Industrialised, Integrated, Intelligent sustainable Construction - I3con

HANDBOOK 2 SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION
Design & Construction Processes Track only started in 2009 in its current form (before 2009 the track
also existed, but lacked focus). Hopefully, this track will get an equally enthusiastic student
community in the coming years.
Looking at the current curriculum of the two discussed MSc tracks, we can name a few subjects that
deserve special attention:
• Systems thinking: many students have problems with systems thinking. They find it abstract
and they do not see its value; civil engineering students prefer to solve calculations. This is a
persistent issue, which will probably never disappear.
• Gaming and simulation: this is a new area that in our opinion has a lot of potential in the
context of process innovation in construction. But we need to develop more expertise in gaming
and simulation in order to be able to add more gaming and simulation elements to the
curriculum.
• Sustainability: this is a broad theme including concepts such as Life-Cycle Thinking, Cradle-to-
Cradle Thinking, Energy Efficiency, CO2 emissions, minimalization of waste etc. Many of
these concepts are already discussed in our MSc tracks and also in the BSc courses, but not
really in depth. While the sustainability issues are on the top priority list of policy makers (see
the EU activities in this field), we can observe that still few students choose sustainability
subjects for their graduation work. Also few companies and organisations stimulate graduation
work on sustainability issues by offering internships.
From the above subjects, the subject of sustainability and all the associated concepts is probably the
one that deserves most attention, for example when the current study programs need to be evaluated.
However, regarding sustainability several barriers and limitations can be seen that make it difficult to
make improvements. One limitation for civil engineering is that our faculty does not deal with indoor
building spaces and therefore with heating and ventilation systems and other energy-consuming
systems.
Another issue related to sustainability is that in the area of total energy and waste impact, a lot of
analysis work and development of awareness remains to be done. For example, few people have
insight into the energy consumption and waste impact of construction, production and transport of
building materials, etc. compared to the energy consumption and waste impact of building use. As
soon as the mainstream of construction companies and organisations get to know this kind of
information and feel the urge to make improvements, then major steps can be taken towards a
sustainable construction industry.
Conclusions
This chapter discussed the way civil engineering students at Delft University of Technology are
prepared for their role as future innovation leaders for sustainable construction. The work presented is
motivated by the vision that the success of construction projects is mainly dependent on human and
organizational aspects of construction projects, related to design processes, building modelling and
project management.
These ideas have been applied in a number of Design Project courses for the BSc stage of the civil
engineering study, and in two dedicated MSc tracks: Design & Construction Processes and
Construction Management & Engineering. Many important concepts for construction innovation are
dealt with in these courses, such as value orientation, systems thinking, building information
modelling and life cycle thinking.
However, some of these concepts are not yet sufficiently dealt with, most notably building
information modelling and current sustainability issues such as energy consumption and waste impact.
These subjects could significantly benefit both from new knowledge out of research projects and from
knowledge out of construction practice. Hopefully, in the near future the transition can be made from
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