Modern economic, social and environmental challenges require a new type of construction that ensures resilience, low construction costs and ease of maintenance. Material production, manufacturing of structural elements and final assembly should minimise the environmental impacts, such as greenhouse emissions and waste production. This review aims to identify the key routes of research and development required to address the environmental challenges the construction industry faces. It outlines recent advances and highlights the rising opportunities. The strategies with great perspectives include 3D concrete printing, prefabrication and modular construction, mortarless construction, development and utilization of sustainable, smart and composite materials, renewable energy systems and automation technologies including the Digital Twin technology. Hybrid approaches that combine traditional and novel construction methods present the greatest potential. Overall, collaboration between stakeholders is crucial in driving innovation and successfully implementing these advancements.

Continuous monitoring of mechanical parameters determining the state of natural and man-made systems is essential in a wide range of engineering disciplines from mechanical to civil and geotechnical engineering. To be effective, the monitoring response time needs to be commensurate with the characteristic time of variation of the processes being monitored e.g. from seconds as for example in some machinery, to weeks and months for mining excavations and years in the case of structures. The methods of measurement can therefore differ significantly for different applications. In spite of this, the methods of information processing—the computational monitoring—have considerable commonality. This review focuses on the methods of computational monitoring in solid and structural mechanics problems in different engineering applications. The traditional methods of monitoring are reviewed along with the corresponding computational and measurement methods. The basic principles of the computational monitoring in real time are established.