Project Summary: 

The AEC sector continues to face persistent challenges in translating digital innovation into practical, scalable, and circular solutions. While advanced tools such as Building Information Modelling (BIM), immersive technologies, blockchain, and AI-driven planning offer opportunities, their integration remains constrained by legislative, organisational, social, cultural, and epistemic factors. Despite over two decades of digitalisation, the AEC remains the least productive industry sector. Industry 4.0 has reshaped design strategies and project delivery, yet communication inefficiencies and collaboration challenges remain (McKinsey, 2024). 

This research gap was identified through a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) examining how digital communication tools, collaboration strategies, and organisational structures can enhance interdisciplinary project delivery and support integral-circular practices towards climate action. Through the Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) framework (Greif, 1988) and PRISMA, the review applies three CSCW-derived lenses; people, process, and technology; to analyse communication and collaboration in Large-Complex Building Projects (LCBPs). The review highlights siloed practices, information fragmentation, weak collaboration skills, technological interoperability, and limited attention to socio-technical relationships. 

The methodology employs a dual ontological perspective combining realist and constructivist assumptions. A three-lens philosophical framework comprising Friedemann Schulz von Thun’s Communication Square, Jürgen Habermas’s Communicative Action Theory, and Actor-Network Theory (ANT) analyses 19 semi-structured interviews at micro, macro, and network levels of communication. The interviews are analysed using Reflexive Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2022), producing five validated themes. 

One early recognition is that effective collaboration depends on treating communication as a tool requiring flexible interpretation to exchange implicit and explicit knowledge between parties. Data transfer is not communication when it merely transmits without transforming meaning for the receiver. Latour’s (2005) distinction between mediator and intermediary is central to investigating the human actant within socio-technical communication. The thesis examines how communication supports interdisciplinary collaboration and integral-circular practices by synthesising diverse forms of knowledge across project lifecycles towards a more sustainable built environment. 

References: 

1. McKinsey Global Institute, 2024. Construction Productivity Index Update. McKinsey & Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/operations/our-insights/delivering-on-construction-productivity-is-no-longer-optional 

2. Greif, I. (ed.) (1988) Computer-Supported Cooperative Work: A Book of Readings. Morgan Kaufmann. ISBN: 978-0934613576. 

3. Braun, V. and Clarke, V. (2022) ‘Conceptual and design thinking for thematic analysis’, Qualitative Psychology, 9(1), pp. 3–26. doi:10.1037/qup0000196 

4. Bektaş, E., 2013. Knowledge sharing strategies for large complex building projects. A+BE: Architecture and the Built Environment, 3(4), pp.1–332. doi:10.7480/abe.2013.4.613. 

5. Latour, B., 2005, Reassembling the Social – An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory, Oxford University Press, First published 2005, ISBN 0-19-925604-7