This paper aims to investigate the theoretical and practical links between digital twin (DT) application in heritage facilities management (HFM) from a life cycle management perspective and to signpost the future development directions of DT in HFM.

This state-of-the-art review was conducted using a systematic literature review method. Inclusive and exclusive criteria were identified and used to retrieve relevant literature from renowned literature databases. Shortlisted publications were analysed using the VOSviewer software and then critically reviewed to reveal the status quo of research in the subject area.

The review results show that DT has been mainly adopted to support decision-making on conservation approach and method selection, performance monitoring and prediction, maintenance strategies design and development, and energy evaluation and management. Although many researchers attempted to develop DT models for part of a heritage building at component or system level and test the models using real-life cases, their works were constrained by availability of empirical data. Furthermore, data capture approaches, data acquisition methods and modelling with multi-source data are found to be the existing challenges of DT application in HFM.

In a broader sense, this study contributes to the field of engineering, construction and architectural management by providing an overview of how DT has been applied to support management activities throughout the building life cycle. For the HFM practice, a DT-cum-heritage building information modelling (HBIM) framework was developed to illustrate how DT can be integrated with HBIM to facilitate future DT application in HFM. The overall implication of this study is that it reveals the potential of heritage DT in facilitating HFM in the urban development context. ... Read more

Physical contact and respiratory droplet transmission have been widely regarded as the main routes of COVID-19 infection. However, mounting evidence has unveiled the risk of aerosol transmission of the virus. Whereas caution has been taken to avoid this risk in association with clinical facilities, facilities such as spa pools and Jacuzzis, which are characterized by bubble-aerosol generation, high bather loads, and limited turnover rates, may promote aerosol transmission. Focusing on these non-clinical facilities in the built environment, a review study was undertaken. First, the typical water disinfection and ventilation-aided operations for the facilities were illustrated. Second, cross comparisons were made between the applicable standards and guidelines of the World Health Organization and countries including Australia, Canada, China, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The similarities and differences in their water quality specifications, ventilation requirements, and air quality enhancement measures were identified; there were no specific regulations for preventing aerosol transmission at those aerosol-generating facilities. Third, a qualitative review of research publications revealed the emergence of studies on potential air-borne transmission of COVID-19, but research on built facilities posing high risks of aerosol transmission remains scant. This study’s results inform key directions for future research on abating aerosol transmission of COVID-19: the development of bespoke personal protective equipment and engineering and management controls on water quality, ventilation, and air quality. ... Read more

This research aims at developing a real estate management theory that overarches the different classes of real estate management like e.g. corporate real estate (CRE) management and housing management, who all operate within a specific narrative, apply a particular range of concepts and terminology, and refer in their own way to general theories like asset and portfolio management. These specificities create barriers for communication between the different classes of real estate management and hamper the exchange and development of knowledge in the field, what we consider undesirable. The challenge of developing a broad real estate management theory is to avoid that little more is done than to repeat general management, economic or sociological theories. The aimed broad real estate management theory should approximate the concreteness of the specific theories and cover their core, while still being relevant for practice, research and education. For this research, real estate management is considered the ongoing process of aligning the built environment and the needs of users, which happens at all scales of the built environment, for all types of users, and for all real estate aspects such as location, cost, function, time and quality. Based on this definition, the research will addresses three components: demand side, supply side and the delivery models that coordinate both sides. The research on the side of the real estate demander searches for similarities and differences between e.g. the way the demander is organised internally, the real estate procurement is executed, what is outsourced and why, what performance criteria are used, how financial markets are accessed. The research on the side of the supplier of the built environment may address topics like e.g. what is the relation of the supplier with the user, what drives production, what are context constraints, what is the status of the sustainability discourse. The search for similarities and differences in the delivery may address e.g. what models are in place, what types of institutions operate in this delivery, who intervenes in this alignment and why, what is the nature of the markets, what is the role of state intervention, what type of alignment is searched for, what performance criteria are used. The comparison of different classes of real estate management may reveal e.g.: that theories on CRE management subsequently position the CRE management department inside the user’s organisation boundary, whereas theories on housing management position this group most often outside the households’ boundary; that current practices in CRE and housing management both strive after a portfolio of conventional assets and keep away from the representative objects like monuments; that there is a trend that households want to be more involved and co-producing their house than before and thereto want to bypass the current institutional setting (sort of insourcing, self-production), whereas within organisations the trend has been for decades to less involve in the management of their accommodation and to rely on the possibilities offered by the CRE and related services market, although since a few years in-sourcing and self-provision seem to be revalued; that there is recent trend that private companies engage in the delivery of housing for their employees to deal with failing housing markets like they did in the beginning of the 20th century, and that households are re-initiating work at home, for which they need a different type of dwelling; both types of users seem to breach the institutionalised division of actors by real estate function installed for almost a century. This type of observations – and many more and of very different natures – trigger an explanation of causes and mechanisms, and together with the main theories used in the different classes of real estate management (Pestoff, 1993; Brandsen et al., 2005; Henderson & Venkatraman, 1993;…) they are the basis for building the aimed broad real estate management theory. In concreto the research method consists of theory design, academic literature study and interviews with academics. ... Read more

Whereas the use of specific smart technologies in various sectors of the tourism industry has been under greater scrutiny in recent years, research that investigates tourists’ acceptance of smart technologies applied as a whole to hotels is largely underexplored. To address this shortfall, a study with a focus on tourists’ acceptance of experience-enhancement smart technologies has been conducted. A technology acceptance model based conceptual framework was developed, followed by a series of interviews with the managerial staff of ten hotels in Hong Kong that adopt experience-enhancement smart technologies. Based on the interview findings, a questionnaire was designed for use in a survey in which data were collected face-to-face from 312 tourists. Structural equation modelling was utilised to reveal the interrelationships between nine technology acceptance parameters. This study contributes knowledge to both real-world practice and research in tourism management. ... Read more

Project duration is one of the methods to measure the efficiency of project implementation. This study identifies the factors influencing the project duration of urban village redevelopment projects (UVRPs) in China. Based on the theory of new institutional economics and behavioral economics, this study develops three hypotheses regarding the causal relationship between institutional arrangement and project duration. Statistical analysis of data on 439 UVRPs collected from seven Chinese cities revealed that projects implemented through top-down institutional arrangements were more likely to take a long time than those implemented through bottom-up institutional arrangements. Projects implemented through top-down and government funding were more efficient than those implemented through top-down and villager funding. For bottom-up projects, there was no conclusion about whether village funding or private developer funding led to shorter project duration. Other determinants, including city, project attributes and initiation year, number of households involved, size of temporary relocation fee, and methods of selecting relocated housing, calculating temporary relocation fee and calculating relocation area influenced project duration ... Read more

This paper aims to investigate theoretical and practical links between applications of digital twin (DT) and heritage facilities management (HFM) in order to identify future applications of DT in HFM through a systematic review of the rapidly expanding DT literature. A systematic literature review strategy was developed based on three research questions: what are (1) the current relationship between ID and HFM, (2) existing gaps between DT and HFM and (3) future trend of applying DT on BHM? The results of the literature review show that first, the studies on adopting DT in the disciplines architecture, engineering, construction and operation (AECO) have been growing in the past few years, especially from 2018 to 2020; second, among the identified papers, a major portion of the literature focuses on investigating DT’s application in maintenance, operation, facilities management and asset management from both the building level and smart city level; third, heritage conservation calls for digital solutions for problems related to performance monitoring and predictive maintenance. The implication of this study is that DT application in HFM is that DT shall be integrated with heritage building information modelling (HBIM) to facilitate efficient data management and HBIM-based mechanism for DT development is needed for future HFM.

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While the performance of sports facilities such as swimming pools is crucial to the health, safety and enjoyment of pool users, little research has been conducted to explore how to analytically evaluate the holistic performance of such facilities from the users' perspective. Even an evaluation framework portraying the key performance attributes of swimming pools is yet to be available. Recognising this research gap, this study aims to adopt a user-centric approach to evaluate the performance of swimming pools and a multi-stage study was initiated. After a thorough literature review, a performance attribute hierarchy for swimming pools was established through a focus group study and then two surveys, covering four swimming pools and 103 pool users interviewed, were conducted in Hong Kong. Analysing the responses using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method illustrates that the building services (i.e. utilitarian) aspect of swimming pools is more important than the architectural counterpart, and survey participants cared more about the performance attributes inside water than those outside. This study's novelty lies in that it adopted the user-centric approach, which can differentiate between the relative importance of different swimming pool components and prioritize resources for their maintenance and management. The evaluation framework as well as the findings of the study provides facilities managers with important benchmark criteria for optimising the performance of these sports facilities. In the long run, this study contributes to enabling the project stakeholders to conduct evidence-based decision making over the life cycle of sport facilities development and management. ... Read more

Purpose: This paper highlights the criteria that affect the success of adaptive reuse strategy as one of the recent strategies which is implemented to regenerate heritage buildings globally. Despite the fact that there is a noticeable improvement in this field, we are still facing projects that have not achieved the desired result of adaptation. Accordingly, the paper seeks to answer the questions what are the criteria that lead to the successful adaptive reuse projects? Or how can we best adapt heritage buildings to assure the success of the conversion process? Design methodology/approach: This study is framed by a systematic literature review of relevant articles published or in press. The methodology is based on using a PRISMA diagram to address the number of articles which are screened in each step of Identification, Screening, Eligibility and Included. First the reviewed articles are selected by applying inclusion criteria in the titles, abstracts and key words and in the next step,selected articles from the first review are ready for the final evalution. Research limitations/implications: The limitations of this study are defined in urban scale and urbanism due to the broad area this research is limited in a building scale. Findings: This paper will provide a category of successfully effective factors in adaptive reuse of heritage buildings. Insight will further facilitate the path of more innovative conservation strategies for design makers, architects and developers. ... Read more

Eco-certification schemes are usually launched with various incentives provided by local governments to facilitate green building development and building energy retrofits. A number of barriers to building energy retrofitting have been identified in previous literature, while the barriers to the eco-certification of existing buildings are under-researched. Drawing on a set of building data retrievable from the BEAM Society and other sources, we carried out an analysis and found the building energy retrofitting, as well as the certification process, were unwelcomed in multi-owned residential buildings. The identified shortfall is put forward from the perspectives of transaction cost theory and agency theory. The findings reveal that high transaction costs incurred during negotiations and coordination among a large number of co-owners within a typical apartment building can outweigh the benefits of retrofitting and eco-certification. Besides, the remuneration structure of third-party property management agents discourages agents from facilitating co-owners to initiate retrofitting. This study provides significant implications for policymakers to understand the concerns of building owners and managers over the decisions and the processes of both the building energy retrofits and eco-certification. The problems and barriers unveiled in this study will facilitate the refining of current energy efficiency policies and related incentives designs. ... Read more

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are quintessentially useful for performance evaluation, but a set of pragmatic KPIs for holistic evaluation of retrofits for commercial buildings is hitherto unavailable. This study was conducted to address this issue. Built upon the findings of a systematic literature review and a focus group meeting in the earlier stages of the study, a questionnaire survey covering 19 KPIs for environmental (embracing energy), economic, health and safety, and users’ perspective evaluations of building retrofits was developed. Data of the survey, collected from facility management (FM) practitioners in Hong Kong, underwent a series of statistical analyses, including Kruskal–Wallis H test, Mann–Whitney U test, and Spearman Rank Correlation. The analysis results revealed the levels of importance of KPIs perceived by different groups of FM practitioners and the rankings of KPIs. Based upon these results, eight KPIs were shortlisted, which are energy savings, payback period, investment cost, actual-to-target ratio of the number of statutory orders removed, actual-to-target ratio of the number of accidents reduced, target indoor air temperature, target indoor air quality (IAQ) class, and target workplane illuminance. These KPIs serve as keystones for further development of an analytic evaluation scheme for commercial building retrofit performance assessment. The methodology of this study can also serve as a reference for similar KPI studies in other research domains ... Read more

Purpose
Triggered by public concerns over office workplace safety during the COVID-19 pandemic, this study sheds light on the office workplace environment and aims to investigate how organisations respond to forces from the external environment (impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic) and how they modify their office workplace management strategically and operationally to suit the stakeholders’ needs and future development in the post COVID-19 period.

Design/methodology/approach
A desktop study was conducted to provide the framework for the in-depth interviews with five corporate real estate (CRE) managers and three workplace consultants. Thematic analysis including coding technique was adopted to analyse the qualitative data.

Findings
The findings show that during the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the intended and implemented office workplace modifications are mainly related to two types of risk control: administrative control and personal protection. At a strategic level, organisations react to the external forces by re-modelling their businesses and working towards re-orienting their CRE strategies, such as portfolio transformation, agile portfolio strategies and redesign of the office workplace, etc.

Originality/value
This is a topical and timely study that presents the general practice of office workplace modification during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the related CRE management (CREM) strategies developed for the new normal. The findings obtained through in-depth interviews have well supported the CREM strategic alignment theory. It is foreseen that office workplace management will encounter other challenges due to uncertainties of the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings of this study provide a practical lens to look at the future changes of office workplace environment.
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Hotel developers incorporate green building design to save on capital and operation cost. Hotel operators adopt green practice to affect tourists’ intention of staying (IoS). This paper recognises the important contribution of green building design and eco-service provision to green hotels. It investigates the internal relationships of tourists’ environmental concern (EC), their perceived importance of green building design (PIGBD) and their IoS in green hotels. A moderating regression analysis was adopted to validate the proposed tourists behavioural pattern based on a survey sample of 161 tourists from Hong Kong. The results reveal tourists’ EC positively affects their IoS, and their PIGBD is proved to be a moderating factor of the EC-IoS relation. It implies that tourists’ IoS in green hotels is influenced by the level of their awareness and perceptions of green building design attributes. Given that green building design is often an omitted element in the previous hospitality literature, this paper highlights its potential role and implications in facilitating sustainable practices in the hospitality industry. Identifying the potential moderating factors of tourists’ EC-IoS relation can assist the development of green marketing strategy, which adds value to the tourism and hospitality industry. From a social interest perspective, it is crucial to raise tourists’ eco-literacy in all the ‘green ends’ including green building design of hotels. ... Read more

Student housing significantly influences the quality and competitiveness of the university education environment. Whereas the traditional post-occupancy evaluations (POEs) of buildings have typically focussed on investigating users' satisfaction, an earlier study developed the gap theory based post-occupancy evaluation (GTbPOE) method, by which both the users' expectation and satisfaction (viz. performance gap) of a university dormitory were investigated. To validate the applicability of the GTbPOE method, further research was undertaken to evaluate the building performance of another dormitory. Using face-to-face interviews, responses of 104 dormitory users were collected, of which the relative importance ratings of six essential aspects (namely: visual comfort, thermal comfort, aural comfort, fire safety, hygiene, and communication via information technology) were analyzed via the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). A series of gap analyses on the users' expectation and satisfaction levels corroborated the existence of the adaptation effect on the users’ perception: that is, the longer the stay, the smaller the performance gap. A comparative analysis on the findings between the two dormitories - one from the earlier study and the other from the present study - further demonstrated the usefulness of the GTbPOE method in benchmarking building performance. Adoption of this method in future POE studies will enable reliable identification of any shortcoming in building performance and hence, can form the basis for improvement measures to augment the performance of buildings within the built environment. ... Read more