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This paper delves into the critical role of women in the domains of architecture, engineering, construction and urban planning, particularly within the context of the United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs) and the imperative of achieving gender parity. Concentrating on the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, this paper explores the profound importance of women as essential contributors to urbanisation and sustainable development. It scrutinizes the existing gender disparities within the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industries; evaluates prevailing women empowerment indices in diverse sectors; and presents a strategic framework for harnessing women’s engagement to cultivate inclusive and sustainable urban cultures in the GCC. This conceptual paper introduces an actionable framework that can serve as a guiding agenda for empowering women in the AEC sectors by incorporating their socio-cultural, economic and ecological contributions towards creating sustainable cities.

Centring its focus on Gulf Cities, this paper employs a comprehensive approach to examine the current gender disparities within the architecture, engineering and construction sectors. It probes potential barriers and advocates for leveraging women’s participation to foster inclusive and sustainable urban development in the GCC. The study introduces the Women’s Empowerment Index (WEI) for the Gulf AEC industry elucidating how these measures are translated into a tailored framework.

The paper presents a practical framework that provides actionable guidance for engaging various stakeholders, including governments, academia and industry players, to empower women within the AEC industries. An “Agenda for equitable AEC industries for sustainable urban development: Our Common Gulf Cities” is culminated in a Women Empowerment Index for the AEC Industry (WEI-AEC) designed to serve as a guidance tool to monitor progress within industry, governments and academia.

Future research endeavours could advance the framework by conducting institutional support analyses, multi-stakeholder collaboration studies and practical testing of the framework within real-world scenarios.

The findings of this study can guide and influence a diverse range of initiatives, including policy development, educational strategies, corporate endeavours, awareness campaigns, capacity-building programs, skill enhancement initiatives and knowledge exchange among the Gulf Cooperation Council countries.

This conceptual paper introduces a practical framework that can serve as a roadmap for implementing the study’s potential to shape policies, educational programs and corporate initiatives aimed at advancing both gender equality and the development of sustainable cities.

Studies show that building information modelling (BIM) technology can improve construction productivity regarding the design, construction and maintenance of a project life cycle in the 21st century. Revit has been identified as a frequently used tool for delivering BIM in the built environment. Studies about BIM technology via Revit are scarce in training middle-level workforce higher education institutions. Thus, this study aims to investigate the relevance of BIM technology and offer measures to promote digitalisation in Nigeria’s built environment polytechnic undergraduates via Revit.

Given the unexplored nature of training the middle-level workforce in Nigeria, 37 semi-structured virtual interviews were conducted across Nigeria, and saturation was achieved. The participants were knowledgeable about construction-related BIM. The researchers used a thematic analysis for the collected data and honed them with secondary sources.

Improved visualisation of design, effective and efficient work productivity, automatic design and quantification, improved database management and collaboration and data storage in the centrally coordinated model, among others, emerged as BIM’s benefits. BIM technology via Revit is challenging, especially in Nigeria’s polytechnic education curriculum. The 24 perceived issues were grouped into government/regulatory agencies-related, polytechnic management-related and polytechnic undergraduate students-related hindrances in Nigeria’s built environment.

This study is limited to BIM implications for Nigeria’s built environment polytechnic undergraduates.

This study contributes to the literature paucity in attempting to uncover perceived issues hindering the implementation of BIM technology via Revit in training Nigeria’s built environment polytechnic undergraduates via a qualitative approach.

The common language behind vernacular architecture only seems to be maintained in societies that preserve a traditional way of life. Changes in these societies can threaten their cultural heritage, while research may be a tool for its conservation and enhancement. In this paper, the habitat of a Mossi community is therefore studied as a first stage in analysing the possibilities of its maintenance.

After a previous study, data collection from a stay in Baasneere (Burkina Faso) and the analysis of 32 traditional residential units were completed. The research showed some common features which, when compared against the bibliography reviewed, could be defined as characteristic of the traditional architecture of this culture.

The home for a family unit consisted in an enclosure formed by the grouping of adobe constructions around a courtyard. As the family grew so did the compound, in a relationship directly linking the scales of architecture and the levels of kinship. The main daily activities took place in the courtyards while the individual interior spaces were understood as private shelters. Other typologies such as granaries, kitchens, warehouses and sheds were also analysed.

Some features of Mossi architecture already described in the existing bibliography were verified in the Baasneere case studies, showing that this tradition is still preserved. With a multidisciplinary approach, the house was examined not so much from the perspective of construction, but of its cultural configuration.

This study examines the public participation in the implementation of the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL), a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) approach for urban development. HUL has six Critical Steps and four Tools Categories relating to community engagement, knowledge and planning, regulatory system and financial instruments. The HUL public participation component has materialized variably across the adopting cities, challenged by the local implementation capacity. In response, we have singled out two research questions revolving around the participants’ characteristics and participation methods.

This study instrumentalizes case studies as a research methodology and thematic literature as a theoretical context. The HUL projects for Ballarat, Australia and Cuenca, Ecuador have been selected as sources of published information because they exhibit comparative differences in completing community engagement. We have compared the community engagement accounts of the two cities.

The Ballarat and Cuenca HUL project accounts point out to commonalities and variances in responding to the HUL public participation mandate. The findings for the participants’ characteristics involve project setting, participants categories and participants empowerment; the findings for the participation methods involve initial preparation, domestic and international expertise and public conversation.

The results of the study help define public participation practices in HUL project implementations. The results present an opportunity for city officials, HUL project planners and field administrators for making informed decisions particularly in relation to the two public participation domains, the participants’ characteristics and the engagement methods.

Education to an international standard that can provide successful careers has arguably been the main drive of many parents to allocate scarce financial resources to the education of their progenies. Competition for high-calibre degrees has seen an explosion of opportunity in the private education sector. As many Global South countries do not have the equivalent control of standards provided in the United Kingdom (UK) by the Quality Assurance Agency, this can lead to dissatisfaction with the qualifications received in the Global South. This chapter aims to explore the factors influencing participation in higher education in the Global North versus the Global South, particularly where these relate to or vary by locality, and the relative influence these have on the propensity of the learners living in these areas to progress into higher education in local universities. The conceptual framework and methodology provided in this chapter show the differences between transnational education (TNE) as primarily a standalone or independent activity supported by a UK higher education institution (HEI)/provider versus being a collaborative effort between a UK host university and a South/Southeast Asian HEI university partner. The methodology provides a strategy for UK host institutions to best provide carefully aligned independent or collaborative partnerships with the partner country regulatory bodies. The chapter concludes with the author’s personal reflections and recommendations based on decades of collaborative and independent university provision of TNE. These reflections are focused on design-based courses in selected South/Southeast Asian HEI partnerships with the College of Architecture and Design at Birmingham City University.

Organisations are investing in systems such as product lifecycle management (PLM) to support product development, collaboration across complex supply chains and to provide a framework for digital transformation. Graduates of apparel programmes would benefit from a knowledge of PLM to help realise the opportunities that PLM offers. The purpose of this paper is to report on an educational research project that used PLM as a context for practice-based learning and as a mechanism to update the learning experience and stimulate the development of future practice.

This paper reports on the experiences, critical reflections and data from an action research study to establish a learning community through an educational partnership for PLM software within an undergraduate fashion business course. The cohort of the first year of the intervention (n = 28) is the main study population.

The findings indicate that PLM provided a stimulating learning context supportive of a detailed understanding of current industry practice, critical and innovative thinking and the development of a professional identity.

The opportunity for the development of both industry and educational practice is outlined.

A general introduction to PLM provides important information to support and advance Fashion Industry 4.0. Educational partnerships can reduce barriers to the integration of advanced technologies into the higher education curriculum.

Applications of PLM are under researched in textiles and apparel. The paper contributes to the broadening of the knowledge base of PLM and its potential to achieve strategic transformation of the sector.

Establishing a more sustainable built environment is an increasing global concern for the construction industry. Despite the intrinsic and extrinsic obstacles the stakeholders face, huge efforts are required to transition to a smooth, sustainable construction (SC) practice. This study identifies and discusses cogent obstacles to SC in developing nations.

The Preferred Reporting Item for systematic reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) approach was employed to establish research work in SC for developing countries. The databases used were Scopus and Web of Science. Meta-analysis of keywords was analysed thematically. The initial broad search returned 8,420 publications which were filtered and reviewed in-depth to fit the aim of the study, produced only 21 relevant publications from the years 2000–2021.

The four identified themes of obstacles to SC in developing countries are as follows: construction professional training and education, clients' attitudes and awareness, construction industries' culture and capacity and governments' regulation, policies and economy. The key barriers identified from the meta-analysis include inadequate training and education amongst construction professionals, poor execution of sustainability ethics, poor populace attitude towards sustainability, poor awareness and understanding, dearth of precise data and integrated study and inappropriate priorities about sustainability.

The originality in this study are themes drawn from millennium development goals (MDGs) and sustainable development goals (SDGs) publications related to SC. Consequently, the final framework presented a holistic approach to surmounting the established limitations and aided recommendations for future studies. Thus, setting a background for developing strategies to overcome the limitations and further attain sustainable development (SD).

The purpose of this paper is to ascertain the significant stimulating measures/enablers relating to the existing building regulations for promoting the adoption and overcoming the barriers to the uptake and implementation of the green building concept (GBC) in developing countries using Ghana as a case.

The quantitative research approach was used to attain the study’s goal. Purposive and snowball sampling techniques were found to be suitable for collecting data from 292 relevant stakeholders in Ghana’s construction industry. The mean score ranking technique, in conjunction with the relative importance index, was used to establish the relative ranking of, among other things, the stimulus measures for increasing green building uptake in Ghana. An exploratory factor analysis was also used to classify the most significant stimulation strategies for improving green building uptake.

“Educational programmes relevant to GBTs for developers, contractors, and policymakers,” “sufficient information on the cost and benefits of GBTs” and “mandated green building codes and regulations” were the top three listed stimulating measures to promote increasing use of green building technologies (GBTs). The enablers were classified as follows: government regulations and policies; commitment and GB research; education and publicity; and incentives and support.

The study was conducted in Ghana, a developing nation, and thus the findings and implications are peculiar to Ghana. However, the study’s findings have important practical implications for the adoption and marketing of GBCs and GBTs in other developing nations.

Prioritizing major stimulation initiatives may be beneficial in terms of overcoming the constraints to the adoption of GBCs and GBTs in developing countries.

Despite the significance of the construction industry to the nation's economic growth, there is empirical evidence that the sector is lagging behind other industries in terms of productivity growth. The need for improvements inspired the industry's stakeholders to consider using emerging technologies that support the enhancement. This research aims to report augmented reality applications essential for contractors' productivity improvement.

This study systematically reviewed academic journals. The selection of journal articles entailed searching Scopus and Web of Science databases. Relevant articles for reviews were identified and screened. Content analysis was used to classify key applications into six categories. The research results were limited to journal articles published between 2010 and 2021.

Augmented reality can improve construction productivity through its applications in assembly, training and education, monitoring and controlling, interdisciplinary function, health and safety and design information.

The research provides a direction for contractors on key augmented reality applications they can leverage to improve their organisations' productivity.

Recent studies have observed rise in consumer’s ethical concerns about the online retailers while making a purchase decision. The impetus for businesses to use corporate social responsibility (CSR) is evident, but the effects of CSR motives on corresponding processes underlying cause-related marketing (CRM) patronage intention have not been thoroughly examined. This study, anchored on attribution theory, established a research model that better explains the influence of CSR motives on patronage intentions toward CRM-oriented online retailers. Additionally, this study aims to examine the moderating role of spirituality (SPT) on CSR motives and CRM patronage intention (CPI).

Primary data has been collected from 722 respondents and analyzed by using deep neural-network architecture by using the innovative PLS-SEM-ANN method to predict/rank the factors impacting CPI.

The results revealed the normalized importance of the predictors of CPI and found that value-driven motive was the strongest predictor, followed by strategic motive, SPT, age and stakeholder-driven motive. In contrast, egoistic motive, education and income were found insignificant.

The pandemic has transformed the way consumers shop and fortified the online economy, thereby resulting in a paradigm shift toward usage of e-commerce platforms. The results offer valuable insights to online retailers and practitioners for predicting patronage intentions by CSR motives and, thus, effectively engage CRM consumers by designing promotions in a way that would deeply resonate with them. This study assessed and predicted the factors influencing the CPI s, thereby guiding the online retailers to design CSR strategies and manage crucial CRM decisions.