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Green building education, an important aspect of sustainability in higher education, has rapidly expanded across the world. Yet, a bespoke pedagogical model integrating the essential elements of green building knowledge into a university course is lacking. To plug this deficiency, this study aims to develop an innovative pedagogical model that incorporates four types of teaching activities, namely, lecture, virtual reality (VR)-aided site visit, physical site visit and practicum-based project.

Based on an extensive review of the relevant literature and course materials, a pedagogical model was constructed for application to the teaching and learning activities of a university’s hospitality and real-estate programme. Using a case study approach involving in-depth interviews with green building professionals and a workshop coupled with an online survey on building professionals, the model’s transformative effectiveness was evaluated.

The study finds that the pedagogical model was able to effectively equip students with the essential green building knowledge pertinent to the different stages of a building life cycle. Concerns about wider applications of the model, including barriers to implementation in other academic programmes and resources for updating the VR platform, were identified.

The VR-aided and project-based pedagogy model is novel and effective in delivering green building education. Future work, particularly expanding the VR platform to cover more green building cases, thereby allowing multiple case studies to be conducted, is recommended for illustrating further contributions and implications of the model.

Facilities management (FM) activities affect citizens’ health and safety, long-term urban environmental sustainability and the relationships between the built and natural environments of cities. This study aims to comprehend the status of smart FM tools application, how they are used to improve the delivery of FM services and the barriers to their implementation.

To investigate the current smart solutions that leverage the quality of FM service, a case study based on the FM practice in Hong Kong was carried out. The case study was conducted in two phases of data acquisition based on a qualitative research methodology. After conducting in-depth interviews to determine the application of smart FM tools in different types of properties and to identify the initiatives and barriers to smart FM tool application, three workshops were conducted to validate the findings and further investigate the influence of FM professionals on smart FM tools application in Hong Kong.

The findings of the case study revealed, firstly, that four types of smart FM tools – user-centric, safety and hygiene, maintenance and sustainability-oriented – are used to assist the delivery of FM services. Secondly, smart FM tools are shown to be useful in assisting FM activities. Thirdly, the existing barriers to smart FM tool application manifest differently in shopping malls, office buildings and residential buildings. Fourthly, smart FM tools are used to address the four attributes of user needs: comfort, health and wellbeing, convenience and information to occupants.

The value of this study lies in its focus on the industry level (FM industry) and the application process of smart FM tools in different types of property, revealing the benefits, initiatives and barriers to their future application. This study provides a comprehensive picture of the current status and elaborates the barriers to smart FM tool application, which will help FM practitioners to make strategic decisions on selecting and developing smart FM tools. Also, this study will facilitate smart FM tool application policy development.

Heritage building revitalisation (HBR) is gaining its popularity to intervene historic buildings/sites for their conservation and reuse. Given that multiple stake-holding situations are often involved in HBR process, coordination or managerial problem may hinder versatile facilities design for operational efficiency while preserving the heritage values. To address the coordination challenge, this paper aims to examine the relevance and relative advantages of a FM-led revitalisation strategy for HBR, which the existing literature has not yet addressed.

This paper adopts a case study approach to a major HBR project in Hong Kong. This study conducted field observations and interviews, which were combined with publicly accessible policy and project information to identify stakeholders’ opinions and specifications for the role of facilities management (FM) in HBR project process.

The paper reveals the role of FM in coordinating the HBR process for the benefits of stakeholders and general community. FM allows a balanced approach to heritage building adaptation, sound user experience and broader community effects. This enables efficient decision-making, creative facilities design and effective public engagement. FM’s strength of fitting in the urban renewal context illustrates its comparative advantage for heritage conservation and revitalisation management.

This study develops a conceptual map to identify FM’s role in heritage building conservation and revitalisation. This will enhance process evaluation and project decision-making that are central to heritage conservation policy and HBR intervention practices.

This study examines relevance and advantage of FM-led business strategy for HBR, which the existing literature has not yet addressed. It discovers FM’s strategic roles and initiates a conceptual framework for evaluation of heritage conservation management.

This paper aims to review standards on or related to retro-commissioning (RCx) and policy measures that are applicable for fostering wider adoption of RCx in existing buildings. In addition to engendering broader polemic debate to address the respective gap in the prevailing body of green building knowledge, the research outcome signposts future directions of works required for developing the needed standard and policy.

Following an integrative review approach, RCx-related literature, statutes, publications of public and professional organizations and standards published by institutions including the International Organization for Standardization and other peer organizations in the USA, the UK, Canada and Germany were reviewed.

Cities such as Hong Kong and New York in the world’s two largest economies (China and the USA) have been proactive in the pursuit of energy-efficient buildings. Various US cities have imposed statutory requirements on RCx. The need for an international standard on RCx and a bespoke policy for driving the uptake of RCx was also identified.

Drawn from the research includes the need for further policy research studies to direct how an appropriate policy could be established to engender wider RCx adoption internationally.

Practical implications center on the identified need to develop a specific standard of RCx works. Making such a standard available to facilities management practitioners is pivotal to realizing the goal of green buildings.

This study provides new insights, especially the future directions in developing bespoke RCx standards and policy for greening the existing buildings.

This paper aims to investigate the theoretical and practical links between digital twin (DT) application in heritage facilities management (HFM) from a life cycle management perspective and to signpost the future development directions of DT in HFM.

This state-of-the-art review was conducted using a systematic literature review method. Inclusive and exclusive criteria were identified and used to retrieve relevant literature from renowned literature databases. Shortlisted publications were analysed using the VOSviewer software and then critically reviewed to reveal the status quo of research in the subject area.

The review results show that DT has been mainly adopted to support decision-making on conservation approach and method selection, performance monitoring and prediction, maintenance strategies design and development, and energy evaluation and management. Although many researchers attempted to develop DT models for part of a heritage building at component or system level and test the models using real-life cases, their works were constrained by availability of empirical data. Furthermore, data capture approaches, data acquisition methods and modelling with multi-source data are found to be the existing challenges of DT application in HFM.

In a broader sense, this study contributes to the field of engineering, construction and architectural management by providing an overview of how DT has been applied to support management activities throughout the building life cycle. For the HFM practice, a DT-cum-heritage building information modelling (HBIM) framework was developed to illustrate how DT can be integrated with HBIM to facilitate future DT application in HFM. The overall implication of this study is that it reveals the potential of heritage DT in facilitating HFM in the urban development context.

This study aims to establish a rigorous model that can pragmatically evaluate the facilities management (FM) performance of hospitals.

Among the applicable performance indicators that were identified from extant literature, a focus group study shortlisted ten key performance indicators (KPIs) in four categories (safety, physical, financial and environmental) and verified their practicality. Using the analytic network process (ANP) method to process the focus group’s responses yielded importance weightings for the KPIs and developed the intended evaluation model. This model was then validated by a case study.

From the empirical data collected, two types of FM performance data and two scenarios of KPI scores were identified. To process these data and scores, a robust calculation method was devised and then proved useful in obtaining an overall score for holistic hospital FM performance. The case study confirmed the appropriateness and validity of the model developed.

Through illustrating how the ANP method could be applied to develop an FM performance evaluation model, the study contributes knowledge to the multi-criteria decision-making domain. Despite the geographical limitation of the model established (i.e. centered around a group of hospitals investigated in Hong Kong), the study can serve as a reference for developing performance evaluation models for other buildings or infrastructures globally.

The model constitutes a practical tool for evaluating the FM performance of hospitals. Using this model on a regular basis will enable performance benchmarking and hence, continuous improvement of FM services.

The ANP model established is the first of its kind tailored for evaluation of hospital FM performance.

This study aims to investigate built heritage revitalisation projects in Hong Kong through a case study.

For this study, a representative built heritage revitalisation project in Hong Kong is selected study revitalisation in practice in Hong Kong. The case study adopts content analysis as the main method of analysis. It involves counting keywords, comparing content, categorising content patterns and interpreting the content of documents.

The findings reveal that in the revitalisation process, there is significant fragmentation in collaboration among government sectors and in conservation documentation and that an effective knowledge sharing mechanism and valid public engagement is needed. A conceptual framework of social network-enabled building information modelling (BIM) platform is proposed to enhance knowledge sharing and cross-sector collaboration.

The conceptual framework developed based on the case study is expected to bring practical implications to urban regeneration policies in Hong Kong.

This study views built heritage revitalisation practice as different individual projects and provides a social and technical perspective to investigate built heritage revitalisation.

This paper aims to identify the factors that affect facilities management (FM) service outsourcing.

Five focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted for this study. A total of 25 professional FM managers were invited to participate in the FGDs. The qualitative data collected from the FGDs were analysed with the coding method.

FM managers commonly regard that tight budget constraints and the absence of strategic planning are two important factors that affect FM service outsourcing. Tight budget constraints reflect that clients control their service providers by constraining budgets, which creates a series of inefficiencies in the outsourcing process and thus lead to adverse outsourcing relationships. A series of strategies are recommended to deal with the challenges posed by budget constraints and the lack strategic planning.

Twenty-five Hong Kong-based FM managers were interviewed for this study. The empirical data collected mainly reflects FM service outsourcing in Hong Kong. It is important to test the findings with a bigger group of FM managers from other regions.

The managerial significance of FM service outsourcing has not yet been valued in practice. This study draws academic attention to FM service outsourcing practice and provides practical opinions from FM managers. Also, this study adopts the FGD method in data collection, which extracts to a maximum degree of authentic opinions from practitioners.

Foreign firms entering into the domestic real estate industry and foreign investment control are significant in global hot markets such as Australia. Despite their market impact and policy sensitivity, developer choice is rarely studied. The purpose of this paper is to study domestic and overseas property developers for their motive and preference in response to market growth and market barriers including regulatory constraint.

International trade theory suggests local and overseas firms can vary significantly for their risk profile when engaging in location-specific development opportunities. Using a comprehensive decision factor system for the residential development process, the authors conducted an experimental survey to collect the prime data to measure stated preference of domestic and overseas developers in the context of the Melbourne residential market.

Results suggest high consistency between the samples of domestic and overseas developers. Possible explanations include vertical integration by innovative contracting, strict regulatory constraint dictates domestic and overseas firms’ preference or sample selection bias. This micro-analysis of developer stated preference highlights their entrepreneurial ability to combine substitution and integration for innovative contractual strategy. This ability to join asset holding and project management enables firm flexibility to mitigate business risk in rapidly globalising capital and factor markets.

These insights of firm-level decision making contribute to the decision literature of real estate developers and are relevant to the broader literature of industrial economics and international trade. Government may evaluate policy strategies based on the explicit entrepreneur (e.g. developer) preference for their “comparative advantage”.

This paper highlights developer’s ability to jointly consider investment and project management for decision making. It found that other than political cost such as national interest and domestic interest group pressure, domestic and overseas developers in the Melbourne residential market actually think quite alike. It suggests that irrespective of property ownership conditions, market integration occurs in the Melbourne residential sector.