Blockchain for Urban Planning, Architectural Engineering and Construction & Facility Management (UPAEC/FM)

Dear Colleagues,

In recent years, the Urban Planning, Architectural, Engineering and Construction & Facility Management (UPAEC/FM) sector is embarking on a real digitization path that opens up to a series of challenges. This sector is perceived as slow to innovate and adopt digital technologies as compared to other sectors due to cultural and education/training barriers, lack of in-house experience, skills and motivation, lack of collaboration and information sharing and poor levels of trust between parties. At the same time, today’s cities can interrelate vertical services through blockchain, such mobility, IoT, IoE by adopting a transversal system able to transform real time data in information for their city users.

Building Information Modeling (BIM), a collaborative methodology that allows information related to the entire life cycle of a building to be integrated into an information model, is becoming a standard requirement on projects all over the world. BIM is at the forefront of this current digital transformation within the UPAEC/FM sector, offering a host of benefits to various stakeholders but also some limitations. Blockchain has the potential to provide some solutions in UPAEC/FM sector as to overcome barriers of BIM adoption and address issues such as potential legal issues, data ownership, confidentiality and disintermediation, only to cite a few.

The applications of blockchain technologies are still being developed in the UPAEC/FM sector with a high degree of innovation and these are still pioneering experimentation cases. Combining BIM, IoT and Blockchain technologies seems to be the technological evolution necessary to ensure towards a smart vision a greater efficiency in AEC/FM sector in terms of optimization of time and costs, integration, sharing and transparency of information and sustainability. Some emerging models are showing some promising level of success, including Digital Twins and City Information Modelling (CIM). However, new models of integration of data and the physical environment are increasingly necessary. The integration among these technologies is a complex process and detailed methods for the structure of an integrated system need to be further developed.

The goal of this Special Issue is to cover novel research trends in the fields of Blockchain technologies and Smart Contracts to support digitalization in UPAEC/FM sector. This SI aims to attract contributions from a broader domain of blockchain-enabled solutions for UPAEC/FM sector.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to the following:

• Advantages of blockchain for governing cities;
• Challenges and opportunities of Blockchain technologies for UPAEC/FM industry.
• Integration challenges of Blockchain with IoT, Digital Twinning and BIM with a structured approach to change management;
• To investigate the potential of Blockchain Technology in a BIM setting;
• Smart contracts set at different levels of the UPAEC/FM ecosystem from building administration to payment process;
• Blockchain for Real Estate; - Blockchain for smart planning;
• Supporting BIM through Blockchain technologies to launch tendering processes or archive documents;
• Utilizing blockchain with digital twins in UPAEC/FM ecosystem;
• Blockchain Supply chain management and property management;
• To explore the topic “Blockchain for cultural heritage”;

Other important areas of concern regarding UPAEC/FM ecosystem include but are not limited to:

• smart cities
• Information and communication technologies
• Internet of things (IoT)
• Big data analysis
• Sensors and actuators
• Traffic flow and dynamic network modelling
• Energy production and distribution systems
• Urban planning models
• decision support and administrative management
• BIM and CIM (City information Modelling)
• Digital Twins and Simulations

Dr. Katiuscia Mannaro
Guest Editor

Prof. Dr. Chiara Garau
Dr. Silvio Carta
Assistant Guest Editors

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• blockchain
• smart contracts
• smart cities
• sustainable urban planning
• urban planning architectural engineering and construction & facility management (UPAEC/FM)
• cultural heritage
• supply chain
• digital twinning
• IoT