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The west surgery wing of the University Hospital “Insel” in Bern, which was completed in 1971, no longer meets operational requirements. A decision was made in 1995 that it must be completely renovated. The INO renovation project embraces in particular the Intensive care, Emergency and Surgery Centre. The Building Department of the Canton of Bern, which is responsible for overseeing construction work on the Insel hospital, is pursuing an open building method for the INO project to ensure that the “serviced structure” of the building (with main utility infrastructure) will continue to be highly adaptable, and that the components of the building are interchangeable and reusable. Building sections with differing service lives and designated purposes are therefore kept consistently separate in the planning and execution phases. The use of separate (discrete) systems anticipates the long-term life cycle of the building, and thus safeguards its value in terms of future use. Work is divided into discrete system levels: the primary system (building shell) is designed for a service life of 50 to 100 years, the secondary system (fit-out) for 15 to 50 years and the tertiary system (hospital equipment) for 5 to 15 years.

The project is currently in the execution phase and is being developed in three stages. The 1st stage, the primary system, was completed at the end of 2002, the other stages have not yet been implemented. The 1st stage of the INO project is to go into operation by 2006 and the 2nd stage by 2009.

Labour usage represents one of the critical elements in the Malaysia construction industry due to severe shortage of local workers. This paper aims to present a construction performance comparison between conventional building systems and industrialised building systems (IBS).

Data were obtained from 100 residential projects through a questionnaire survey in 2005. A total of 100 respondents participated in this study.

Analysis of variance (ANOVA) results indicated that the actual labour productivity comparison between conventional building system and IBS was significantly different. Further, the comparison of crew size indicated that the conventional building system of 22 workers was significantly different from the IBS of 18 workers. Similarly, the cycle time of 17 days per house for conventional building system was found to be significantly different from the IBS of four days. However, the conventional building system was found to be insignificantly different from the IBS in term of structural construction cost.

The results acquired from this study could be used by project planners for estimating labour input, control costs and project scheduling. Additionally, they could be used to determine the most appropriate structural building system for executing a construction project at the conceptual stage.

It is important to provide building performance feedback to the designer as early as possible in the design process. However, many aspects of building performance are significantly affected by the design of the building’s technical systems (e.g., heating, airconditioning), which are typically configured in detail only in the later stages of design. The challenge is thus to find a method to use detailed simulation tools even during the early stages of design when values for many of the variables for the building’s technical systems are not yet available. In this paper, we demonstrate how this problem can be partially solved by use of differential representation for building and technical system, homology‐based automatic mapping of relevant information from the building to the technical system representation, and generative design agents which, with a minimal user‐input, can design and model the technical system. We conclude the paper with illustrative examples of detailed performance analysis of complex buildings and their heating, ventilation, and air‐conditioning systems, performed in early stages of design.

The purpose of this study is to highlight special characteristics of building services systems and investigate how practitioners view reliability and maintenance. These characteristics include energy‐hungry services systems, operating modes, maintenance types, the relationship between procurement costs and maintenance costs.

The practitioners' viewpoints on reliability and maintenance are explored through a workshop. The authors wish to draw the attention of researchers in the reliability and maintenance community and furthermore emphasise the difference between building services systems and systems in industries other than construction.

It is shown that a lack of failure data and maintenance data is the main problem from both academic researchers' and industrial practitioner's points of view. The paper suggests that there exists no fixed cost ratio available to apply to building services systems; the analysis of RAMS (Reliability, Availability, Maintainability and Safety) should include duty cycles and the environment; and clients of the construction industry would benefit from mandating a LCC to be applied to the build.

The gap between academia and practitioners should be bridged through better understanding each other's needs. Accurately estimating the ratio between procurement and maintenance costs is needed from a whole life costing perspective.

This paper is a good reference for building designers, facility managers and maintenance staff of building services systems. It also offers reliability researchers references on special characteristics of building services systems.

Index by subjects, compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals: Facilities Volumes 8‐17; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐17; Property Management Volumes 8‐17; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐17.

Compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals published by MCB University Press: Facilities Volumes 8‐18; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐18; Property Management Volumes 8‐18; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐18.

Compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals published by MCB University Press: Facilities Volumes 8‐17; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐17; Property Management Volumes 8‐17; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐17.

Index by subjects, compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals: Facilities Volumes 8‐18; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐18; Property Management Volumes 8‐18; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐18.

Compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals published by MCB University Press: Facilities Volumes 8‐18; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐18; Property Management Volumes 8‐18; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐18.

This paper aims to share the vision of integrated building systems based on internet protocol (IP) based on the presentations and facilitated discussions at the BuilConn: Cisco's Connected Real Estate Roundtable in Spring 2006.

Based on the observation of the BuilConn Conference Roundtable and related literature, this paper lays out requirements to support IP‐ and computer‐based integration of building systems.

The authors detail the value proposition, challenges, and related engineering and business transformations of integrated building systems. While cost savings, new advanced services, and flexibility in building operations are the major benefits, the main challenges are the missing awareness and knowledge in the building industry, the educational gap among real estate professionals and owners, the implementation of appropriate security, the use of intelligent building technology, performance and cost saving issues, specific problems for building renovation projects, and the realization of reliable critical building operations. Furthermore, the balance between IP and non‐IP devices, benefits of the IP itself, and the need for more elaborate standards were discussed at the Roundtable. The Roundtable participants identified the following critical transformations within the building project environment to make integrated IP‐based building systems a reality: more flexible design, construction, and facility management contracts, earlier involvement of integration experts, and more flexibility in today's design process.

The participants felt that only when these transformations are accomplished and the mentioned challenges resolved will companies be able to take full advantage of the benefits and realize the vision of integrated IP‐based building systems.

This paper summarizes the presentations and facilitated discussions at the Roundtable, which have, so far, only been accessible to the roundtable participants, and provides a reflecting point of view of participants from the building industry, building owners, and academic representatives on strategic and operational issues around IP‐based building systems.