Computing in civil and building engineering: Changes and opportunities

The practice of every branch of civil and building engineering, in every stage of the lifecycle of constructed facilities, is supported by computing tools. The scope of these tools has expanded from point applications to intra- and inter-company integration. The paper surveys the major changes of the past Forty years, in terms of computing infrastructure, program development environments, program sources and production environments and scope of computing services. The role of research in effecting these changes is reviewed. Research has produced significant feedback in computational modeling of phenomena of interest and in generic support capabilities. There are vast further research opportunities in modeling civil and building engineering processes so as to develop conceptuals frameworks on which new generations of practical capabilities can be founded.