This year’s Innovation in Construction Forum (ICF) took place as part of a partnership with the Construction Owners Association of Alberta’s (COAA) Best Practices Conference.

The Innovation in Construction Forum began as the Canadian Construction Research Forum, which was established in 1996 by Dr. Simaan AbouRizk at the University of Alberta as a means of disseminating and highlighting construction engineering and management research initiatives being undertaken by the Alberta construction industry and academics in Canada at large. To broaden its reach, the Canadian Construction Research Forum was rebranded as the Innovation in Construction: FORUM in 2012. The University of Alberta’s Hole School of Construction Engineering focuses on making sure that the FORUM informs, stimulates research, encourages the sharing of information, and promotes innovation within the Alberta construction industry. Thanks to the research efforts and ingenuity of researchers dedicated to improving construction management practices and the partner companies engaged in their efforts, the FORUM has over 20 years of success in achieving its goals.

Session 1: The Construction Innovation Centre (CIC): Research Driving Change

Dr. Fraser Forbes, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Alberta, opened this first session of the ICF with a brief introduction of the CIC and the two speakers. Dr. Robinson Fayek and Mr. Chorney covered topics such as the CIC’s background and history, the work done by the CIC’s members and industry partners, and the alliances and collaborations that the CIC has fostered between academic institutions, industry partners, professional associations, and government agencies. The CIC’s structure and governance system and the CIC’s Strategic Business Plan and innovative Research Roadmap were also introduced. Dr. Robinson Fayek and Mr. Chorney also presented information on some of the projects that the CIC has approved to date

The presentation ended on a note about what is ahead for the CIC; including an update about the foundation of the CIC’s collaborative research laboratory, which will allow for the establishment of connections between research centers and industry partners on a heretofore unprecedented scale.

Session 2: Harnessing Data to Drive Safety Performance

Dr. Lianne Lefsrud led the presentation of her research project with Dr. Yasser Mohamed and others which seeks to develop integrated, data-driven frameworks for safety planning and management and improved decision support to increase the safety performance of construction projects. The project’s focus examines how data and data management systems can help to advance a company’s safety culture with a focus on how resilience can be built, and on how safety performance can be improved, through the use of data analytics. By analyzing all of the data that is captured by a company on its various worksites, create an integrated safety management system with a focus on leading indicators rather than lagging indicators.

Jim Kanerva spoke about the competency and behavior scoring systems that Carry Steel uses in order to evaluate their workers and help maintain safe worksites. He also shared some recent safety incidents and the resultant reports. Carry Steel is excited for the opportunity to collaborate with Dr. Lefsrud on this project in order to improve their current safety management systems, enhance competencies, and prevent incidents in the workplace.

Session 3: Revitalizing the Engineering Science of Masonry, Brick by Brick: Development of Enhance Systems for Sustainable Masonry Infrastructure

Dr. Carlos Cruz-Noguez and Dr. Mark Hagel gave a presentation and opened discussion about the challenges and opportunities facing the development of new and enhanced systems to control the movement of heat and moisture through masonry structures, with a focus on new innovations in material science, computer simulation, and construction technology. They discussed innovative new methods of reducing the carbon footprint of masonry manufacturing processes through means like increasing core sizes of clay brick units; and the creation of new configurations of brick connections to facilitate robotic construction in order to facilitate more efficient wall assembly. They also discussed new methods of improving the thermal performance of masonry walls to meet the National Energy Code for Buildings (NECB) 2017by using improved thermal materials and thermal breaks and using masonry to clad less durable building materials such as wood and steel structure with concrete or masonry — which is resistant to mold and dampness, fireproof, modular, fully recyclable, and able to absorb carbon dioxide, thereby reducing greenhouse gasses — in order to extend their service life.

In addition to their discussion of developing new and innovative masonry systems and design techniques, they intend to study the unexploited capabilities of modern and traditional masonry and investigate the safety and durability of masonry structures by working closely with contractors, architects, engineers, building officials, suppliers, block manufacturers, and scientific/technical organizations dedicated to the advancement of masonry research, development, marketing and innovation.

Session 4: Robotic Solutions for Factory-Based Construction

Dr. Ying Hei Chui presented on the Nasseri School of Building Science and Engineering, which was established in 2015 with a gift from Mr. Reza Nasseri, founder of the Landmark Group of Companies. He spoke of the School’s vision — leading the building industry towards industrialized and sustainable construction by supporting multidisciplinary research and educating future generations of building engineers — and the school’s core disciplines.

Dr. Haitao Yu introduced ACQBUILT, a leading offsite construction company in North America which operates a state-of-the-art prefabricated home manufacturing facility in Edmonton and provides services to homebuilders and general contractors across Alberta. ACQBUILT and its partner are now developing an accessible and scalable off-site construction solution using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotic technologies to meet the economic and environmental challenges of 21st Century housing.

Dr. Jessy Kang spoke about robotic solutions for building prefabrication being pioneered by the University of Alberta’s AIRCon-Lab. The AIRCon-Lab’s efforts focus on construction innovation using Artificial Intelligence and robots to increase the productivity efficiency and safety of construction projects using RoBIM Building prefabrication — a tool that ties building design to robot prefabrication by simulating the most efficient sequencing for robotic assembly of building components. The end goal of this project is to move from off-site to near-site prefabrication, thereby reducing costs, increasing quality of builds, and improving the productivity of construction products. The vision of AIRCon and RoBIM is to offer self-contained robotic manufacturing pods located on or near sites, which will offer automated component manufacturing capabilities to general contractors.

Session 5: The Resilience of Cities

The Next Generation Cities Institute’s Research Centres

Dr. Ursula Eicker presented on the topic of urban resilience frameworks and the importance of creating sustainable, resilient, and inclusive city spaces through the use of open data — data that is freely available to everyone to use and republish as they wish that is also free from the restrictions of copyright, patents, or other mechanisms of control — and the use of digital twins — virtual representations of a city’s physical assets that use data, data analytics, and machine learning to create simulation models that can be updated and changed in real time as their physical equivalents change — to combine urban scale data with scenario modeling in order to facilitate the creation of urban infrastructure and transportation systems that will facilitate the creation of decarbonized, sustainable, and resilient next-generation cities.

More than half of the world’s population currently lives in an urban environment, with an expected increase to 75% by the year 2050. Climate change is one of the greatest threats to the urban environment, with flooding, heat stress, and ease of access to sources of food and water being some of the most pressing issues that must be accounted for in the city planning process. Dr. Eicker spoke about the need for decarbonizing, increasing urban flora, reducing waste and landfill requirements, reducin urban sprawl through the creation of mixed-use buildings, creating more social housing, creating transit-oriented communities, and making sure that public spaces and services are designed with a community’s input and its needs in mind. In order to increase a city’s resilience, a city must increase its green space, protect housing and infrastructure against environmental hazards (especially floods and storms), develop micro-grids for energy spaces, and create both multi-use spaces and safer public spaces for all of its inhabitants.

Finally, Dr. Eicker spoke about steps that can be taken to adapt urban spaces and mitigate the impact of climate change such as the creation of ‘sponge cities’ (urban areas designed to passively absorb, clean, and use rainfall and thereby mitigate flood risks and separate rainwater from a city’s sewage system) and introduce green roofs/rooftop gardens/green spaces to reduce heat stress. She also discussed methods of integrating solar power generation and heat pumps into urban architecture to reduce energy consumption.

Session 6: Designing and Building Resilience

Dr. Peña-Mora presented on the Columbia University’s Centre for Buildings, Infrastructure, and Public Spaces work with a focus on how the construction industry’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic has allowed cities to bounce back and how the design and construction community’s resilience has helped assure the population’s health and safety.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, a great deal of work needed to be done in order to restore the city of New York and rethink the idea of resilience and ways to build resilient infrastructure and public buildings.

A set of performance guided (rather than prescriptive) guiding principles were developed to ensure that designers, engineers, and architects could be creative and bring ingenuity to identify ways to prepare for the future. These included considerations of equity (creating equal ease of access, strengthening communities, respecting histories and cultures, and ensuring that the evolving needs of the population could be addressed), sustainability (minimizing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions; creating holistic, integrated systems; promoting sustainable urban ecology; and encouraging responsible water use), resiliency (planning for extreme events, securing against human induced threats, achieving coordinated hazard response, bolstering communities’ capabilities to adapt), and healthy living (supporting citizens’ mental health and wellbeing, strengthening social interaction and engagement, reducing environmental nuisances, and promoting healthy choices by encouraging physical activity as a part of everyday living).

Dr. Peña-Mora closed his presentation by introducing the attendees to the efforts of many of his contemporaries, all of whom are working to respond to and create future contingencies for how the world is changing as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 2021 ICF was a resounding success, with strong engagement from attendees and excellent insights from presenters. The CIC extends its thanks to COAA and all of the attendees who made time to join us for the discussion!