Centre for the Integrated Delivery of the Built Environment (IDoBE)

LSBU's Centre for the Integrated Delivery of the Built Environment (IDoBE) is led by academics with expertise in construction, property, and surveying within the School of the Built Environment and Architecture. The Centre’s research builds on the School’s flagship courses in construction project management and economics, quantity surveying, building surveying, real estate, and architectural technology. The Centre’s diverse membership has a commitment to innovation and improvements in construction through improved business processes, and the greater use of Building Information Modelling (BIM) for integrated delivery.

The Centre focuses on key research themes to address productivity and construction waste using knowledge, innovation and digital transformation to improve cost certainty and predictability of construction projects and to address leaderships challenges and skills gap.

The Centre’s approach is to leverage knowledge from multidisciplinary partners to support the delivery of high impact and sustainable solutions to the biggest challenges facing the built environment.

Investigated topics

• Big data analytics for process improvement
• Building information modelling
• Carbon finance to mitigate climate change
• Circular economy
• Construction Management
• Health and sustainable buildings
• Housing
• Integrate models such as joint venture and public private partnerships
• Leadership, ethics and professionalism in the built environment industries
• Life cycle and carbon cost planning
• Management and integrate of data for the built environment
• Market structure and growth strategies
• Mental health, equality, gender, diversity, welfare and modern slavery
• Project financing models (e.g. public private partnerships)
• Real estate, international property investment, and strategic asset management
• Renewable energy systems
• Risk Management
• Smart and intelligent cities
• Waste management

Current projects

Harmonization of Construction Health and Safety Practices in the Southern African Development Community

The research is carried out in collaboration with University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa to address an urgent need to strengthen standards of construction health and safety practices in the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The research funded through Newton Advanced Fellowships focuses on developing a framework for improving health and safety practices to promote a non-hazardous work environment and to reduce the burden of occupational injuries and fatalities in SADC.

Key facilities

Building Information Modelling (BIM) Centre

BIM is an approach to managing and planning every aspect of design and operation in the construction process in a better, more efficient way to improve the basis upon which the construction industry and its clients operate. The BIM Centre acts as a hub for innovation, professional training and networking amongst practice experts in the built environmental sector.

Other facilities

• Lighting Laboratory
• Building Services Laboratory
• DARLab (Digital Architecture and Robotic Laboratory)
• Rapid Prototyping Technology Lab
• Design and Soft Modelling Lab
• Digital Architecture Robotics Lab
• Rapid Prototyping Technology Lab
• Design and Soft Modelling Lab
• Digital Architecture Robotics Lab
• Virtual Engineering Suite
• Building Information Modelling Lab

The Centre also has access to other general engineering facilities within the University, including the Engineering and Welding Workshops, the Machine Shop, the Modelling Workshop, the Virtual Engineering Suite, plus many other design and soft facilities.

Our Centre harnesses the research capability of staff (who include two Professors of international repute, three Associate Professors and several senior academics) in the School of Built Environment and Architecture, Division of Construction, Property and Surveying, one of the largest in the UK specialising in the built environment.

Core members

·       Professor Obas John Ebohon (Leader)
·       Professor George Ofori
·       Dr Ali Bayyati
·       Dr Gu Guowei
·       Dr Job Momoh
·       Dr Joseph Kangwa, Associate Professor
·       Dr Olubisi Ige
·       Dr Oluwadamilola Aguda
·       Dr Stephen Phillips
·       Dr Timothy Eccles
·       Dr Yamuna Kaluarachchi, Associate Professor
·       Dr Yusuf Ibraheem
·       Dr Zulfikar Adamu, Associate Professor
·       Bert Ediale Young
·       Carlos Gonzalez
·       Daniel Fong, Associate Professor
·       Jennifer Hardi
·       Lynne Michael
·       Maggie Hammond
·       Navpreet Chohan
·       Rafiu Seidu
·       Upeksha Madanayake
·       Yuting Chen
Postgraduate Research Students:
·       Adnan Ali
·       Ahmed Daoud
·       Elizabeth Whelan
·       Ganiyu Sikiru
·       Itua Omokhomion
·       Lucy Ogbenjuwa
·       Mehdi Shahparvari
·       Nuha Eltinay
·       Saam Kaviani
·       Upeksha Madanayake
·       Waheed Oseni
·       Yamen Bakhaty
·       Yumna Ahmedi

The Centre has been successful in securing funding for developing international research collaboration notably with the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa as part of Newton Advanced Fellowships

Key publications

• Kaluarachchi Nartallo, Y. (2018). Building Community Resilience in the Re-settlement of Displaced Communities. Procedia Engineering, 212 443-450. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.proeng.2018.01.057
• Fong, D., Naoum, S., and Egbu, C. (2018). Integrated Model for Stressors Stresses and Stress-Coping Behaviour of Construction Project Managers in the UK, International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, 11(3), 761-782. doi: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJMPB-07-2017-0071
• Phillips S & Forman T (2018) The Role of BIM in Retrofitting Works within the UK Social Housing Sector. Journal of Building Survey, Appraisal & Valuation 7(3) pp 1-17
• Hastie, J., Sutrisna, M., and Egbu, C. (2017). Modelling knowledge integration process in early contractor involvement procurement at tender stage – a Western Australian case study. Construction Innovation doi: https://doi.org/10.1108/CI-04-2016-0021
• Çıdık, M. S., Boyd, D., and Thurairajah, N. (2017) Ordering in disguise: digital integration in built- environment practices. Building Research and Information, 45(6), 665-680. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09613218.2017.1309767
• Kangwa, J., Kamau, J., Ahmed, A., Hirst, P., and Hyndman, F. (2017). Influence of Rice Husk Ash Density on the workability and strength of structural concrete. European Journal of Engineering Research and Science, 2(3), 36-43. doi: https://doi.org/10.24018/ejers.2017.2.3.292
• Opoku, A., and Egbu, C. (2017). Students' Perspective on the relevance of sustainability literacy in a postgraduate built environment programme. International Journal of Construction Education and Research doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/15578771.2017.1286417
• Çıdık, M.S., Boyd, D., and Thurairajah, N. (2017) Innovative capability of building information modelling in construction design. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 143(8), 04017047. DOI: http://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0001337
• Eccles, T (2017) ‘Corporate Real Estate Asset Management: Strategy and Implementation’, Routledge, 2017, 2nd edition (with Haynes and Nunnington). ISBN 978-1138915077.
• Akotia, J., Opoku, A., Egbu, C., and Fortune, C. (2016). Exploring the knowledge ‘base’ of practitioners in the delivery of sustainable regeneration projects. Construction Economics and Building, 16(2), 14-26. doi: https://doi.org/10.5130/AJCEB.v16i2.4892
• Robinson, H. and Udeaja C. (2015) Reusing Knowledge and Leveraging Technology to Reduce Design and Construction Costs, In Robinson, H, Symonds, B., Gilbertson, B and Ilozor, B (Eds.) Design Economics for the Built Environment: Sustainability in Project Evaluation, pp 229-237, Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118944790.ch16
• Amos, A and Robinson, H. (2015), Sustainable Design, Innovation and Competitiveness in Engineering Firms, In Robinson, H, Symonds, B., Gilbertson, B and Ilozor, B (Eds) Design Economics for the Built Environment: Sustainability in Project Evaluation, pp 333-356, Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118944790.ch24
• Gu, G., Michael, L. and Cheng, Y. (2015) Housing supply and its relationships with land supply. International Journal of Housing Markets and Analysis, Vol. 8. Issue 3.
• Kaluarachchi Nartallo, Y. (2015). Challenges to leaders in promoting the design of innovative and sustainable social housing.In A. Opoku, and V. Ahmed (Eds.), Leadership and sustainability in the Built Environment (109-122). Abingdon: Taylor and Francis Group.
• Bayati, A (2014) Geo Digital Documentation(GDD) for Arab and Islamic Heritage Preservation, International Journal of Geomatics and Geosciences, 2(2), 1-15. http://researchopen.lsbu.ac.uk/1735/