School of Future Environments - Huri te Ao

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https://hdl.handle.net/10292/13907
AUT is home to a number of renowned research institutes in architecture and creative technologies. The School of Future Environments - Huri te Ao strong industry partnerships and the unique combination of architecture and creative technologies within one school stimulates interdisciplinary research beyond traditional boundaries.

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    Critical State Characterization of New Zealand East Coast Sand for Numerical Modeling
    (Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2023-08-30) Bolarinwa, Ademola; Kalatehjari, Roohollah; Rashid, Ahmad Safuan A
    AbstractThis paper outlines the findings of a laboratory-based and numerical study to investigate the undrained flow failure behavior of East Coast Sand (ECS). ECS is a commonly encountered coastal deposit from the upper North Island of New Zealand. The study focused on establishing the undrained strength characteristics of ECS under static, triaxial compressive loading conditions, and at confining pressures in the range of typical engineering interest and for a range of soil densities considered in loosely deposited sands. The research objectives of establishing the basic soil properties and the intrinsic advanced geomechanical properties specific to ECS from Auckland were achieved through laboratory experiments and matching numerical simulations with an advanced critical-state compatible soil constitutive model (Norsand). The current work examined five different aspects of the ECS undrained behavior under static loads. It was shown that loosely deposited ECS within mean effective stresses ranging between 50 and 200 kPa was highly susceptible to expensive flow failures of structures built on or with them. The obtained approximate peak undrained shear strengths before failure and critical states were 29 kPa, 84 kPa, 130 kPa, and 200 kPa for test confining stresses of 50 kPa, 100 kPa, 200 kPa, and 300 kPa, respectively. Similarly, the corresponding excess pore water pressures were 48 kPa, 98 kPa, 200 kPa, and 240 kPa, respectively. The above results proved that the soil’s effective and confining stress are key determinants of the soil’s undrained shear strength characteristics which was consistent with the existing literature.
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    Digital Twins in the Construction Industry: A Comprehensive Review of Current Implementations, Enabling Technologies, and Future Directions
    (MDPI AG, 2023-07-12) Omrany, Hossein; Al-Obaidi, Karam M; Husain, Amreen; Ghaffarianhoseini, Amirhosein
    This paper presents a comprehensive understanding of current digital twin (DT) implementations in the construction industry, along with providing an overview of technologies enabling the operation of DTs in the industry. To this end, 145 publications were identified using a systematic literature review. The results revealed eight key areas of DT implementation including (i) virtual design, (ii) project planning and management, (iii) asset management and maintenance, (iv) safety management, (v) energy efficiency and sustainability, (vi) quality control and management, (vii) supply chain management and logistics, and (viii) structural health monitoring. The findings demonstrate that DT technology has the capacity to revolutionise the construction industry across these areas, enabling optimised designs, improved collaboration, real-time monitoring, predictive maintenance, enhanced safety practices, energy performance optimisation, quality inspections, efficient supply chain management, and proactive maintenance. This study also identified several challenges that hinder the widespread implementation of DT in construction, including (i) data integration and interoperability, (ii) data accuracy and completeness, (iii) scalability and complexity, (iv) privacy and security, and (v) standards and governance. To address these challenges, this paper recommends prioritising standardised data formats, protocols, and APIs for seamless collaboration, exploring semantic data modelling and ontologies for data integration, implementing validation processes and robust data governance for accuracy and completeness, harnessing high-performance computing and advanced modelling techniques for scalability and complexity, establishing comprehensive data protection and access controls for privacy and security, and developing widely accepted standards and governance frameworks with industry-wide collaboration. By addressing these challenges, the construction industry can unlock the full potential of DT technology, thus enhancing safety, reliability, and efficiency in construction projects.
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    Future of Our Pasts: Engaging Cultural Heritage in Climate Action
    (International Council on Monuments and Sites - ICOMOS, 2019-07-02) Brabec, EA; Burke, S; Cox, P; Vallis, S; ICOMOS Climate Change and Heritage Working Group
    Cultural heritage offers immense and virtually untapped potential to drive climate action and support ethical and equitable transitions by communities towards low carbon, climate resilient development pathways. Realizing that potential, however, requires both better recognition of the cultural dimensions of climate change and adjusting the aims and methodologies of heritage practice. Achieving the Paris Agreement’s ambition of limiting global warming to 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels would require “rapid and far-reaching” transitions in land, energy, industry, buildings, transport, and cities, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has said. Better addressing the ways in which cultural heritage is both impacted by climate change and a source of resilience for communities would increase the ambition for --- and effectiveness of --transformative change. The report highlights a number of ways in which the core considerations of cultural heritage intersect with the objectives of the Paris Agreement, including heightening ambition to address climate change, mitigating greenhouse gases, enhancing adaptive capacity, and planning for loss and damage. At the same time, climate change is already impacting communities and heritage globally, and these trends are rapidly worsening. The report provides a framework for systematically cataloguing the impacts of climate change drivers on six main categories of cultural heritage, in order to aid in evaluating and managing both climate risks to cultural heritage and the positive role it can play as a source of resilience. Given the nature and scale of climate impacts, the report concludes that how we conceive of heritage and how we manage it will require updating. New, multi-disciplinary approaches will be required in areas such as heritage documentation, disaster risk reduction, vulnerability assessment, conservation, education and training as well as in the ways heritage sites are presented to visitors.
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    System-Wide Construction Waste and Their Connectivity to Construction Phases, Impacting 5M Factors and Effects: A Systematic Review
    (Emerald, 2023-07-18) Purushothaman, Mahesh Babu; Seadon, Jeff
    Abstract Purpose This review paper, using a systematic literature review (SLR) approach, aims to unravel the various system-wide waste in the construction industry and highlight the connectivity to construction phases, namely men, materials, machines, methods and measurement (5M) and impacting factors. Design/methodology/approach This study used an SLR approach and examined articles published since the 2000s to explore the connectivity of system-wide waste to construction phases, 5M and impacting factors. The results are given in table forms and a causal loop diagram. Findings Results show that the construction and demolition (CD) waste research carried out from various perspectives is standalone. The review identified ten types of system-wide waste with strong interlinks in the construction industry. The finding highlights connectivity between wastes other than material, labour and time and the wastes' impacting factors. Further, the review results highlighted the solid connectivity for construction phases, 5M, and impacting factors such as productivity (P), delay (D), accidents (A), resource utilisation (R) and cost(C). Research limitations/implications SLR methodology limitations include not keeping in phase with the most updated field knowledge. This limitation is offset by choosing the range for literature review within the last two decades. This literature review may not have captured all published articles because the restriction of database access and search was based only on English. Also, fruitful articles hiding in less popular journals may not be included in the well-known database that was searched. Researcher bias of the authors and other researchers that authored the articles referred to is a limitation. These limitations are acknowledged. Practical implications This article unravels the construction system-wide waste and the waste's interlinks, which would aid industry understanding and focus on eliminating the waste. The article highlights the connectivity of system-wide wastes to 5M, which would help better understand the causes of the waste. Further, the paper discusses the connectivity of system-wide waste, 5M and P, D, A, R and C that would aid the organisation's overall performance. The practical and theoretical implications include a better understanding of waste types to help capture better data for waste reduction and productivity improvement. The operating managers could use the tracking of wastes to compare estimated and actual resources at every process stage. This article on system-wide waste, 5M and P, D, A, R and C, relationships and their effects can theorize that the construction industry is more likely to identify clear root causes of waste now than previously. The theoretical implications include enhanced understanding for academics on connectivity between waste, 5M and P, D, A, R and C that the academics can use and expand to provide new insights to existing knowledge. Originality/value For the first time, this article categorised and highlighted the ten types of waste in construction industries and the industries' connectivity to construction phases, 5M and impacting factors.
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    The Perceptions of Digital Technology at a New Zealand Tertiary Institution
    (Tuwhera, AUT University, 2022-01-26) Singh, Umang
    The way educational institutions view certain technology has changed dramatically over the years, especially with the world lockdown in 2020. Understanding how digital technology is seen in an educational institution is the path to finding out how to improve and enhance the learning experience for students. A study by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) showed “digitalisation has been one of the main drivers of innovation in educational practices in the classroom in the past decade.” (Vlies, 2020) The study examined how different members of a New Zealand tertiary education institution perceive digital technology in their respective areas of study. It examined how technology is viewed by students from differing degrees and levels, as well as how these views differ within the undergraduate and postgraduate levels of study. The perception of educators was also examined to see how different departments view the tools they use in their respective programmes and how it differs from both past and present students. The methodology behind the research was using a mixed-method research approach to gain both qualitative and quantitative data. This method would allow for the Sequential Explanatory Strategy (Terrell, 2012) to interpret the study. The strategy is done via the collection and analysis of quantitative data followed by the collection and analysis of qualitative data. The quantitative data collection used an online survey to collect a large, population of anonymous participants. The online survey was conducted using the Qualtrics software and was administered amongst the population of the university. A particular focus was put on the undergraduate population, being the largest group of students, given their reliance on distance learning as a result of the lockdowns in New Zealand in 2020/21. The survey featured a multitude of questions to collect a mix of quantitative and qualitative data. The findings from the initial survey highlighted departments at the institution that have a stronger positive outlook towards using a higher amount digital technology in their curriculum. There was a subgroup that still preferred a more practical, face-to-face approach. In response to a question regarding whether digital technology adoption may be lagging in certain programmes/disciplines, the majority of participants gave the unknown response with the second-highest group saying it was likely. The main reason participants gave for the lag of adoption of digital technology was the underfunding of programmes, with some participants further suggesting a possible correlation between underfunding, understaffing and inadequate training. The latter coheres with the OECD study, with training being one of two key aspects of education policies: “First, teachers need sufficient training to deploy and teach about digital technologies. Second, countries need a standard for digital skills and literacy for students.” (Vlies, 2020) Ongoing follow-up interviews are currently being conducted to supplement the data from the online survey results. This study will be of interest to curriculum developers, decision-makers, policymakers, future students, educators, technologists, and other educational institution staff.
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