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The meaning of Industry 4.0 has started to be outlined for the construction industry, but there is still limited knowledge on the implications for the single-family wooden house building industry. The purpose of this paper is to expand the understanding of what the fourth industrial revolution implies for the single-family wooden house industry. The paper contributes with practitioners’ view of the content and meaning of a smart single-family wooden house factory.

An exploratory multiple case study was carried out at two Swedish single-family wooden house builders, combined with a traditional literature review.

As a result of a multiple case studies, the content and meaning of a smart single-family wooden house factory was elaborated on. In total, 15 components of a smart single-family wooden house factory were identified, of which 8 corresponded to the components of Industry 4.0 as described in other sectors.

The study can be expanded to also include multi-family wooden house builders and other branches of the offsite wooden building industry.

Managers in the house-building industry who want to improve and strive for a smart single-family wooden house factory can learn from this study, get an insight of what other companies consider as important and how it relates to Industry 4.0.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is a first attempt to understand what Industry 4.0 mean and how it can be accomplished for the single-family wooden house offsite manufacturing industry.

This article examines the economic impact of a major California earthquake, by focusing on the catastrophic damage to residential real estate. It asserts that the damage, although substantial, would be small relative to the U.S. GNP. The author also asserts that the risk can be optimally allocated through reasonably priced insurance contracts and well‐functioning insurance derivative markets.

Whole building life cycle assessment (WBLCA) is a key methodology to reduce the environmental impacts in the building sector. Research studies usually face challenges in presenting comprehensive LCA results due to the complexity of assessments at the building level. There is a dearth of methods for the systematic evaluation and optimization of the WBLCA performance at the design stage. The study aims to develop a design optimization framework based on the proposed WBLCA method to evaluate and improve the environmental performance at the building level.

The WBLCA development method is proposed with detailed processes based on the EN 15978 standard. The environmental product declaration (EPD) methods were adopted to ensure the WBLCA is comprehensive and reliable. Building information modeling (BIM) was used to ensure the building materials and assembly contributions are accurate and provide dynamic material updates for the design optimization framework. Furthermore, the interactive BIM-LCA calculation processes were demonstrated for measuring the environmental impacts of design upgrades. The TOPSIS-based LCA results normalization was selected to conduct the comparisons of various building design upgrades.

The case study conducted for a residential building showed that the material embodied impacts and the operational energy use impacts are the two critical factors that contribute 60–90% of the total environmental impacts and resource uses. Concrete and wood are the main material types accounting for an average of 65% of the material embodied impacts. The air and water heating for the house are the main energy factors, as these account for over 80% of the operational energy use. Based on the original WBLCA results, two scenarios were established to improve building performance through the design optimization framework.

The LCA results show that the two upgraded building designs create an average of 5% reduction compared with the original building design and improving the thermal performance of the house with more insulation materials does not always reduce the WBLCA results. The proposed WBLCA method can be used to compare the building-level environmental performances with the similar building types. The proposed framework can be used to support building designers to effectively improve the WBLCA performance.

Automation facilitates production activities within offsite construction (OSC) projects through computer-controlled and mechanised systems that can be programmed to deliver various products in a self-regulating sequence. Despite known benefits of automation to offsite production, the level of automation adoption in New Zealand is low. This study is an effort to understand the current status of automation within the New Zealand construction industry and to identify the barriers and enablers to its uptake.

This study utilises the qualitative approach of semi-structured interviews (open-ended questions). Using a referral sampling strategy (snowballing), fifteen New Zealand industry experts were interviewed, and the data collected were analysed using qualitative content analysis.

The study found that there is a weak business case for full automation. Four main categories of barriers to the uptake of automated OSC were identified, including requirement of high capital cost, lack of education about automation and OSC and non-existence of regulations to support OSC. It was noted that financial supports to the OSC sub-sector in form of subsidies, tax waivers, and enhanced leasing model could enhance the uptake of automation. Further to this more awareness about OSC's automation and regulations suitable for OSC could enhance the confidence of business owners to invest in this area.

Originality of this paper stems from the fact that, not much attention has been paid to investigating the uptake of automation for OSC sub-sector of construction industry in New Zealand context.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the influence of regulations, perceptions, and promotions on the emergence of an innovation system for wood‐framed multi‐storey buildings in Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom (UK).

This descriptive paper made a qualitative analysis of information collected mainly from secondary sources such as reports, newspapers, journal publications, conference proceedings and general internet search.

Results showed that the conditions for market growth of multi‐storey construction seemed to be the most favourable in Sweden followed by the UK and Germany. The regulations are stringent in Germany, followed by the UK and Sweden. In all countries, the construction professionals seemed to have negative perceptions regarding engineering properties of wood. Similar negative perceptions exist among the general public in Germany and the UK, but not in Sweden. The wood construction promotional activities in Germany and the UK are directed to all types of houses, while in Sweden multi‐storey buildings are targeted.

An important implication of this paper was that it highlighted the usefulness of cross‐country surveys at the European level, in order to better understand observed differences in the adoption of innovative systems. However, there might be shortcomings in the comparability of the information across the countries analysed because it was difficult to make an objective assessment of the claims made in some of the information sources. Also, there was varying and limited information about the survey methodologies used in some of the reviewed studies.

The study showed that market intervention is needed to promote radical or really new innovations such as wood construction. The variations in the promotional measures undertaken partly explained the variations in growth of wood construction system in the three countries.

The paper applied a theoretical framework on technology transition to analyse emergence of wood construction system in Germany, Sweden and the UK. The framework can be applied to analyse the development of wood construction system in other countries also.

The purpose of this paper is to gain knowledge on the renovation status for Norwegian dwellings that can be used to design attractive energy efficiency measures. Norwegian dwellings are exposed to a windy, cold and moist climate and the technical condition of existing dwellings depend on the owners priorities regarding maintenance and renovation. The paper focuses on the renovation status and technical condition of privately owned detached houses built in Norway in the 1980s constituting 10 per cent of the total Norwegian dwelling stock. These houses are high-energy spenders and are at a stage in their lifetime where major renovation such as new windows and ventilation system is expected.

The status for redecoration, maintenance and renovation as well as the technical condition of 91 dwellings are mapped and analysed.

An analysis of the empirical data identified four categories of houses when considering home upgrades and technical condition: the as built, the aesthetic, the well kept and the do it yourselves houses. There is no correlation between the observed technical condition and the home upgrade level for the houses in the study. Significant resources may have been used for redecoration and unskilled renovation while not dealing with the need for maintenance and repair.

The knowledge on homeowner categories can be used to tailor policy instruments to accelerate energy efficiency rates for privately owned dwellings.

There are no previous studies on Norwegian private homeowners and the technical condition of their homes.

This paper aims to report the results of a study conducted to determine whether investors systematically pay less for single‐family houses than do buyer/residents.

Data from 3,443 single‐family house transactions were subjected to regression analysis.

Investors in this study paid 13.24 percent less, on average, than buyers who reside in the property.

The study was limited to transactions occurring during a single year in one American city. Future research could test whether the results apply in other locations. The study did not consider the influence of seller‐type on transaction price. Future studies could incorporate this facet of the transaction. The results have implications for property tax authorities and fee appraisers because the presence of investors in a housing market may introduce a two‐tiered transaction set which could distort the assessment process and/or the indicated value calculated by fee appraisers using the comparable sales approach.

This paper provides useful information on the impact of buyer‐type on house price.

This study aims to introduce the results of a research carried out to develop a prototype of a highly energy-efficient modular detached house, called CASA+ CASA means HOUSE in spanish, adapted to the climatic features of central-southern Chile. The project enables a sustainable alternative to facilitate the reconstruction of the residential areas after the impact of the 2010 earthquake.

The methodology is based on an “integrated design process” of a case study that proposes a constructive response that quantitatively and qualitatively improves the initial data of traditional dwellings. The characteristics of the new system have been simulated with specific software to validate the final decisions, considering the cost–benefit ratio.

Simulation tools were used to assess and improve the system’s energy performance with respect to present options and to analyse its economic and construction viability. We obtained several economically competitive housing prototypes that substantially reduced energy consumption and the CO₂ footprint by between 20% and 80%.

The prototype has not been developed, as we are waiting for funding, but all its energy features have been simulated.

Furthermore, this experience also identified similar modifications made to the design of the houses, which revealed general possibilities for improving energy performance.

The origin of this research is a public call for international researchers to improve the quality of the new homes to be built in Chile after the strong earthquake of 2010. The result of the research has been put at the direct service of Chilean society and in other international projects for the construction of low-energy social housing.

These are the result of a long research aimed at establishing a new architectural model that, in addition to improving the architectural quality of the product, obtains significant improvements in energy consumption and CO₂ emissions. The most particular aspect is the practical vocation and its implementation with real construction with the support of construction companies.

The purpose of this study is to describe life cycle cost (LCC) and life cycle assessment (LCA) evaluation for single story building house in Malaysia. Two objective functions, namely, LCA and LCC, were evaluated for each design and a total of 20 alternatives were analyzed. Two wall schemes that have been adopted from two different recent studies toward mitigation of climate change require clarification in both life cycle objectives.

For this strategic life cycle assessment, Simapro 8.3 tool has been chosen over a 50-year life span. LCC analysis was also used to determine not only the most energy-efficient strategy, but also the most economically feasible one. A present value (PV)-based economic analysis takes LCC into account.

The results will appear in present value and LC carbon footprint saving, both individually and in combination with each other. Result of life cycle management shows that timber wall−wooden post and beam covered by steel stud (W5) and wood truss with concrete roof tiles (R1) released less carbon emission to atmosphere and have lower life cycle cost over their life span. W5R1 releases 35 per cent less CO₂ emission than the second best choice and costs 25 per cent less.

The indicator assessed was global warming, and as the focus was on GHG emissions, the focus of this study was mainly in the context of Malaysian construction, although the principles apply universally. The result would support the adoption of sustainable building for building sector.