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This paper aims to conduct a qualitative assessment of synergies between information flows of a multifamily product platform used for industrialized housing and materials passports that can promote a circular economy in the construction industry.

Using a single case study method, the research assesses the availability and accessibility of materials passport-relevant information generated by a leading Swedish industrialized housing construction firm. Data is collected using semistructured interviews, document analysis and an extended research visit.

The research findings identify the functional layers of the product platform, map the information flow using a process diagram, assess the availability and accessibility of material passport relevant information by lifecycle stage and actor, and summarize the key points using a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis.

The three main implications are: the technical and process platforms used in industrialized construction allow for generating standardized, digital and reusable information; the vertical integration of trades and long-term relationships with suppliers improve transparency and reduce fragmentation in information flows; and the design-build-operate business model strategy incentivizes actors to manage information flows in the use phase.

Industrialized construction firms can use this paper as an approach to understand and map their information flows to identify suitable approaches to generate and manage materials passports.

The specific characteristics of product platforms and industrialized construction provide a unique opportunity for circular information flow across the building lifecycle, which can support material passport adoption to a degree not often found in the traditional construction industry.

Globally, prefabrication in housebuilding has evolved as an innovative approach to attain sustainability and affordability. However, the SC, including non-producers and producers, of prefabricated housebuilding projects is still not perceptually aligned, hindering innovation diffusion. This paper investigates the contemporary industry perspective on PHB for conceptualisation, market share and growth, innovation diffusion and the producer's role in the context of New Zealand.

An exploratory qualitative research design was chosen to learn the perceptual stance of the industry. A semi-structured survey was conducted, followed by interviews with selected supply chain participants, who were producers and non-producers and had relevant experience in the PHB industry.

This study reports the common terminologies used by supply chain members, with justification and explanation. Further, the perceived market share and growth of the PHB industry are obtained and compared with subsequent studies to determine the capability and capacity. The perception of the diffusion of PHB by type is reported to portray the overall trend of the industry. In the last, the role of producers as the suppliers of PHB projects is investigated to establish the stakeholder positional criticality.

This study can help researchers and practitioners gain insight into the PHB industry from a multi-dimensional perspective. This study is a potential first step to formalise the policy, programme, strategies and action plan for the uptake of the PHB in the New Zealand.

PHB diffusion in the supply chain perspective, considering multi-dimensional aspects, has not been considered in previous studies as government agencies produce most of the literature. This academic research establishes the theoretical linkage towards PHB diffusion and reports the current status.

Construction research comprises quality contributions to the modern methods of construction (MMC) context in terms of their benefits and relative advantages. However, the uptake of MMC is yet deemed very low in the public sector. Knowing that public clients acquire the purchasing power and the influential status to drive industry change, understanding their low MMC uptake is necessary.

A systematic review of literature has been chosen to extract the key variables contributing to the limited adoption of MMC across the public sector, reinforced by a qualitative semi-structured interview with 12 industry leaders and public clients. This methodology enables the authors to explore works from the past decade, paving a direction for an adequate empirical investigation by reviewing and critically analysing 49 academic articles and interviewing 12 industry leaders and public clients.

The study captured and argued the characteristics that have an influence on public clients' decision, inhibiting the extraction of values associated with greater MMC deployment. A critical analysis resulted in identifying 13 characteristics under 4 main themes, providing a new argument to existing knowledge by calling on the need to better understand public clients and the influence of their own characteristics on their MMC uptake.

This paper utilises the diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory which offers constructs that help explain the influence of the characteristics of a decision-making unit. The authors’ knowledge on public construction clients is limited, and more research in this direction may help in better aggregating construction demand. Overall, arguments provided in this paper enable relative improvements in supply's business models when approaching the public market. The study is believed to be in support of the relative governmental efforts to shape effective policies that can enhance innovation uptake among public bodies.

The paper aims to understand Finnish architects' attitudes towards the use of timber as a structural material in multi-storey (over two--storeys high) residential construction.

The study was conducted through a literature survey mainly including international peer-reviewed journals and similar research projects. Furthermore, the literature survey informed the generation of the web-based survey questionnaire design to gather information on architects' perceptions, attitudes and interest in the use of wood in multi-storey (over two-storeys high) residential buildings.

The paper's findings are as follows: (1) respondents perceived the most important advantages of wood as a lightweight, local and ecological material; (2) wood construction (compared to concrete) included perceived concerns about it being more costly and needing more complex engineering and (3) respondents had a favourable overall attitude towards the use of wood particularly in low-rise residential construction, whilst their perception of tall housing, including timber ones, was mostly negative.

No studies have evaluated the use of wood in tall residential buildings and architects' perceptions in Finland.

As public–private partnerships (PPPs) have become preferred and veritable approach to deliver affordable housing, the seemingly lack of understanding of the significant factors that impact on success has become a notable setback. This study aims to delineate significant factors that can support decisions in affordable PPP public housing delivery.

Largely, a questionnaire survey was adopted to elicit insights from practitioners, policymakers and experts to develop an evaluative decision support model using an analytical hierarchy process and multi-attribute utility technique approach. Further, an expert illustration was conducted to evaluate and validate the results on the housing typologies.

The results revealed that energy efficiency and low-cost green building materials scored the highest weighting of all the criteria. Furthermore, multi-storey self-contained flats were found to be the most preferred housing typology and were significantly influenced by these factors. From the model evaluation, the scores on the factors of sustainability, affordability, cultural values and accountability were consistent across all typologies of housing whereas that of benchmarking, governance and transparency were varied.

The decision support factors captured varied dimensions of key factors that impact on affordable PPP housing that have not been considered in an integrated manner. These findings offer objective and systematic support to decision-making in affordable PPP housing delivery.

Building defects are becoming recurrent phenomena in most high-rise buildings. However, little research exists on the analysis of defects in high-rise buildings based on data from real-life projects. This study aims to develop dashboards and models for revealing the most common locations of defects, understanding associations among defects and predicting the rectification periods.

In total, 15,484 defect reports comprising qualitative and quantitative data were obtained from a company that provides consulting services for the construction industry in Victoria, Australia. Data mining methods were applied using a wide range of Python libraries including NumPy, Pandas, Natural Language Toolkit, SpaCy and Regular Expression, alongside association rule mining (ARM) and simulations.

Findings reveal that defects in multi-storey buildings often occur on lower levels, rather than on higher levels. Joinery defects were found to be the most recurrent problem on ground floors. The ARM outcomes show that the occurrence of one type of defect can be taken as an indication for the existence of other types of defects. For instance, in laundry, the chance of occurrence of plumbing and joinery defects, where paint defects are observed, is 88%. The stochastic model built for door defects showed that there is a 60% chance that defects on doors can be rectified within 60 days.

The dashboards provide original insight and novel ideas regarding the frequency of defects in various positions in multi-storey buildings. The stochastic models can provide a reliable point of reference for property managers, occupants and sub-contractors for taking measures to avoid reoccurring defects; so too, findings provide estimations of possible rectification periods for various types of defects.

Sustainability represents innovative elements in determining the profitability of real estate investments, among other factors, including the green component in real estate. Evidence from the literature has pointed out that incorporating green features into residential buildings can reduce operational costs and increase the building’s value. Although green real estate is considered the future trend of choice, it is still being determined whether prospective buyers are willing to accept the extra cost of green residential investment. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the effect of housing attributes and green certification on residential real estate prices.

The impact of the housing attribute and green certification in the residential sectors was assessed using a transaction data set comprising approximately 861 residential units sold in Selangor, Malaysia, between 2014 and 2022. Linear and quantile regression were used in this study by using SPSS software for a robust result.

The findings indicate that the market price of residential properties in Malaysia is influenced by housing attributes, transaction types and Green Building Index certification. The empirical evidence from this study suggests that green certification significantly affects the sales price of residential properties in Malaysia. The findings of this research will help investors identify measurable factors that affect the transaction prices of green-certified residential real estate. These identifications will facilitate the development of strategic plans aimed at achieving sustainable rates of return in the sustainable residential real estate market.

Specifically, this research will contribute to achieving area 4 of the 11th Malaysia Plan, which pertains to pursuing green growth for sustainability and resilience. This will be achieved by enhancing awareness among investors and homebuyers regarding the importance of green residential buildings in contributing to the environment, the economy and society.

The regression model for housing attributes and green certification on house price developed in this study could offer valuable benefits to support and advance Malaysia in realising its medium and long-term goals for green technology.

The housing policies targeting low-income households have not been effective to address the housing needs of target groups in Iran over the past four decades. According to the World Bank’s data on population living in slums (% of urban population) in Iran in 2018 was 25% which is slightly higher than the rate 23% of upper-middle-income countries. This study aims to understand what major revisions are required in the process of housing policymaking to have more effective policies.

The authors conduct one-to-one interviews with 41 housing experts and apply discourse analysis and interpretive–structural modeling to achieve the goals.

The panel of experts argue that the success of housing policies in Iran depends on the following: all academic disciplines should be included in the process of housing policymaking process; land policymaking should be modified; housing policy is a regional issue, and it should be designed and implemented differently in each province; main modifications are required in the tax and tenancy system; and new policies are required to push vacant houses into the rental market.

This study is a prescriptive study based on a general trend (four decades).

This article explores the impacts of the changing land-use on urban heat island (UHI) in an urban transformation zone in Ankara (Türkiye). Identifying a characteristic rural landscape until the 1950s, the study area experienced a drastic land-use change by razing the fertile landscape of the city and replacing it with a sealed surface. Development of the squatter houses after the 1960s and, subsequently, the implementation of a new housing morphology have introduced new sceneries, scales and surface conditions that make the study area a noteworthy case to analyze.

Regarding the drastic spatio-temporal change of the study area, this research assesses the impacts of the changing land-use on UHI based on three periods. Using 1957, 1991 and 2021 aerial imaginaries and maps, it analyzes the temperature alteration caused by the changing land-use. To do so, different surface types, green patterns and built-up areas have been modeled using Ankara climatic data and transferred to ENVI-Met to calculate the Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI) values.

The calculation has been developed over a transect covering an area of 40 m × 170 m, which includes diversity in terms of architecture, landscape and open space elements. To encourage future design strategies, the research findings deliberate into three extents that discuss the lacking climate knowledge in the ongoing urban transformation projects: impervious surface ratio and regional albedo variation, changing aspect ratio and temperature variation at the pedestrian level.

Urban transformation projects, being countrywide operations in Türkiye, need to cover climate-informed design strategies. Herein, the article underlines the critical position of design decisions in forming a climate-informed urban environment. Dwelling on a typical model of housing transformation in Türkiye, the research could trigger climate-informed urban development strategies in the country.

This study aims to examine the awareness of the inhabitants regarding energy consumption in relation to comfort in Tlemcen and analyze the paths of influence and the effects of individual objective and subjective characteristic factors. This determines the factors' level of perception of the importance of energy retrofitting.

As part of an exploratory empirical study, this paper further discusses accompanied survey data from a sample of 208 properties, through a triangulation of in-depth qualitative studies and quantitative studies developed and analyzed by SPSS software (the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences).

Analysis of the results of the survey shows that the respondents have a level of awareness on comfort linked to energy savings but they lack guidance and recourse to specialists. The conclusion is that resident awareness is crucial and beneficial and that the key socio-demographic characteristics to determine the perception factors are related to age, occupation, household size and time lived in the house.

By exploring some of the key insights from the survey, this research improves residents' perception of the importance of energy retrofitting in the residential sector, highlighting the importance of priorities. This influences public attitudes and contributes to raising awareness in order to provide useful results for developing, in future studies, motivational strategies for these inhabitants. The present research is expected to add value to existing studies academically and methodologically and provide policy guidance to policy makers and other energy efficiency (EE) practitioners in the Maghreb region and beyond.