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With the advancement of human society, more construction and building materials are required to produce sustainable construction. The advancement of polymer materials and their use in building construction has been improved. Compared to inorganic materials, polymer materials offer numerous superior qualities and may also be modified to increase their usefulness. Additionally, although bio-polymeric materials have effectively supplanted many conventional materials in various relevant disciplines, their applications in construction, including building façades and so on, have been quite limited up to now. Nowadays, most architects and engineers find it challenging to choose materials due to the proliferation of new materials and the market availability of various manufacturing techniques. This emphasizes the necessity of adopting a unique scientific strategy for the materials selection process to assist in picking the most suitable materials for the necessary civil application rather than following an obsolete traditional selection path that depends mostly on prior subjective personal experiences. This review article has identified critical concerns, inspired more study, and provided crucial insights into the prospective field of synthetic and natural construction and building polymeric materials towards sustainable construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study was carried out to rank and prioritize the aspects that have been shown to have an impact on the improvement of construction project management (CPM) performance based on value engineering. This analysis was carried out with the Iranian construction industry's current situation in mind. The respondents and the Delphi panel were chosen from among Iranian managers and project management professionals with a focus on building projects. These professionals had more than 20 years of experience working on international projects, and in addition to their expertise in project management, they also understood the principles of earned value analysis and value engineering. Thus, the components extracted from the literature review were used as the basis for designing a structured interview based on 39 important effective components previously determined as identified factors. The questionnaires were distributed among the experts, and the returned questionnaires were analysed using the SWARA technique to rank the weight and importance of the factors. Using the SWARA method, the opinions of the expert panel members consisting of 20 engineers and a semi-structured questionnaire was used to gather expertise in project management and managers, with a focus on Iranian CPM. As shown by the results, stakeholder management, time value of money, and worth, allocated the first to the third rank to themselves with respective weights of 0.104, 0.103, and 0.087. The sub-criteria of cost objective, function objective, and value objective were in the 37th to 39th ranks with respective weights of 0.00050, 0.00033, and 0.00021. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building information modeling (BIM) is a disruptive information technology tool in the construction sector. Although this technology had a significant impact on the manufacturing industries, it, like any other technology, encountered several challenges when applied to the construction sector. Conversely, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in developing economies often face significant impediments when using innovative technologies. Thus, this paper seeks to determine and investigate the perceived barriers to applying BIM in construction SMEs based in Iran. Three rounds of Delphi surveys were carried out with 15 BIM experts engaged in construction SMEs to identify the key barriers to BIM implementation in SMEs. An empirical survey questionnaire comprising these identified barriers was subsequently designed and disseminated to the invited experts. Altogether, 56 valid survey responses were received and analyzed. The study's findings revealed SMEs management's hesitancy to adopt BIM, stakeholders' reluctance to change their established methods, and a lack of technical understanding as the critical impediments to BIM adoption in construction SMEs. Also, the study identified four barrier dimensions – technology, legal, management, and financial. These BIM implementation barrier dimensions can be employed to better allocate resources and financing for BIM deployment and construction innovation in SMEs. The study will assist major project stakeholders and SMEs make better-informed BIM adoption decisions, particularly in developing nations like Iran. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Successful adoption of the principles for establishing building maintenance procedures still remains partial, particularly in developing countries. Well-known obstacles, such as a lack of methodology and planning, knowledge of staff and quality required, and budget limitations, may all outweigh any practical information and guides to efficiently achieving maintenance objectives for existing buildings. Given that, in Iraq, public office buildings are one of the largest parts of the buildings construction sector, and that Iraq is considered to have one of the largest rates of maintenance work expenditure, significant investigation is needed. However, research related to Iraqi maintenance operations is limited to a few, general aspect overviews of some elements of maintenance. These require amalgamation to overcome all maintenance issues and establish a future strategy for efficient maintenance operations. This paper presents a detailed review and quantitative investigation of the barriers, success factors, and key drivers regarding effective building maintenance practice in Iraq. Based on feedback from 72 specialist stakeholder respondents and interviews with experts at different levels, it can be said that building maintenance procedures in this study area are still in their infancy. In order to reinforce building maintenance as a robust and unified practice, the goal should be to formulate a comprehensive plan earlier in the building process, based on the drivers that have been identified and on the deep knowledge stakeholders possess about successful building maintenance procedures. The study concludes that budgets for building maintenance operations should be aligned with expected building deficiencies during their operating phase and with building standards quality, and that the failure of such estimations can render maintenance operations inefficient. Thus, the findings can provide a best practice guide to aid future researchers in managing maintenance operations within a framework based on investigated factors that guarantees long-term benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pre-tender cost estimation serves as the foundation for determining the project cost in the early stages and is crucial for all parties involved in the tendering process. It is expected to be highly accurate. However, industry surveys have advocated that in the Iranian construction industry, the pre-tender estimated costs of construction projects are not sufficiently accurate during the bidding stage. Building information modelling (BIM) technology is a modern digital tool deployed in the construction industry that has seen substantial growth of application. It employs useful tools in different sectors and has extended its involvement in various stages of the project lifecycle, including feasibility studies, planning, design, construction, and operation and maintenance. This study examines and assesses the status of BIM development in Iran for its applicability in the pre-tender cost estimating process in construction projects. The findings of this study indicate that while there is a limited number of Iranian building projects' BIM models that possess the required quality and capabilities for BIM-based cost estimation, the results obtained are more precise when compared to existing manual methods. Additionally, utilising BIM-based cost estimation significantly reduces the time required for this process by enhancing the speed of cost estimation operations. An innovative evaluation framework for assessing the quality and functionalities of BIM models is presented, which improves the accuracy of cost estimation before the bidding process in Iran's construction industry. The research findings demonstrate the enhanced accuracy and effectiveness of BIM as compared to conventional approaches. It also suggests the incorporation of AI technology for model evaluation, which has the potential to become an established global industry standard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]