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Briefing in a project delivery context is one of the most critical factors in the project success. It defines client requirements, translates these needs into design criteria and generates a design concept. A lack of briefing clarity is one of the main causes of design changes and may lead to project cost and time overruns. This research aims to assess the brief clarity and its influence on project cost and duration.

This research created the PDRI-SD technique by utilising a system dynamic (SD) approach and project definition rating index (PDRI) tool to model the complex system of project briefing and associated variables. Stock and flow diagrams of the main subsystems including the briefing, the detailed design and the construction process, were developed to assess the influence of brief clarity on project cost and time. The PDRI was adopted to measure the briefing clarity and apply in the model. PDRI-SD was then tested in Australian building refurbishment projects to assess the model's effectiveness.

The simulation results indicated that a minor reduction of the lack of clarity throughout the initial briefing process could significantly mitigate unpredicted delay and cost overruns during the detailed design and the construction stage.

This research contributed to the existing body of knowledge by developing an effective technique to measure the impact of lack of brief clarity on project cost and time performance. PDRI-SD can also aid project clients to predict the influence of the initial defined brief on the detailed design and construction process using the historical data of similar previous projects. It provides clients with feedback, indicating whether the brief meets project requirements or whether parts of the project brief require more clarification/rectification before the project handover to the builders.

This paper aims to develop a novel risk analysis model that uses both participatory and computerized techniques to capture and model the dynamic of risk impact propagation and interaction pattern.

In this research, an integrated model, applying modified participatory method and novel dichotomize procedure in the perspectives of social network topological analysis, is developed.

Based on the analysis output, it is found that; (i) the risk propagation is characterized by its dynamic and non-linear impact pattern, and (ii) the risk interaction is distinguished based on the degree of connectedness between various risks.

This research assumes that the risk impact propagation and interaction pattern within the risk network are static. Further research is required to analyze the risk network in dynamic circumstances.

This research contributes in delivering practical tools that could potentially provide a further path for developing mitigation strategy and policies that seek to address the complexity of risk phenomena, and thus enhance community resilience.

This research reveals some underlying patterns of how the risk impact propagation and interaction pattern are structured. Thus, it can help decision-makers make formal arrangements of particular urban infrastructure (UI) governance visible toward building risk plan and mitigation strategies.

This research contributes to filling the risk management knowledge gap. It is suggested that analyzing risk using a network approach is suited to capture the intricate processes that shape the complexity of UI risk structural network. By validating the model, this research shows the applicability and capability of the model to improve both the RA accuracy and decision making effectiveness towards risk mitigation plan and strategy.

The operational phase of a building's lifecycle is receiving increasing attention, as it consumes an enormous amount of energy and results in tremendous detrimental impacts on the environment. While energy simulation can be applied as a tool to evaluate the energy performance of a building in operation, the emergence of Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology is expected to facilitate the evaluation process with predefined and enriched building information. However, such an approach has been confronted by the challenge of interoperability issues among the related application software, including the BIM tools and energy simulation tools, and the results of simulation have been seldom verified due to the unavailability of corresponding experimental data. This study aims to explore the interoperability between the commonly used energy simulation and BIM tools and verifies the simulation approach by undertaking a case study.

With Autodesk Revit and EnergyPlus selected as the commonly used BIM and energy simulation tools, respectively, a valid technical framework of transferring building information between two tools is proposed, and the interoperability issues that occur during the data transfer are studied. The proposed framework is then employed to simulate the energy consumption of a single-family house, and sensitivity analysis and analysis on such parameters as schedule are conducted for building operations to showcase its applicability.

The simulation results are compared with monitored data and the results from another simulation tool, HOT2000; the comparison reveals that EnergyPlus and HOT2000 predict the total energy consumption with a difference from the monitoring data of 8.0 and 7.1%, respectively.

This research shows how to efficiently use BIM to support building energy simulation. Relevant stakeholders can learn from this research to avoid data loss during BIM model transformation.

This research explores the application of BIM for building energy simulation, compares the simulation results among different tools and validates simulation results using monitored data.

Deploying hybrid construction project teams (HCPTs) in which the common pattern of interactions is a blend of face-to-face and virtual communications has been increasingly gaining momentum in the construction context. Evidence has demonstrated that effectiveness of HCPTs is affected by a perceived level of virtuality, i.e. the perception of distance and boundaries between members where teams shift towards working virtually as opposed to purely collocated teams. This study aims to provide an integrated model of the factors affecting perceived virtuality in HCPTs, to address the conspicuous absence of studies on virtuality in the construction context.

An a priori list of factors extracted from existing literature on virtuality was subjected to the scrutiny of 17 experts with experiences of working in HCPTs through semi-structured interviews. Nvivo 10 was deployed for analysing the interview transcripts.

The findings outline the factors affecting virtuality in HCPTs and map the patterns of their associations as an integrated model. This leads to discovering a number of novel factors, which exert moderating impacts upon perceived virtuality in HCPTs.

The findings assist managers and practitioners dealing with any form of HCPTs (including building information modelling-based networks and distributed design teams) in identifying the variables manipulating the effectiveness of their teams. This enables them of designing more effective team arrangements.

As the first empirical study on virtuality in the construction context, this paper contributes to the sphere by conceptualising and contextualising the concept of virtuality in the construction industry. The study presents a new typology for the factors affecting perceived virtuality by categorising them into predictors and moderators.

Systematic risk management is expecting the unexpected – it is a tool which helps control risks in construction projects. Its objective is to introduce a simple, practical method of identifying, assessing, monitoring and managing risk in an informed and structured way. It provides guidance for implementing a risk control strategy that is appropriate to control construction projects at all levels. This paper will review systematic management approaches to risk. It discusses the allocation of risk and suggests that risk needs to be identified and managed early in the procurement process. In addition, a case study of a small project that was affected by difficult economic circumstances is included to demonstrate the effectiveness of systematic risk management.

Many facility managers are now required to deal directly with small firms engaged in the maintenance, alteration and cleaning of physical infrastructure. Increasingly the performance of small firms reflects on the manager of the facility, and so an understanding of their operation is required. It is mandatory for all firms to provide a safe working environment for their workers and subcontractors. Consequently, occupational health and safety (OHS) is a major issue for companies mainly due to the fear of prosecution. The introduction of Zero Tolerance by the Victorian government WorkCover Authority in 1999 provided even higher OHS safety standards for the construction industry. This has placed an increased burden on construction and maintenance companies especially small firms that are not in a position of financial strength. The size of the company has been found to be a major contributing factor to the OHS performance of construction contractors. This research is based on a benchmarking study of 44 construction companies in Victoria, Australia. The results show that the major factors influencing safety performance were; company size, and management and employee commitment to OHS.

The purpose of this paper is to examine public–private partnership (PPP) approaches for the construction of rental retirement villages in Australia and to allocate the investment proportions under a certain project return rate among three investors which are the government, private sectors and pension funds. The apportionment will achieve a minimum overall investment risk for the project.

Capital structure, particularly determination of investment apportionment proportions, is one of the key factors affecting the success of PPP rental retirement villages. Markowitz mean-variance model was applied to examine the investment allocations with minimum project investment risks under a certain projected return rate among the PPP partners for the construction of rental retirement villages.

The research findings validate the feasibility of the inclusion of pension funds in the construction of PPP rental retirement villages and demonstrate the existence of relationships between the project return rate and the investment allocation proportions.

This paper provides a quantitative approach for determination of the investment proportions among PPP partners to enrich the theory of PPP in relation to the construction of rental retirement villages. This has implications for PPP partners and can help these stakeholders make vital contributions in developing intellectual wealth in the PPP investment area while providing them with a detailed guide to decision making and negotiation in relation to investment in PPP rental retirement villages.

The cost of concrete ground‐supported floor slabs represents a significant proportion of the total capital cost of industrial projects. There are many structural design issues that impact on the concrete contractors’ method of construction. This is becoming more apparent with the use of new high‐technology levelling and trowelling equipment, which has significantly increased the pour and finishing rates, resulting in much faster slab construction times compared with the traditional methods of construction. Selection of both the design and the construction methods exerts a large influence on the initial cost. According to the results of the research reported in this paper, it may be possible to save between 2‐4 per cent of the building cost if high technology solutions are incorporated into the design and construction process. This paper investigates cost issues that impact on the design and construction of ground‐supported floors for industrial buildings.

Targeting public–private partnership (PPP) rental retirement villages, the purpose of this paper is to bring forward the solution of insufficient research in a non-competitive guarantee (a restrictive agreement) towards the compensation and guarantee costs in consideration of benefit redistribution if the governments are unable to keep the promise on guarantee provision.

Real option principles are applied to assess the public–private investment proportions and the expected return rates of the private sector in a non-competitive guarantee and analyse their effects on the public–private benefit and risk allocations as well as the success of the project. Instead of granting direct capital support, this research accomplishes the compensation of non-competition guarantee by adjusting the project benefit distribution ratios between the government and the private sector to achieve the option value of the guarantee. An empirical example with alternative scales, which is developed from an existing rental village in Geelong, is used to numerically verify the research process.

The results illustrate that the option value of the non-competition guarantee plays an important role in supporting the implementation of the PPP rental retirement village projects. The option value of the non-competition guarantee has a close relationship with the guarantee level and the government guarantee cost, which is positively correlated with the guarantee level and negatively correlated with the government guarantee cost. To reduce the government guarantee cost, the government should carefully determine the public–private investment proportion, appropriately control the return rate of the private sector and approve the construction of the new project after the investment recovery of the private sector.

This research mainly focusses on the economic loss of the government due to the guarantee responsibility. Further research could be conducted to determine the guarantee level more precisely and take the social cost of the government guarantees into consideration.

This research is the first attempt to investigate the government compensation and costs of non-competition guarantee for PPP rental retirement village projects and will enhance the understanding of the nature of PPP applications. The evaluation process and the implementation of the compensation through the adjustment of benefit distribution provides a comprehensive method to analyse the non-competition guarantee of PPP projects and help the parties negotiate in good faith to agree on a method of redress.

Ageing populations, although exhibiting marked differences across countries and cultures, are a global phenomenon. Old‐age dependency ratios in most developed countries are projected to double by the year 2050. In Australia there will be a strain on economic growth as a large part of the population moves from pre‐retirement to post‐retirement age over the next 25 years. A disproportionate amount of this strain will be concentrated in aged‐care housing or retirement accommodation. Current evidence suggests that existing housing stock for older people is inadequate. As the Australian population ages, the maintenance and long‐term performance of retirement housing is a key concern of government and housing providers. This study looked at four aged‐care or retirement providers across Australia and examined the performance of the current housing stock managed by these providers. The interviews revealed that housing design decisions in retirement stock, although critically important to the changing needs of occupants and the adequate supply of suitable housing, are often ill‐considered. The findings critically question the idea of simply building ‘more of the same’ to relieve demand. This study has major implications for the future of Australian retirement housing, especially as the population ages dramatically.