Life Cycle Approach to Construction Workspace Modeling and Planning

Workspace planning is critical for effective construction planning and control, and workspace modeling is an essential part of computer-aided workspace planning. The existing construction four-dimensional (4D) models, which have gained popularity in construction as an effective tool for planning, control, and communication, lack efficient means to capture the dynamic nature of workspaces to avoid potential workspace conflicts in future construction. This paper presents a life-cycle approach to workspace modeling and planning by first investigating the dynamic nature of the workspace requirements of construction activities and then introducing a conceptual framework to format space usages into life-cycle workspace evolution patterns. Specifically, an object-oriented data structure was designed and implemented to incorporate workspace representation into construction product models, and a workspace identification and adjustment method was created to facilitate the creation of construction workspaces. This newly created approach was tested in an implementation case study of a campus garage project with a number of application scenarios and was proven to be effective and convenient for modeling the dynamic workspace evolution associated with typical construction activities. (C) 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.