Advanced construction research

Advancement in the construction industry is critical in achieving smart cities and constructing a future built environment. Despite previous and current attempts, advanced technologies are not widely implemented due to the dynamic nature of activities on construction sites.

The advanced construction research cluster engages with freeform, creative, and imaginative concepts while reducing costs on the human, ecological, energy, time and financial aspects of construction.

This is a broad and young area, with options to create impact in the domain of the built environment by bringing innovative products to the market. On the other hand, engaging current knowledge such as visualisation technologies, artificial intelligence/human co-creation, additive manufacturing, and advanced end-user devices into a coherent solution for construction industry issues enables more efficient design, operation and maintenance.

Prior successful funding included:

  • 2020 Faculty of Design and Creative Technologies Contestable Research Fund. $10,000 for the project “Smart Health and Safety Compliance Management for Construction Enterprises”
  • School of Future Environments Summer Scholarship. $10,000 for the project “System Design for a Proof of Concept in Engaging Additive Manufacturing in Advanced Construction” 2020-2021
    Faculty of Design and Creative Technologies Contestable Research Fund. $10,000 for the project "Initiating a web-based 3D urban geotechnical mapping of New Zealand" 2020-2021
  • GNS Science, Te Pū Ao, new groundwater SSIF programme (project 3, databases) "Integrating the 3D data store within the EBOF data access protocols - Groundwater SSIF" 2019-2020. $61,000
  • Ala’ Isam Aladwan, PhD. Productivity improvement in the New Zealand construction industry. Supervisors: Dr Jeff Seadon and Dr Fei Ying.
  • Rohit Gade, PhD. Minimising Construction and Demolition Waste in Residential Building Projects to advocate Sustainable Construction. Supervisors: Dr Jeff Seadon and Dr Mani Poshdar.
  • Shahzaib Abbas Qumber, PhD. Multi-hybrid modelling and optimisation of construction systems. Supervisor: Dr Okechukwu Nwadigo.
  • Victor Momo, PhD. Development of Smart Helmet System as a Protective Wearable Equipment to Improve Health and Safety on Construction Site. Supervisors: Dr Funmi Rotimi and Dr Ali Ghaffarian Hoseini.
  • John Deely, Master of Construction Management. Comparative Analysis of Precast Concrete Panels in Medium Density Residential Construction in NZ. Supervisor: Dr Funmi Rotimi.
  • Firas Majthoub Almughrabi, Master of Construction Management. The Effect of Skill Shortage in the Prefabrication Residential Construction Supply Chain. Supervisor: Dr Funmi Rotimi.
  • Sara Bayandor, PhD. Designing Thermo-Active Pile Foundation to Harvest Sustainable Shallow Geothermal Energy. Supervisor: Dr Roo Kalatehjari.
  • Mehrdad Karimi Petanlar, PhD. Comparison between helical and pipe piles seismic response in soils prone to liquefaction. Supervisor: Dr Roo Kalatehjari.
  • Ademola Bolarinwa, PhD. Evaluation of Clay Effects on Mitigation of Earthquake‐Induced Soil Liquefaction. Supervisors: Dr Roo Kalatehjari and Dr Mani Poshdar.
  • Mohammad Esmaeil, Master of Construction Management. Automation in Construction Health and Safety Monitoring: Identifying Technology Awareness, Preconception and Acceptance. Supervisor: Dr Nariman Ghodrati.
  • Hassan Al-Kufashy, Master of Construction Management. Automation in the Construction Industry projects to optimize safety performance and productivity in New Zealand. Supervisor: Dr Nariman Ghodrati.
  • Victor, M., Ayeni, D. A., Ali, G., & Rotimi, F. (2020). Human response to greeneries in public spaces. In ANZAScA 2020: The 54th International Conference of the Architectural Science Association.
  • Abdullahi, U., Bustani, S. A., Rotimi, F. E., & Hassan, A. (2019). Assessing quality management practice in Nigerian construction industry. Journal of Construction Business and Management, 3(2), 17-25. doi:10.15641/jcbm.3.2.569.
  • Rotimi, J., Aransanmi, C., Rotimi, F., Ramanayaka, C. & Komolafe, A. (2017). Antecedents of BIM Training Effectiveness amongst AEC Firms in New Zealand. International Conference on Innovative Production and Construction IPC. Curtin, Australia. 30 Nov - 1 Dec.
  • Rotimi, J.O.B., Zaeri, F., Rotimi, F.E. & Owolabi, J. D. (2016). The effectiveness of the Last Planner System in New Zealand construction industry: Towards an empirical justification. The CIB World Building Congress 2016. Tampere, Finland. 30 May – 3 June.
  • Ghodrati, N., Wing Yiu, T., Wilkinson, S., & Shahbazpour, M. (2018). Role of Management Strategies in Improving Labor Productivity in General Construction Projects in New Zealand: Managerial Perspective. Journal of Management in Engineering, 34(6). doi:10.1061/(ASCE)ME.1943-5479.0000641
  • Ghodrati, N., Yiu, T. W., & Wilkinson, S. (2018). Unintended consequences of management strategies for improving labor productivity in construction industry. Journal of Safety Research, 67(December), 107-116. doi:10.1016/j.jsr.2018.09.001
  • Ghodrati, N., Yiu, T. W., Wilkinson, S., & Shahbazpour, M. (2018). A new approach to predict safety outcomes in the construction industry. Safety Science, 109. doi:10.1016/j.ssci.2018.05.016
  • Wilkinson, S., Tookey, J., Potangaroa, R., MacGregor, C., Milicich, M., Ghodrati, N., Adafin, J., Stocchero, A. & Bayne, K. (2017). Transforming the building industry: State of Nation knowledge report. Working Paper for Building Better Homes, Towns and Cities, Strategic Area 6: Transforming the Building Industry, pgs 106. Wellington: BBHTC/Urban Research Network
  • Ghodrati, N., Yiu, T. W., Wilkinson, S. (2015). High-reliability organization: A new concept to improve the construction industry performance and health and safety, COBRA 2015-RICS, 8-10 July 2015, Sydney, Australia.
  • Magdics, M., White, D., & Marks, S. (2018). Extending a Virtual Reality Nasal Cavity Education Tool with Volume Rendering. 2018 IEEE International Conference on Teaching, Assessment, and Learning for Engineering (TALE), 811–814. https://doi.org/10.1109/TALE.2018.8615248
  • Marks, S. (2016). Immersive visualisation of 3-dimensional spiking neural networks. Evolving Systems, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12530-016-9170-8
  • Marks, S., Estevez, J. E., & Connor, A. M. (2014). Towards the Holodeck: Fully Immersive Virtual Reality Visualisation of Scientific and Engineering Data. 29th International Conference on Image and Vision Computing New Zealand (IVCNZ) 2014, 42–47. https://doi.org/10.1145/2683405.2683424
  • Marks, S., White, D., & Magdics, M. (2018). Evaluation of a Virtual Reality Nasal Cavity Education Tool. 2018 IEEE International Conference on Teaching, Assessment, and Learning for Engineering (TALE), 193–198. https://doi.org/10.1109/TALE.2018.8615344
  • Marks, S., White, D., & Singh, M. (2017, November). Getting up your nose: A virtual reality education tool for nasal cavity anatomy. SIGGRAPH Asia 2017 Symposium on Education Proceedings. https://doi.org/10.1145/3134368.3139218
  • Hajihassani, M., Kalatehjari, R., Marto, A., Mohamad, H., & Khosrotash, M. (2020). 3D prediction of tunneling-induced ground movements based on a hybrid ANN and empirical methods. Engineering with Computers, 36(1), 251-269.
  • Ghaffarianhoseini, A., Kalatehjari, R., Poshdar, M., Ghaffarianhoseini, A.H., Tookey, J. (2018). Smart technology. BRANZ Build Magazine, (165)
  • Ghaffarianhoseini, A., Kalatehjari, R., Poshdar, M., Ghaffarianhoseini, A.H., Tookey, J. (2019). Planning for the smarter cities. BRANZ Build Magazine, (170)
  • Huang, T. W., Liou, T. S., & Kalatehjari, R. (2017, April). A parallel program for numerical simulation of discrete fracture network and groundwater flow. In EGU General Assembly Conference Abstracts (p. 2698).
  • Kalatehjari, R., & Liou, T. S. (2016, December). A new upscaling algorithm using boundary element method solution for steady-state flow field in low-permeability fractured rock. In AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts (Vol. 2016, pp. H13H-1495).
  • Kalatehjari, R., & Liou, T-S. (2016). A Matlab code for upscaling low-permeability fractured granitic rock. 2016 Asia Oceania Geosciences Society 13th Annual Meeting
  • Kalatehjari, R., Hajihassani, M., Marto, A., Khosrotash, M., Karimi Shahrbabaki, M. (2013 Nov). Tunneling-Induced Ground Movements Prediction through Artificial Neural Networks. 10th Iranian Tunneling Conference
  • Development of artificial intelligence (AI) based system to provide real-time data for construction safety
  • Take-up the decision-support innovations in the construction industry
  • Fusion of 3D data visualisation and virtual/mixed/augmented reality technology into immersive, interactive multi-user and multi-device visualisations
  • Multi-hybrid modelling to integrate construction system diverse characteristics both in the static and stochastic domain
  • Mitigating negative impacts of construction activities on the environment
  • Employing new technologies to advance on-site logistics

We aim to collectively contribute towards the improvement of the construction industry by investigating the current state of this industry and investing in the innovative capacity of researchers to enhance building performance, sustainable development, and associated productivity in co-development with all the stakeholders.

Researchers involved

Contact us

Dr Roo Kalatehjari
r.kalatehjari@aut.ac.nz

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