Four more projects have commenced at Building 4.0 CRC, bringing the total active projects to eight.

One such project, the ePlanning and eApprovals – Scoping Study, led by Dr Davood Shojaei from The University of Melbourne, brings together 10 CRC partners from across industry, research and government to embrace the opportunities that new digital workflows and digital twin technologies provide.

The team seeks to better understand innovative digital platforms that are capable of facilitating effective, efficient and timely planning, building permits, approvals, ongoing compliance with planning controls, building regulations and other regulatory requirements.

In future iterations of the research stemming from this project, it is hoped that digital platforms will provide a range of benefits, including: integrated processes; streamlined assessment tools utilising digital twin concepts; the ability to compare the as-built with the as-designed building for regulatory compliance; and, a single source of information for both proposed and approved designs, upon which future policy, planning and regulatory decisions can be based.

The project aims to reduce costs for industry and government, and industry should be able to test plan compliance against planning controls and building regulations, track progress of their applications and efficiently track compliance through construction.

The scoping study is scheduled for completion later this year.

Another new project, Environmental Credentials for Building Technology Platforms, is set to develop an ISO-compliant Life Cycle Assessment framework to quantify and communicate the environmental impacts of building technology platforms, using uTecture and Airbuildr platforms as cases.

Led by Dr Victor Bunster of Monash University, this 1-year project will introduce a method to systematically assess the environmental impacts of building technology platforms, to see environmental credentials better supporting B2B and B2C communication in the building industry. To view all Building 4.0 CRC projects, head to the Projects section of our website.