Smart Cities, Technological Solutions and the Construction Industry

This volume collects papers that examine various aspects of smart city technologies, their urban feasibility and their engineering, as well as social and sustainability, aspects in the context of building design and construction processes.
Smart Cities, Technological Solutions and the Construction Industry
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Introduction

Edited by Kefeng Zhang and Sara Shirowzhan, this book showcases nine contributions presenting the outcome of research projects relevant to building design, smart cities, and construction techniques. A conceptualization of smart cities and a description of the developmental journey from conventional to smart cities are presented at the beginning of this book. Innovative case studies of underground cities and floating city bridges are also comprised in this publication. Building information modelling (BIM) and geographical information systems (GIS) applications for different projects, and the concept of intelligent contract and virtual reality are, likewise, covered in this volume. Two other concepts relevant to conventional buildings that include private open spaces and place attachments are also explored in this volume. This book concludes with a discussion of how construction processes can be upgraded in the future by smart technologies.

Topical Spotlight

In their opening chapter, Aman Kumar and Jasvir Singh Rattan (2020, p. 3) propose a definition of smart cities that focuses on the notion of smartness comprising the digital, intelligent and sustainable aspects of city life: “The basic concept of the smart cities is that the city should be “green,” more “accessible,” and more “liveable” (Kumar and Rattan, 2020, p. 3). In this vein, Faham Tahmasebinia and colleagues (2020a, p. 17) have developed a concept of the earthscraper as a solution for underground city development that “as an alternative building method for the future […] requires less surface area and lower operating costs than an equivalent aboveground structure” (Tahmasebinia et al., 2020a, p. 17). Similarly, Faham Tahmasebinia and others (2020b, p. 35) have presented a design blueprint for a floating cities bridge intended “to connect two floating cities or nearby land to resolve the problem of shortage of construction land due to an increase of population and sea level” (Tahmasebinia et al., 2020b, p. 35). In this context, Reyhaneh Karimi, Behnaz Avazpour and Samad Sepasgozar (2020, p. 95) have zeroed in on private open spaces, such as balconies, their characteristics and their contribution to social, economic and environmental sustainability, aside from their constitutive effects on the urban quality of life.

Conclusion

This collection brings together diverse contributions that explore how advanced technologies can be deployed in the realization of smart city projects. These technologies comprise intelligent contracts the feasibility of which Alan McNamara (2020, p. 119) explores in his paper. Similarly, virtual reality technologies find increasing applications in the construction industry, which Mohsen Ghobadi and Samad Sepasgozar (2020, p. 157) critically examine in their article in this topical volume.


Published by IntechOpen in 2020, Smart Cities and Construction Technologies, edited by Kefeng Zhang and Sara Shirowzhan, has become available in Open Access at the Open Research Library in early 2020, as part of the IntechOpen Engineering 2019-2021 collection.


References

Ghobadi, Mohsen and Samad M.E. Sepasgozar. An Investigation of Virtual Reality Technology Adoption in the Construction Industry. In Zhang, Kefeng, and Sara Shirowzhan, eds. Smart Cities and Construction Technologies (pp. 157-191). IntechOpen, 2020. Retrieved from https://openresearchlibrary.org.

Karimi, Reyhaneh, Behnaz Avazpour and Samad M.E. Sepasgozar. Effective Factors on Desirability of Private Open Spaces: A Case Study of Kuye Nasr Residential Buildings, Tehran. In Zhang, Kefeng, and Sara Shirowzhan, eds. Smart Cities and Construction Technologies (pp. 95-116). IntechOpen, 2020. Retrieved from https://openresearchlibrary.org.

Kumar, Aman and Jasvir Singh Rattan. A Journey from Conventional Cities to Smart Cities. In Zhang, Kefeng, and Sara Shirowzhan, eds. Smart Cities and Construction Technologies (pp. 3-16). IntechOpen, 2020. Retrieved from https://openresearchlibrary.org.

McNamara, Alan. Automating the Chaos: Intelligent Construction Contracts. In Zhang, Kefeng, and Sara Shirowzhan, eds. Smart Cities and Construction Technologies (pp. 119-138). IntechOpen, 2020. Retrieved from https://openresearchlibrary.org.

Tahmasebinia, Faham, Kevin Yu, Jiachen Bao, George Chammoun, Edwin Chang, Samad Sepasgozar and Fernando Alonso-Marroquin. Earthscraper: A Smart Solution for Developing Future Underground Cities. In Zhang, Kefeng, and Sara Shirowzhan, eds. Smart Cities and Construction Technologies (pp. 17-34). IntechOpen, 2020a. Retrieved from https://openresearchlibrary.org.

Tahmasebinia, Faham, Yutaka Tsumura, Baichuan Wang, Yang Wen, Cheng Bao, Samad Sepasgozar and Fernando Alonso-Marroquin. Floating Cities Bridge in 2050. In Zhang, Kefeng, and Sara Shirowzhan, eds. Smart Cities and Construction Technologies (pp. 35-50). IntechOpen, 2020a. Retrieved from https://openresearchlibrary.org.

Zhang, Kefeng, and Sara Shirowzhan, eds. Smart Cities and Construction Technologies. IntechOpen, 2020. Retrieved from https://openresearchlibrary.org.

 


Featured Image Credits

Kinh Tàu Hủ nhìn từ SKYDECK (tầng 49, độ cao 178 m) của tòa nhà Bitexco Financial Tower (78 tầng, góc Hồ Tùng Mậu-Phủ Kiệt, Q1), Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, August 29, 2018 | © Courtesy of manhhai/Flickr.

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