Safe and effective construction management requires tools for reducing delays, eliminating reworks, and avoiding accidents. Unfortunately, challenges still exist in current construction practices for enabling real-time interactions among project participants, field discoveries, and massive data. Extended reality (i.e., XR) could help to establish immersive and interactive virtual environments that enable real-time information exchange among humans, cyber processes, and physical environments during construction. However, limited studies have synthesized potentials, challenges, and scenarios of XR for ensuring construction safety and efficiency. This study provides a critical review that synthesizes XR in construction management. First, the authors used the PRISMA method to screen studies related to XR in construction management. Seventy-nine studies were selected and comprehensively analyzed. The authors conducted a bibliometric analysis to comprehend the spatiotemporal distributions of the selected studies. Then, the selected studies were classified into three categories: (1) progress control, (2) quality control, and (3) safety management. The authors also synthesized information for XR applications in various construction management scenarios and summarized the challenges related to XR applications. Finally, this review shed light on future research directions of XR for safe and effective construction management.

The construction industry is an important material production sector and plays a key role in Chinese national economy. However, most construction companies currently have low performance. A literature review showed that most research efforts have been placed at the project and company level, whereas studies based on the industry level are often neglected. To address this issue, a study was conducted to investigate the performance of China’s construction industry at the industry level. The market structure, ownership structure of the construction industry, and associated industry performance under the market economy system with Chinese characteristics were studied. The results show that both structure and performance are positively correlated, and performance is more greatly affected by market structure than by ownership structure. This paper studies the construction industry performance from the industrial organization perspective in China. The results of this research can provide useful informati...

Prefabricated installation, a pivotal study in the realm of contemporary construction practices, delves into the utilization of prefabrication within mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) systems. Despite its ascending prominence, the domain grapples with ambiguities in application pathways, uncertain developmental trajectories, and the absence of a holistic technical paradigm. This research endeavors to bridge these gaps by conducting a thorough and multidimensional investigation into the current landscape of prefabricated MEP installation initiatives. This study meticulously dissects the paradigm from five critical vantage points: historical evolution, standards and regulations, life cycle analysis, technological applications, and corporate implementation strategies. At present, there is still a lack of standards and specifications specifically for the field of assembled MEP installation. The analysis reveals a trend towards intelligent and sustainable installation practices in prefabricated MEP projects. The research predominantly focuses on the design, production, and installation stages. Notably, building information modeling (BIM) emerges as the most prominent technology, followed by the Internet of Things (IoT) and 3D laser scanning, with extended reality (XR) technologies gaining traction. Large, state-owned construction firms are spearheading innovative applications in this realm. In summary, this paper provides an overview and outlook for the development direction and the application of cutting-edge technologies in prefabricated MEP installation projects, with the aim of supporting the industry’s advancement.

Intelligent construction and management processes are essential to ensure the efficiency of planting and maintenance of landscapes in large-scale projects. Unfortunately, various challenges still exist for achieving such a vision. For instance, creating detailed models of various plants to precisely capture the spatiotemporal changes is challenging. Moreover, transmitting massive plant-related data in time for project coordination and remote maintenance is also difficult through traditional landscape management practices. Integrated use of building information modeling (BIM) and mixed reality (MR) techniques could help establish digital representations of various plants with semantic information. Such integration of BIM and MR offers instinctual interactions by blending the physical and digital worlds. This study proposed an intelligent construction and management framework through BIM and MR to (1) establish detailed models of various plants, (2) capture spatiotemporal changes of plants across four seasons for model updating, and (3) establish a real-time data transmission method for effective project coordination and remote maintenance of various plants. The authors used the Jinhu Park project in the Xiong’an New District of China as a case study to validate the proposed method. Results show that the proposed method could support the sustainable development of landscapes in real practice.

Compliance checking on the topological spatial relationships of building elements is vital for ensuring the safety and the quality of buildings. However, the complex topological spatial relationships of buildings are not usually expressed in the design scheme directly. Manual checking is still needed to analyze the design scheme and extract the spatial relationships. Such manual checking is always time consuming and prone to error. Therefore, this study has proposed a compliance checking method based on a building information model (BIM) and building ontologies for the automatic checking of topological spatial relationships. Firstly, the topological spatial relationships are well captured and represented according to the location relation of building elements. The checking rules are further established based on regulations. Then, the design information is extracted from the design model, mainly including the location information of building elements. Next, the review ontology is developed, and the design information is organized based on the ontology. Finally, the checking is completed based on the ontology and checking rules. The authors have validated the proposed method through a case study. The results show that the proposed method could help to achieve automatic compliance checking on topological spatial relationships of building elements.

Landscape engineering plays a crucial role in urban construction and the development of ecological civilization in China. It actively designs and modifies natural elements, such as water and mountains, acting as the primary living infrastructure. This field continually receives great recognition and praise. Recent academic research has prioritized the use of extended reality (XR) technology to create a real-time interactive visual environment to tackle the issues presented by the dynamic nature of landscape engineering. This paper utilizes the PRISMA method to filter out 68 research documents related to XR in landscape engineering construction and management for bibliometric analysis. A comprehensive review is conducted on the precise and efficient utilization of XR to solve various issues in the field of landscape engineering. Using Cite Space 6.2.R6 (a visual bibliometric software) to visualize knowledge structures and research topics, the analysis includes temporal and spatial examination, application scenario analysis, and technological hierarchy analysis. The paper summarizes the current challenges that XR still faces in the landscape engineering field and envisions extensible application scenarios for XR, providing a reference roadmap for the implementation of XR in landscape engineering.