Futuristic design review in the construction industry

Many researchers have already demonstrated the benefits of enhancing collaboration in the construction industry and the role of IT as a facilitator of inter-enterprise communications is also well accepted. However, construction companies are slow to implement these best practices because they do not address the real needs of workers. This paper goes further than previous approaches by describing not only the technological requirements that permit cooperation in a construction project, but also the human factors that need to be addressed in order to achieve effective collaboration. These requirements are illustrated by a futuristic scenario which shows flow state-of-the-art human-centric technologies could support the interactions of co-workers during a design review meeting. This scenario will be used as a demonstrator of the CoSpaces platform for collaboration, and some of the technologies developed for its implementation will be introduced here.