102: Information and Knowledge Management in Building

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Offsite construction: empowering future resilience and capability (W121)

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Offsite manufacturing (OSM) continues to gain traction, evidenced by significant growth patterns across a range of markets - from housing through to commercial and industrial settings. This growth is predicted to accelerate even further, particularly across traditional/mainstream and new/niche OSM business markets. This potential, impetus and future direction of travel provides researchers and practitioners a number of exciting opportunities and avenues to explore, including:

* New business models and delivery platforms;

* Sector-specific resilience and innovation strategies;

* New/enhanced working methods;

* Advanced design-process-installation solutions;

* New skills development approaches;

* Novel ICT solutions (Generative Design;

* BIM;

* Simulation;

* Blockchain;

* Logistics etc;

* Supply chain management arrangements;

* Beyond Net Zero solutions;

* Low income turnkey approaches;

* New procurement and legal structures;

* Servitisation opportunities etc.

These are just a few areas to consider.

This CIB call for papers aims to provide the OSM community with additional insight into these new/emergent fields. Authors are encouraged to present their OSM work in the above areas (or related fields). In doing so, they are strongly encouraged to challenge the ‘status quo’ by presenting evidenced-based new ways of thinking -- not just to unlock OSM’s future growth potential and capability per se, but to specifically inspire others to do so.

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Open building: the key to a regenerative housing stock (W104)

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A resilient everyday built environment is a product of a long-term cultivation process rather than a short-term creation. In this cultivation process, in which permanence and change are constantly rebalanced, no single actor makes all decisions – design tasks are separated and distributed in a hierarchy of levels of intervention over time. Urban designers set the stage for building design, and building design sets the stage for fit-out or infill design. These are the principles underlying the Open Building approach.

After the large-scale housing construction and urban sprawl that emerged worldwide during the second half of the 20th century, the beginning of the 21st century witnessed equally large-scale programs of maintenance, remodeling, revitalization, adaptation and regeneration of the existing housing stock. Accumulated experience, findings and practices in regenerative housing projects during these watershed decades can be shared, exchanged and debated. The W104 Open Building Implementation session of the Congress of International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and Construction in 2022 is the time and platform for these exchanges and debates.

We welcome papers that address any of the following issues under the themes:

• What are the experiences in urban housing regeneration cases in the last 20 years?

• What are the experiences in housing design with communities?

• What are the obstacles to the prevailing urban design and architectural theories and methods for guiding the processes of regeneration?

• What are the innovations in design methods that support professionals and communities working together in the housing sector?

• What are the innovations in marketing, management, technology, material and design education that support the long-term sustainability of regenerative housing?

• What innovations can be reported in developments toward a residential fit-out or infill industry?

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OpenScience environment for moisture safety – from science to practice (W040)

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Watch this space for further details about this category - coming soon!

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Challenges and opportunities to the use of data in construction (W055 & TG81)​

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Governments, the construction industry, stakeholders and individual organisations can use data to improve project outcomes and effective use of scarce resources and to increase business opportunities and accountability. However, there are no proactive measures to enable construction stakeholders and individual organisations to make strategic decisions based on factual data. Submissions are particularly invited on topics dealing with issues at the economy, industry and organisational levels, such as:

* Making construction data internationally comparable - using Industry 4.0 for developing comparable datasets.

* Share of construction in national income accounts and problems for measuring construction industries in different countries.

* Measuring the impact of Covid-19 on the construction industry.

* Evaluation of the use of data analytics in construction.

* Understanding the benefits of construction data and the challenges countries, organisations, clients, and projects face in using data effectively.

* Examining how the construction industry, organisations and stakeholders can use data to improve projects and organisation performance.

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Public private partnerships: past, present and future (W122)

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Papers are cordially invited on the above theme.

Accepted papers will be presented in two planned sessions at WBC2022.

Furthermore, if time permits, a BRAIN-STORMING WORKSHOP -- as in the WBC2019 2nd W122 session -- will be incorporated to review and identify key areas to update our PPP Research Roadmap and push forward our PPP Research, Development and Dissemination agenda.

BEST PAPER AWARDS & JOURNAL Publication opportunities: Authors of short-listed papers from the W122 sessions will be invited to develop them into journal papers for review for a Special Issue of BEPAM (Journal of Built Environment Project and Asset Management) on the same theme.

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Urban resilience: implications, considerations, and the way forward (W120)

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The built environment defines the space in which disasters unfold. And it is through decisions about how these spaces are developed, used, and reproduced that disasters are manifested. Cities allow for an unpacking of this process of contestation through the interpretation of various complicated elements (temporal, spatial, social, physical etc.) that together create a complex issue and a ‘wicked problem’ - a disaster. Disasters are also about the relationship of power, people and the built environment. The inequalities and injustices that characterise our societies manifest spatially.

The aim of this session is to unpack some of the key considerations for built environment researchers and practitioners who are concerned with disasters and hazards - and spatial justice. The session will create an opportunity for exploring disaster risk creation and risk reduction processes based on social inequalities and their interaction with a city from a social, spatial and temporal points of view rather than just a physical performance of a city. Contributions could focus on (but are not limited to):

* Disaster risk reduction for the built environment,

* Disaster risk reduction as a professional competency,

* Disaster risk creation and root causes of disaster, urban resilience.

We welcome theoretical and practical contributions demonstrating failures and good practices from around the globe, implemented at different levels - from a household to international.

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Smart and sustainable buildings and cities (W116 & TG96)

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Smart buildings and cities are evolving rapidly as more stringent requirements and regulations demand better performance. Innovative and responsive solutions are being developed that draw on big data, advanced technologies and the Internet of Things. The value of this approach has been highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic which has exposed how ill-prepared buildings and cities are for coping with change and uncertainty. Smarter, more proactive approaches are urgently needed. These must be able to respond to future change and uncertainty while enabling more sustainable living and working patterns. This special session will explore the technologies, techniques, tools and models required for this.

Topics may include:

• Understanding future change and uncertainty.
• Planning proactively for change.
• Technologies and techniques for smart responsive built environments.
• Accelerating the delivery of technologies and techniques for smart built enviornments.
• Designing smart and sustainable buildings and cities.
• Smart and sustainable facilities management.
• Economic and social impacts of smart built environments.
• Understanding the dynamics of the innovation ecosystems in smart built environments.
• Legal implications of smart built environments.

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Organisation and management of construction: New challenges and opportunities (W055 & W065)

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The COVID-19 pandemic, digitalisation, resilience, globalisation, industrialisation and sustainability set new challenges to the organisation, management and economics in construction. The challenges have a significant impact on the ways that construction businesses and projects are managed and the environments in which the construction businesses and projects are operated. Innovations in theories and practices around organisation, management and economics of construction are increasingly on the agenda for research community and industry participants seeking to collaborate and embrace the new challenges. This theme involves W065: Organisation and Management of Construction and W055: Construction Industry Economics. It aims to respond to the new challenges of the construction industry and explore opportunities of theoretical and practical developments around construction industry economics, businesses, projects, policies and processes. Topics of interest for this session include, but are not limited to: * Theoretical and practical advancements in construction organisation and management * Management of mega projects * The rise of smaller, more agile firms and the ‘start up’ culture * Technological innovation; identifying and developing the organizational and managerial capability for uptake * Integrating sustainability and resilience into organisation and management * Stakeholders’ role in transforming industry practices * The organization and management of Mental Health and Well Being * Construction organisation and management in a post COVID-19 world * Corporate social responsibilities and social enterprises * Globalisation, internationalisation and cultures * Industry 4.0 and construction organisation and management

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Reusing, recycling and upcycling construction and demolition (C&D) waste (W115)

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With the massive increase in construction activity across the globe, the menace of C&D waste is bigger than ever. C&D waste is also one of the largest waste streams. Every country is taking steps to deal with this issue through investment in building recycling facilities, infrastructure, and technology and through developing appropriate policies, regulations, and schemes. We invite papers on the topics of: * Issues in C&D waste management * Case studies exhibiting reuse and recycle of C&D waste * Efforts made in a certain country to stop the menace of C&D waste * Products that are developed from recycling and upcycling C&D waste * Market development of C&D waste reuse/recycling/upcycling, and * Trading platforms to buy and sell C&D waste.

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Building digital twins

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This category focuses on digital twins for the construction lifecycle phase of buildings. Building Digital Twins – a real-time digital representation of buildings – can facilitate monitoring of activities and comparison of relevant data against the initially agreed planning. The focus on the digital-twin concept in this category includes the uses of tools and technologies to collect and process real data and information from devices, components, parts, machines on an ongoing construction site and structures in use in order to optimise processes and increase safety in the construction site. Contributions that address the following issues based on digital-twins’ applications on construction sites are welcomed:

• Automated progress monitoring;
• Tracking of daily changes in an asbuild model, allowing early detection of discrepancies;
• Avoiding overallocation of resources by dynamic prediction of requirements;
• Assurance of the safety of workers;
• Quality assessment by image processing technologies;
• Optimisation of equipment usage.

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