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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the challenges faced by occupants and fire fighters during evacuation and rescue operations in high‐rise buildings.

The paper has analysed the published literature for the purpose of identifying and examining the factors that make high‐rise buildings a high‐risk type of facility to fire and the common avenues of fire spread in high‐rise buildings. The paper then investigates a number of evacuation strategies in high‐rise buildings and the set of human factors affecting high‐rise evacuations. It also discusses the challenges that building occupants and fire departments face during a fire emergency.

The paper has established that high‐rise buildings are a high‐risk type of facility in fire emergencies due to a combination of three risk factors. The characteristics of the occupants to consider when designing the means of escape were identified, and the challenges faced by fire fighters during rescue operation in high‐rise fires were classified under five main categories.

The paper provides for an exchange of knowledge, thus facilitating a better comprehension of the roles of designers, building services engineers, facility managers and professionals in safety in the provision and maintenance of safety systems in high‐rise buildings.

The statistics show that older adults have been major fire victims in high-rise buildings. However, the fire safety building codes in most countries are not inclusive and do not reflect provisions for older adults. The research aims to develop a fire risk assessment index system for older adults living in high-rise residential buildings in India. The study further develops a fire rating system to improve fire safety provisions in high-rise buildings in India.

The paper employs Delphi, analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and fuzzy comprehensive risk evaluation techniques. It considers 18 in-depth interviews and group discussions with builders, developers, architects, policymakers, and fire safety experts and consultants to develop a fire risk assessment system for older occupants living in high-rise residential buildings in India.

The fire protection systems and fire management systems are not as per the needs of older adults. The egress system components need improvisation considering the challenges of older adults.

The study is limited to older adults living in high-rise residential buildings in the capital city of Gujarat, Ahmedabad.

This study will assist policymakers in developing fire safety standards that are targeted to the needs of older persons living in high-rise residential buildings during a fire evacuation.

While several approaches for measuring fire risk in high-rise residential buildings exist, no such system has been developed specifically for older adults in India.

Most of the native citizens in the UAE live in public or private single-family houses. Given the tremendous cost of developing this type of housing and the inability of providing single-family houses to cover all the current and future needs for public housing, high-rise residential buildings seem to offer an alternative. But the question is; does this type of housing suit the local communities in the UAE, especially in light of the failure of the previous western experiences?. Through addressing this question, the research proposes an approach towards a community-oriented design for high-rise residential buildings in the UAE.

The research first investigated the reasons behind the community-relevant shortcomings of the traditional high-rise residential developments in the West. Afterwards, it briefly reviewed the status quo of the community-relevant considerations in the design of the recently built high-rise residential buildings in the UAE, where it has been found that little concern has been devoted to the community needs. In an effort to find an answer to this problem, the research examined four recent design experiences as examples for the current universal efforts to design community-responsive high-rise residential developments. Some conceptual approaches were derived from these experiences that are envisaged to help reach an approach for the case of the UAE. Nonetheless, because of the unique social and cultural traits of the UAE native society one cannot rely on these global conceptual approaches alone. Instead, the research proposes an approach that, while benefiting from the relevant global experiences, is chiefly pivoted on the vertical reconfiguration of the idea of the ‘fareej’ as the smallest unit in the residential urban context both traditionally and in the future official urban plans in the UAE.

This study provides insight into using ecological design principles in designing high-rise buildings for increasing the ecological capacity of a region. It is a descriptive-analytical survey, which starts with the literacy of the subject, and continues by analyzing successful ecologically designed case studies around the world and notes that by using ecological design principles in designing high-rise buildings, can increase the ecological capacity of a region in order to meet its occupant needs. It indicates that by the industrialization of cities, due to population growth, the value of the land and lack of it for growing population to be settled in, designing high-rise buildings may be the best solution to solve the problem. Moreover, the importance of designing high-rise buildings based on ecological principles has been highlighted by environmental pollution, natural hazards and endangered ecosystems. The ecological design for high-rise buildings is becoming more and more important considering environmental issues. This approach is routed in remaking the natural relationships in ecosystems. The most important feature of nature which can be used in ecological design is its power of reconstruction and rehabilitation. So we can reach an ecosystem in scale of a high-rise building which imitates nature in all its aspects.

The aims and objectives of this research are to establish whether or not the transition into green building in high-rise construction is practical. This is after considering several perspectives including financial, economic, environmental, and social. This subsequently leads to an evaluation on whether or not the continuation with a standard conventional build of high-rise buildings remains to be the most feasible option. Such objectives, therefore, aim to allow for validation of how and why high-rise construction designs are impacted through green buildings effects.

Through six defined steps, the methodology commences with an introductory section of what it means to build green. This section is further broken down to evaluate what factors are involved in constructing a green building. Furthermore, the life cycle energy (LCE) is used as a framework to evaluate the knock-on effects of green buildings and subsequent high-rise construction design implications.

Through defining the ongoing relationship of green materials and sustainable design, various implications for high-rise constructions were discovered. First and foremost, it was determined that the LCE is the central consideration for any high-rise building design. In evaluating the LCE, and overall operating energy of the 50-year cycle of a building was carried out. As the results showed, the operating energy represents around 85% of the total energy that is consumed at the end of the 50 years cycle of the building. Precise LCE calculation can lead to a more efficient design for high-rise buildings. As a result, an increased understanding of the current status of green buildings within the construction industry is paramount. This understanding leads to a better insight into the contributing factors to green building in high-rise construction and the construction industry in general.

The potential contribution that can be gained from this research is the awareness that is raised in the research and development of green buildings in high-rise construction. This can be achieved by using certain materials such as new energy-efficient building materials, recycled materials and so on. This research will contribute to defining a new way of sustainable buildings, particularly for high-rise construction. The outcome of the research will be beneficial for practitioners such as design engineers and other related professions.

Compared to low-rise and mid-rise buildings, commercial high-rise buildings have severe maintenance management deficiencies due to the complex nature of the structure and building services incorporated. Previous studies have shown that implementing lean in maintenance is a recognised prominent strategy to enhance maintenance performance. Thus, this study aims to investigate how lean maintenance can be applied to improve maintenance management in commercial high-rise buildings in Sri Lanka.

This study adopted a case study method. Three commercial high-rise buildings were selected to conduct the empirical study. An expert survey is also conducted to validate the findings.

The findings of the study revealed that out of the eight cardinal types of lean maintenance waste, six are rooted in the selected cases: (i) excessive preventive maintenance, (ii) waiting (maintenance resources, tools, procuring of additional supplies and documentation and permits), (iii) transportation due to centralised maintenance, (iv) poor inventory management, (v) poor information handling and (vi) poor utilisation of labour. Then the study revealed strategies to eradicate identified lean maintenance wastes.

The findings of this study can be used to guide maintenance practitioners in implementing lean maintenance in Sri Lankan commercial high-rise buildings. Furthermore, the proposed strategies can be directly applied to mitigate identified maintenance wastes.

This paper provides information on how high-rise commercial buildings in Sri Lanka can enhance their maintenance management by mitigating lean maintenance wastes.

Vertical alignment in high-rise building is a very important aspect. The architects are nowadays interested in improvising untypical complicated morphology in building designs which increase the difficulty in surveying for vertical alignments. Although the GNSS survey techniques are widely applied in constructions, there is a lack of data sources to explicitly expose their applicability in high-rise buildings and the challenges to be considered. This study has been oriented to find out the best suitable GPS survey technique for the vertical alignment in high-rise buildings and the practical challenges to be considered.

The findings have been attained by analyzing the reliable data gained through experts' comments through structured questionnaire survey, case studies and experiments on different GPS survey techniques.

The findings express that the GPS techniques can be used for vertical alignments in high-rise buildings except for direct setting out for which only RTK GPS can be used. There are some practical challenges to be considered in such GPS applications.

The findings encourage the research community to further focus on the GNSS survey applications in the constructions of high-rise buildings.

The research expresses applicability of easier and less time-consumed modern GNSS survey techniques instead of traditional survey methods for expediting building constructions.

The knowledge on such modern rapid survey techniques with accuracy, efficiency and reliability highly affects the process of infrastructure development.

The research presents a useful new knowledge on applying GNSS survey techniques for precise survey requirements in the construction industry and exposes the gateways for further researches and development.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an effective process to market high-rise luxury condominiums in a middle-income country in Asia like Sri Lanka, based on empirical evidence.

The case research methodology used to address the four research issues used multiple sources of data. In stage 1, qualitative data were collected in interviews with managers and salespersons of six condominium developments that ranged from successful to failure. In stage 2, quantitative data were collected in a survey of the buyers of the six cases.

The authors contributions to knowledge include the first evidence-based findings about what influences the success and failure of high-rise luxury condominium developments in a country like Sri Lanka. In addition, a comprehensive marketing model of an effective marketing process is developed for forward-thinking professionals in the field to use to successfully market their luxury high-rise condominiums projects in the future.

Detailed steps for successful marketing are outlined, from the Board of Management down to salespersons.

This is the first academic research paper to examine the effective marketing of high-rise luxury condominiums in a middle-income country like Sri Lanka.

This study aims to discover the impact of failure factors on stakeholder coordination performance (SCP) in the finishing phase of high-rise building projects.

Firstly, this study identifies potential failure factors affecting coordination performance as well as criteria for measuring SCP in the finishing phase of high-rise building projects. Afterwards, a survey questionnaire is designed to collect data from high-rise building projects in Vietnam. Using the factor analysis method, the study discovers the failure constructs. A structural equation model is then built to uncover the relationships between failure constructs and SCP.

The study identified four failure constructs which could significantly affect SCP, namely traditional adversarial relationship (TAR), incompetent parties (IP), poor project planning and organization (PPO) and delays of parties toward construction works (DP). The developed model indicated that TAR, PPO and IP significantly affected stakeholders' coordination performance in the finishing phase of high-rise building projects.

The results of the study fill the gap in knowledge by discovering the causal relationships between failure constructs and SCP in high-rise building projects. The results might provide an initial guideline for stakeholders during the finishing phase of high-rise building projects to enhance their coordination performance.

Modular integrated construction (MiC) is the most advanced off-site construction technology. However, the application of MiC for high-rise buildings is still limited and challenging. One critical issue is tower crane layout planning (TCLP) to guarantee safe and efficient multiple crane-lifts for module installation, which, however, has been insufficiently explored. For filling this knowledge gap, this paper aims to systematically explore the critical considerations on TCLP for high-rise MiC to support contractors in determining the optimal crane layout plan.

This study employed a multimethod strategy. First, previous studies on TCLP and critical features of MiC were reviewed to develop a conceptual model of TCLP considerations. Second, expert interviews with 15 construction planners were conducted to identify the critical TCLP considerations for high-rise MiC. Third, a multicase study with three high-rise MiC projects was undertaken to demonstrate and verify the identified considerations.

The paper characterises critical considerations on TCLP as performance criteria and influencing factors and identifies 7 critical performance criteria and 25 influencing factors for high-rise MiC. Specifically, the features of MiC (e.g. various modularised layout design, heavyweight and large size of modules) were found to significantly affect the crane layout performance (i.e. technical feasibility, safety and economic efficiency).

The paper is the first-of-its-kind study on crane layout planning for high-rise modular buildings, which contributes a two-stage multicriteria decision-making framework integrated with systematic TCLP considerations. The findings should help contractors determine safe and efficient tower crane layout plans for high-rise MiC projects.