The U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification program supports sustainable construction as part of the effort to address climate change and resource depletion. It is the world’s most popular green building certification system, with more than 146,400 projects. Satisfying the LEED requirements brings many benefits to a project’s design performance and adds community value, but it does incur additional costs and challenges. This study examined the choices made by those working on the 222 LEED New Construction version 4 (LEED-NC-V4) projects that were certified between September 2014 and March 2020 to determine how the LEED project teams selected appropriate LEED goals. The results reveal interesting insights into the way project LEED goals and the credits corresponding to the target certification level were chosen, as well as the links and trade-offs between the various credit options. Based on these findings, useful suggestions are made for ways to help LEED project teams achieve their target certification levels and encourage authorities to continue to improve their local green regulations. The analysis of actual certified projects’ data makes it possible to re-evaluate the effects of newly updated requests in LEED v4 in the light of the stated goals of the USGBC.

This research aims to identify and prioritize key planning elements for the redevelopment of such housing complexes by incorporating perspectives from both experts (supply-side) and residents (demand-side). To achieve this, a hybrid multi-criteria decision-making framework was developed by integrating the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). A total of 25 planning elements were identified through Focus Group Interviews and organized into five domains: legal and institutional reforms, project feasibility, residential conditions, social integration, and complex design. The AHP was used to assess the relative importance of each element based on responses from 30 experts and 130 residents. The analysis revealed a clear divergence in priorities: experts emphasized feasibility and regulatory considerations, while residents prioritized livability and spatial quality. Subsequently, the TOPSIS method was applied to evaluate four real-world redevelopment cases. From the supply-side perspective, Seoul A District received the highest score (0.58), whereas from the demand-side perspective, Gyeonggi D District ranked highest (0.69), illustrating the differing priorities of stakeholders. Overall, Gyeonggi D District emerged as the most favorable option in the combined evaluation. This research contributes a structured and inclusive decision-making framework for the regeneration of public housing. By explicitly comparing and quantifying the contrasting preferences of key stakeholders, it underscores the critical need to balance technical feasibility with resident-centered values in future redevelopment initiatives.

Established by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) became a sustainable leader of green building rating systems in American and many other countries. In Vietnam, LEED is expected as a potential solution in improving the sustainable quality of buildings for residents and solving the housing/infrastructure demand with a limit in resource consumption and minimizing negative environmental impacts. The study analyzed the awarded LEED 2009 credits by investigating the data of 36 of the total 42 LEED BC+D 2009 certified projects in Vietnam. The results of the investigation indicated the awarded credits were significantly implemented in Vietnam. These results were converted based on the summary updated on LEED version 4 of the USGBC report, to become a useful guideline for green building cost-efficiency strategies. Additionally, it also served as reference data for the Vietnamese public agency to update their green regulations based on the specific characteristics of Vietnam.

Of all the machinery and equipment used on construction sites, excavators are responsible for the greatest number of fatal accidents. Excavation is an inherently risky process due to imprecise work processes and the unstable external environment on most work sites. The resulting accidents cause serious injuries that threaten the lives of not only the excavator pilots but also those working around them. In this study, we propose a mechanical device that is capable of operating the excavator remotely from a nearby safe location such as a site office. To ensure worker safety and at the same time boost the productivity of excavation operations, data from 3D scanners, cameras, and sensors were combined to create a detailed 3D picture of the area surrounding the excavation site to guide a remotely operated excavating system. Rather than modifying the excavator itself, a removable manipulator was mounted on the joystick in the excavator’s cockpit. Our proposed system was tested on a standard commercial excavator to verify its performance for a real-world excavation task.

This study systematically analyzes various defect patterns that occur during the warranty period of residential buildings using the loss distribution approach (LDA). This paper examines 16,108 defects from 133 residential buildings where defect disputes occurred between 2008 and 2018 in South Korea. The analysis results showed that the defect losses were relatively high in reinforcement concrete (RC) work (3/5/10 years), waterproof work (5 years), and finish work (2 years). It is shown that RC work has a high frequency of defects, such as cracks in concrete in public spaces affected by external factors. In addition, it was analyzed that the type of defect needed high repair cost because the area where the defect—such as incorrect installation and missing task—occurred, needed construction again. According to the level of frequency and severity, losses were divided within four zones to provide detailed strategies (by period). This will effectively contribute to minimizing unnecessary losses from defects as quantifying the losses of defects.

Many solutions about the teleoperation of unmanned robotic excavators have been studied continuously. However, if excavators that are remotely controlled were employed, the probability of an accident would be higher. For this reason, there have been many ways proposed to attempt to reduce accidents in these dangerous situations. In this paper, a novel methodology will be introduced with a focus on the multiple excavators themselves. The proposed method details how one excavator can be generated or expressed as an obstacle in the Configuration-Space (C-space) with respect to another excavator’s side for collision avoidance each other. This method is based on kinematics information which is measurable and given. Therefore, this method can be used or applied independently by using widely used pose sensors and wireless communication devices. The phase of mathematical derivation about obstacle sets is described in detail. The results are shown in accompanying figures and tables for demonstrating that the proposed method detected the proximity and found the collision-free zone accurately. The proposed system can be powerful when applied to a teleoperation system, where it would be particularly useful and helpful to the operator.