The Recent advancements in digital transformation within the Architecture, Engineering, Construction, Owner, and Operator (AECOO) sector emphasize the potential for creating public value through strategic IT implementation, particularly when driven by public clients. Public clients play a pivotal role in driving digital adoption across the AECOO industry, leveraging procurement practices to encourage sustainable and innovative outcomes. Digitalization, exemplified by tools such as Digital Twins (DT) and Building Information Modelling (BIM), offers the means to achieve long-term sustainability goals, including real-time energy monitoring, lifecycle asset management, and circular economy transitions. However, the transition remains complex due to inherent industry fragmentation and limited integration of digital systems, particularly in the Operations and Maintenance (O&M) phases.
While BIM has demonstrated efficiency improvements during the design and construction phases, its benefits are less pronounced in O&M, where information continuity and integration remain challenging. A socio-technical approach, integrating people, processes, and policies, is essential for effective digital adoption, especially to address organizational silos, behavioural barriers, and knowledge gaps that hinder technological integration. Public clients, positioned as agents of change, must adopt tailored, holistic data management strategies that align with life cycle needs and public values. This research focuses on enhancing BIM's role across the AECOO lifecycle by formulating a comprehensive framework to bridge existing gaps between data requirements, project phases, and client expectations.
Through theoretical research and a case study, this study develops a multi-level framework incorporating hierarchical policy alignment, knowledge management, and information exchange protocols to address the “practical-knowledge gap” seen in digital implementations. Findings suggest that a client-led approach with strong social integration mechanisms is crucial for overcoming industry fragmentation and driving sustainable digital transformation in the AECOO sector.

In recent decades, gender inequality has been discussed increasingly in different fields of society. Since long ago, aspects like power dynamics in traditional households, or studies on the human anatomy, have influenced men and women’s place in society. This gender inequality has also impacted how cities have been designed by and for men, although the existing hypothesis is that the needs of men and women in a city differ. Evidence already shows that women feel more unsafe in cities then men, which can be caused by design of urban environments not being fit for women. This leaves the questions what this relation between gender and the built environment actually entails, whether cities are currently gender inclusive, and if not, how urban design can contribute to make them to do so.

This research has found that men and women have different user patterns and perceptions when it comes to their presence in urban environments. This impacts the way they use and perceive the city. In this study, these differences have been translated into design principles that can positively impact women’s use and perception of the urban environment. These design principles were used to analyse the current state of gender inclusivity in urban environments, through the locations of Hillesluis and Zuidwijk, a pre- and post-war neighbourhood in Rotterdam Zuid with a high cultural diversity and a low socio-economic status. The analysis generated a set of spatial elements that either negatively or positively influence a woman’s perception of space. After testing these spatial elements through a survey, the findings were combined with the design principles, to design a proposal on how the current urban environments could be improved to be more gender inclusive. Guided by these end products, a universal framework was created, that can test all urban environments in their gender-inclusivity.

After 2020, the vendor economy has become a hot topic in China. Based on the background of the Chinese government's intention to support the vendor economy, its importance is gradually being emphasized. As an essential component of the informal economy, the vendor economy enhances urban employment and helps the urban poor groups and is an important part of China's urban life and traditional culture. At the same time, it poses increasingly apparent conflicts and problems, such as space abuse and hygiene issues.
This project analyzes the advantages of the vendor economy and the deep reasons for conflict. It proposes a strategy that preserves the benefits and addresses the disadvantages of the vendor economy. The design provides a better business environment for the participants, improves the quality of urban public space, and increases urban vitality while helping low-income people in the city. The research methodology and strategy development process will also provide the basis and inspiration for developing a good vendor economy in Chinese cities.

How can the integral and multifunctional use of public space, subsurface, and buildings—within a densified urban environment—create space and value that contribute to an attractive and future-proof living environment? International interdisciplinary students from Delft University of Technology have outlined various design solutions by tackling this question. Manifest in all cases are the spatial bottlenecks on the level of public space. The hybridization of the urban and architectural program requires a cross-section thinking. The six real-life cases the students studied on are the result of a Flemish-Dutch collaboration of the project Stad × Ruimte: Leuven, Amsterdam, Oostende, Maastricht, Mechelen en Rotterdam.