An Integrated Virtual Design and Construction (VDC) Framework for Off-site Construction

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Off-site construction has emerged as an economically viable and environmentally-friendly alternative when compared to the traditional stick-built building construction approach. In off-site construction, building components are designed for manufacture and assembly (DfMA), manufactured off-site, then shipped to the construction site for assembly. To achieve a just-in-time (JIT) offsite construction delivery process, design information needs to be integrated through the supply chain with sound utilization among various digital platforms. The integration of design information also requires the virtual design and construction (VDC) systems to have certain automation capacities to enable information exchange and reduce human components and errors. Emerging state-of-art modeling technologies have provided possibilities for such automation as well as analytical capacities. Based on this, a thorough study of VDC implementation in the context of off-site construction environment is proposed. The following activities will be conducted to achieve this study: (1) complete a holistic literature review of VDC in today's offsite construction industry; (2) develop a framework and data repository structure to accommodate the requirements of off-site construction VDC workflow; (3) incorporate generative design rules using scripting programming language to automate the VDC process. A multi-story precast residential building will be used for methodology implementation and validation.