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The purpose of this paper is to discuss the advantages and limitations of the implementation of a community-based method in post-disaster housing reconstruction.

The research was based on multiple case studies in the implementation of a community-based post-disaster housing reconstruction project (CPHRP) in Indonesia. Data were gathered by conducting semi-structured interviews and a questionnaire survey.

The research reveals 22 advantages of a CPHRP. Four advantages can be categorised as highly significant. They are create sense of ownership, fit to local culture/customs/wisdom, build beneficiaries’ confidence and minimize corruption. There are some advantages that cannot be delivered if the housing reconstruction is conducted using a contractor-based approach. It was also found that psychological advantages are more dominant than the physical advantages. Despite its numerous advantages, CPHRP has limitations. First, it requires a long pre-construction process and, second, there is a limitation with regard to the capacity of implementer and there are limitations within the community itself.

This paper is very specific because it attempts to discover the advantages and limitations of a CPHRP.

There is a need to proactively address strategic weaknesses in protecting the built environment from a range of hazards. This paper seeks to focus on the mitigation for flood hazards in the UK; particularly in understanding the extent of the problem, collating key guidance and legislation related to flood hazard mitigation, identifying who the key construction decision makers are and the most opportune stages of the Design‐Construction‐Operation Process when they need to make their key decisions.

A pluralistic research design was adopted for the study, which included a UK‐wide questionnaire survey and a set of semi‐structured interviews involving a range of professionals from construction, planning, insurance, emergency management and local/national government agencies was undertaken.

Despite the publication of a range of guidance on flood hazard mitigation in the UK there is still insufficient evidence that key construction stakeholders are playing an active role in mitigating flood risk. The pre‐construction phase of a building's life cycle is identified as is the most critical stage when key stakeholders need to adopt flood hazard mitigation strategies. The socio‐institutional constraints to the proactive attainment of built‐in resilience are highlighted as are recommendations as to how these constraints can be addressed.

The paper reports on the provisional findings of an ongoing project but these findings nonetheless provide essential foundations for the latter development of the PRE‐EMPT toolkit and also raise some important considerations about flood resilience in the UK.

The findings presented reveal how stakeholders should be better involved, and what issues they need to address, regarding the integration of built‐in resilience into construction decision making.

Contractor selection is critical in green buildings (GBs) since the preferred contractor has the responsibility to achieve construction sustainability as well as relationship sustainability. The developer satisfaction reflecting requirements can boost the cooperative relationship among stakeholders and act as an evaluation scale for the success of GB projects, which needs to be emphasized in the selection process but little involved in the existing research. This study explores improving GB contractor (GBC) selection by integrating developer satisfaction into selection procedures.

A systematic framework of GBC selection including twenty-five criteria from literature review and experts survey is firstly constructed. Both tactical and strategic criteria are further classified into Kano categories (must-be, one-dimensional, and attractive categories) using the fuzzy Kano model (FKM), and weighted by the developer satisfaction index. The model proposed by this study combining FKM and TOPSIS divides the selection process into the filtration phase and selection phase by Kano categories. The proposed model is finally verified through performance comparison among multiple methods in a case.

Selection criteria are measured linearly and nonlinearly, showing criteria having nonlinear satisfaction change accounts for two-thirds of all. Criteria at tactical level tend to be must-be or one-dimensional categories for the developer, and most strategic criteria are classed as the attractive category, indicating that adding strategic criteria is necessary for long-term cooperation. The proposed model, using developer satisfaction to improve the selection process, ensures the selected GBC to be the most satisfactory with requirements of the developer and makes the performance of GBCs easily distinguishable.

This study contributes to the existing body of knowledge for promoting relationship sustainability by supplementing an integrated model with emphasis on developer satisfaction in GBC selection, so as to establish a good initial foundation due to the match between performances of GBCs and needs of developers. It not only helps maximize developer satisfaction in GBC selection by applying satisfaction to pre-construction management, but also instructs GBCs to prioritize performance improvements. The framework is also conducive for developers to classify selection criteria and select other participants (like green suppliers) from the satisfaction perspective in GBs.

What deliverables did Stafford Beer envision when he developed his “science of effective organisation”? This paper answers this question as: the organisations that use the distinctions of Beer's viable system model. Such organisations are part of daily life, but develop to become knowledge by continuously striving to identify experiences that falsify their existence. They will be irreducible in the sense that any acceptable model of the organisation will be the organisation itself. The notion of knowledge involved is made explicit in the paper as a tribute to Stafford Beer's pioneering work. It allowed Stafford Beer to introduce and develop insights that began to be developed by others only much later.

Professions involved with the construction industry need to become more aware of disaster risk management (DRM) activities if lessons are to be learned from the past and a resilient built environment attained in the future. This study aims to focus on identifying which construction‐associated stakeholders should be involved with DRM initiatives in the UK, and when these stakeholders should be involved. This research is thereby unique and a key step in the longer‐term aim of identifying how stakeholders should be involved and what issues they need to address regarding the integration of DRM into construction decision making.

This paper presents the findings of a UK‐wide questionnaire survey, semi‐structured interviews and a validation exercise involving a range of professionals from construction, planning, insurance, emergency management and local/national government agencies.

This research identifies the key construction stakeholders that should be responsible for ensuring that resilience issues become integrated and ensuring the key stages of the design‐construction‐operation process where their inputs are required.

The finding presented are an important and logical step in the longer term aim of identifying how stakeholders should be better involved and what issues they need to address regarding the integration of DRM into construction decision making.

The paper aims to investigate the effectiveness of the EIA adopted by the construction industry during the construction of the BTC Oil Pipeline Project in Azerbaijan from 2003‐2005. The focus of the study is to examine the performance of the Biodiversity conservation measures on the Territory of Gobustan Area. The area is considered as bad land and environmentally sensitive. The environmental impacts and the corresponding mitigation measures are to be highlighted.

The paper uses a pre‐entry survey as a bench mark against which mitigation measures, for restoring biodiversity to project pre‐construction conditions. The Pre‐entry survey identifies the biodiversity inventory of the study area. The implementation of mitigation measures with respect to biodiversity is used to examine the extent of compliance with environmental requirements. The extent of compliance is based on field observations, specialist interviews and reviewing reports published by independent bodies.

The paper finds that the reasons behind compliance or non‐compliance with environmental requirements as outlined in the Environmental Impact Statement are explored. In other words, the factors that shape the EIA follow‐up process are highlighted.

The paper shows that the establishment of an integrated environmental monitoring system is central to the success of the EIA follow‐up. Environmental best practices can be adopted successfully despite the fact that the national environmental system is not yet well established.

The studied case in the paper, which is based on observation and thorough analysis of the practical work, can serve as an example for emerging environmental governance system.

The New Zealand construction sector is similar to many other countries with a few large companies and many small and micro enterprises. It seeks to achieve a 20 per cent increase in productivity by 2020 which requires a step change in how the sector operates and buy-in from key stakeholders. The purpose of this paper is to provide a set of levers to improve productivity in the construction sector and develop an implementation schedule.

This paper adopts a systems approach taking account of the nature of the building sector and the whole life cycle of a building from design to end-of-life. Information gained from the post-construction phases informs the pre-construction and construction phases.

Productivity is an integrated model whereby increases in process efficiency are executed with quality materials and workmanship, in a manner that is affordable for both the client and contractor and sustainable over time. A series of interviews and workshops produced 10 nodal points and 19 crucial levers which were prioritised for implementation. Additionally, indicators were developed to monitor progress over time and provide information for further corrective action to the system.

The effect of using a few targeted levers in unison provided significantly more gains than individual applications. Modelling real world responses to process stimuli outlined in this paper is extremely valuable. This provided the opportunity for key construction stakeholders to estimate the effects of decision making during a project.

Previous studies identified factors affecting productivity. Piecemeal approaches to improve productivity have resulted in systemic failure. A whole of life approach provides valuable insights to improve productivity in the construction and pre-construction phases which have a flow-on effect through the life cycle. Importantly, this research proposes drivers, an implementation scheme and indicators that provide leverage on nodal points to improve productivity.

Disputes are now considered endemic in the construction industry. They often arise from the poor resolution of claims in the course of construction projects. Efforts have been geared towards reducing the incidence of claims. These efforts are of two kinds: those that seek answers from basic principles and legal issues at the pre‐construction phase and those that attempt to solve the problems through claims management procedures at the construction phase. This paper reviews the developments in claims management and highlights the deficiencies in current claims management approaches. It focuses on the need for improvement of the efficiency of claims negotiation and suggests the use of multiagent systems as an approach to achieve it. The potential benefits of the suggested approach are discussed in the concluding section of the paper.

The purpose of this paper is to set new trends of integrated Building Information Modelling (BIM) for the construction industry. BIM has been accepted by construction to some extent as an innovative approach/technology to improve project performance in the aspects of productivity, efficiency and safety. However, maximisation BIM requires strategic research direction to drive this technology across the full spectrum of the project life cycle.

This paper identifies the new trends for adopting BIM in the aspect of integration within Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) sectors.

Research findings identify three stages where project performance can be improved by using BIM: pre-construction phase, construction phase and the maintenance/operation phase.

BIM must evolve to be fully integrated with other technologies, thereby contributing to project performance in various stages of project life cycle.

Building information modelling (BIM) has received wide coverage within the research, academic and industry communities over the last decade. Yet, its degree of integration with various industry standards in the architecture, engineering and construction sector varies extensively. An exploratory research approach explores the interoperability between the construction design and management (CDM) regulations and BIM. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

The research design comprised: a methodical “state-of-the-art” review of extant literature – exploring some 19 variables emerging from the literature review; detailed content analyses of the current CDM regime (CDM 2015); and conducting a “test” to map and determine the degree of interoperability between BIM and CDM. The study develops several meta-matrices and a framework for BIM and CDM interoperability.

New insight reveals that BIM provides a systematic approach for the discharge of CDM obligations. The framework developed is easily transferable into BIM common data environments (CDEs) and offers an expeditious discharge of CDM obligations.

Some features of the developed BIM/CDM interoperability framework invite further tests to predicate the degree of discharge of CDM obligations. Duties related to provision of pre-construction information invite further research.

Little research provides insight into the interoperability of BIM and the CDM regulations. Therefore, this study contributes to the knowledge relating to the degree of interoperability of BIM in construction systems, processes and standards.