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This book highlights the design, use and structure of blockchain systems and decentralized ledger technologies (B/DLT) for use in the construction industry. Construction remains a fragmented change-resistant industry with chronic problems of underproductivity and a very low digitization factor compared to other fields. In parallel, the convergence, embedding and coordination of digital technologies in the physical world provides a unique opportunity for the construction industry to leap ahead and adopt fourth industrial revolution technologies. Within this context, B/DLT are an excellent fit for the digitization of the construction industry. B/DLT are effective in this as they organize and align digital and physical supply chains, produce stigmergic coordination out of decentralization, enable the governance of complex projects for multiple stakeholders, while enabling the creation of a new class of business models and legal instruments for construction.

"Despite the wide range of technologies involved, the construction industry still relies heavily on one old-fashioned component: the human. The clients, managers, designers, investors, and a whole host of other stakeholders are all involved in a crucial series of relationships that are just as important to project success as technical know-how. As construction projects become increasingly international as well as interdisciplinary, the risk and cost of disharmonious working grows ever larger. The growth of IT and the increased reliance on large mergers and joint-ventures have created new problems, which require a new set of solutions. Recent research has generated profound insights into international differences in business culture. This new work presents up-to-date theory and practical guidance, identifying situations in which cultural differences present challenges. A focus on "critical incidents", demonstrated in a range of case studies will help readers to foresee such situations in their own projects and processes, and so improve strategic and operational decision-making in construction collaborations. Detailed examples are taken from the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Turkey, the UAE, and China, to explore a variety of problems in very different economic and cultural surroundings. A range of professionals (contractors, developers, investors, architects, engineers, governments, public/private clients) will find this book highly valuable, as will researchers and students"--EBL.

Intro -- Preface -- About This Book -- Contents -- Editors and Contributors -- Part I Industry 4.0 and Drivers for Change -- 1 What Is Industry 4.0? -- 1 Additive Manufacturing -- 2 Data and Analytics -- 2.1 Construction's Historic Data Problems -- 2.2 The Development of Analysis -- 2.3 Data Use by Contractors -- 2.4 Data Use by Asset Owners -- 2.5 Data and Analytics Now-A Platform for Industry 4.0? -- 3 Artificial Intelligence -- 4 Robotics and Automation -- 5 Virtual, Augmented, Mixed, and Extended Reality -- 6 IoT and 5G -- 7 Digital Twins -- 8 Nanotechnology -- 9 Conclusions -- References -- 2 The Global Environmental Imperative -- 1 Climate Emergency -- 2 Overview of Construction industry's Contribution to Global Carbon -- 3 Carbon Mitigation Initiatives and Sustainable Development -- 4 Conclusions -- References -- 3 Industry 4.0 and Drivers for Socioeconomic Sustainability in the Construction Sector -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Population Forecasts and Urbanization Challenges Under Industry 4.0 -- 3 Construction 4.0 and Sustainable Development -- 4 Future-Proof Construction Industry: The Need for Crisis Resilience -- 5 Conclusions -- References -- 4 The Circular Construction Industry -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Principles of Circular Economy Concept -- 3 Innovative Technologies for Circular Construction -- 4 Construction and Demolition Waste Management -- 4.1 Construction and Demolition Waste Valorisation -- 5 Circular Construction Practices in the Industry -- 6 Conclusions and Prospective -- References -- Part II Innovation in Construction: A New Future for the Construction Industry. Areas of Focus for a Step Change in Construction -- 5 Fundamentals of Innovation -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Definition -- 3 Case Study 1-The de Havilland Comet -- 4 Case Study 2-Concorde -- 5 Case Study 3-Boeing 737 -- 6 Fundamentals -- 7 Conclusion -- References.

Construction is the country's single largest manufacturing industry. However, it is a sector that lacks benchmarks against which to gauge performance. This modern thinking intends to provide insight to construction productivity improvement. Taking cues from manufacturing sectors such as computer, automobile and chemical companies, this book will apply the lessons learned to building construction. Supported with a range of pedagogical devices, the book will be of equal value to construction managers and civil engineers, and students with different learning methods.

The life of a building does not begin at the creation of the new; it starts with the subtraction of the old. As the pace of technological development accelerates, buildings are erected and demolished at an unprecedented rate. Cities use their urban artifacts like skyscrapers, to portray economic and political prowess. For example, the ghost cities of China are relics of a burst financial bubble while Venezuelan ruling party elites name business towers after themselves as a show of power and prosperity. Many parts of the world today are now overbuilt with artifacts that decline into obsolescence. Demolition procedures erase the failures and mistakes of our architectural predecessors. When Pruit Igoe was demolished, the incident marked not only the collapse of a housing complex but also represented the end of modernist deign. Now, more than ever, architecture needs to understand demolition and the subtractive procedures as both a tool to reduce overproduction in the world, and as a technique for space-making. Bernard Tsuchumi once state: "there is no space without even, no architecture without program". This thesis contends that a series of programmed demolition events within the Torre David will reclaim an urban space lost to overproduction. In 1990, David Brillembourg was commissioned to build the Torre David, in the business district of downtown Caracas but construction came to a standstill in 1994 due to the financial collapse. Famously FOX News has given the Torre David, the ignoble nom-de-plume "the world's tallest slum". Over time, up to 85 families occupied the abandoned buildings and made it their home. As of July 2014, the Venezuelan government launched "Operation Zamora 2014" to relocate these families in prepare for building demolition. This thesis proposes three possible scenarios for the demolition of obsolescent towers. The first and second scenarios propose are standard demolition procedures while the third scenario inserts speculative design and planning into the typically staid demolition process. Each scenario crafts different temporal frames. Scenario one creates an urban spectacle through implosive demolition over the time span of 20 minutes. Scenario two aims to create a sustainable and low uimpact demolition process over the course of 2 years. Scenario three utilizes five programmed events that are incorporated into the existing routines of the occupants of the Torre David to generate a new method for building demolition. Each of these five events modify common methods of subtraction and carving by incorporating unique specificities generated by each device use for demolition. Together the five events would complete the process of demolition of the Torre David and frame a rubble landscape in downtown Caracas.

Due to the complexity, high risk, and conservative character of the construction industry, many technologies do not become widely adopted. Even though vendors make determined efforts to overcome this and disseminate their technologies, the customers' decision making processes for adopting construction technologies at the organisational level largely remain unknown. This thesis investigates the extremely complex issues related to the current practices of technology adoption in construction. It tests the hypothesis that construction companies follow a specific logical process linked to need, project objectives, characteristics of the adopting organisation, and the characteristics of the new technology to be adopted. The study explores how construction companies make the decision to uptake a new technology by focusing on customer and vendor activities, their interactions, contributing factors, and people involved in the process.Over a period of four years, seven technology exhibitions were visited to immerse the author in the customer-vendor market community and collect substantial first-hand data regarding the strategies of the vendors. This was coupled with conducting 147 semi-structured interviews spread across Australia and North America. The credibility of the results is increased by providing detailed descriptions of the process. Finally, key factors and individuals involved in the process were identified and ranked using the Analytical Hierarchy Process.The major original contributions of this thesis are the Construction Technology Adoption Framework (CTAF) and the recognition of the vendor dissemination strategy spectrum. CTAF is a framework that delineates the stages of the process that customer organisations use when deciding to adopt a new technology and the parallel vendor activities. It is extensively validated by thematic analysis of the interviews and factor analysis. The vendor dissemination strategy spectrum consists of five classes of patterns of vendor activities that relate to the technology type being sold and the size of the vendor. The thesis offers a framework covering the key factors that vary across this spectrum: Physical appearance, Interpersonal relationship, and Technology demonstration (PIT). It is extensively validated by both fuzzy and hard cluster analysis methods. The thesis also introduces the Downtime, Interpersonal relationship, and Technology operation quality (DIT) framework, and a study of the customer organisation factors relevant to technology adoption. The DIT framework delineates the implementation factors that are important in making new technology decisions. The customer organisation factors include the personnel roles in the organisation, the effect of organisational structure, and the effect of attitude to technology. These contributions are cross validated between customer and vendor responses and between Australia and North America. The significance of these contributions is that they enable vendors to understand how to match their dissemination strategies with customer expectations in each stage of the technology adoption process. It also provides a benchmark for new construction companies to use the current best practice in decision making. Understanding the CTAF decision framework also helps industry bodies and government organisations that seek to generally raise the use of new technology in the industry. The theoretical significance is that it unites the vendor perspective with the customer perspective and covers a wide range of construction technologies.The scope of the thesis is limited to technologies in the construction industry in developed nations. Future research is warranted to more clearly delineate any differences with developing nations or related industries.