Esra Kurul | Oxford Brookes University (original) (raw)

Papers by Esra Kurul

Mimarlık Fakültesi dergisi, Dec 15, 2009

Architectural Engineering and Design Management, Jun 10, 2013

The UK Built Environment Sector faces a number of important challenges such as reducing carbon em... more The UK Built Environment Sector faces a number of important challenges such as reducing carbon emissions and cost. New knowledge should be created to develop new practices, competences and capabilities to overcome these challenges. Studies that characterise knowledge creation as a transformation process through the networks of social relationships and intra-organisational teams are needed to understand, and thus improve such processes in project environments. Structural, relational and cognitive dimensions of Social Capital influence the utilisation of knowledge creation opportunities inherent in project networks. Hence, Social Capital provides the essential infrastructure for knowledge creation. A fresh approach to operationalising the concept of SC through social network analysis and content analysis is thus required. This paper develops and explores the conceptual relationships between knowledge creation and social capital in the context of two live building projects. There are two main conclusions. First, structural network indices are indicators of knowledge creation opportunities but they should be considered in conjunction with the relational and cognitive dimensions to determine whether and how opportunities are being utilised. Second, project communication strategies should be designed to enable actors in structurally advantageous positions for knowledge creation to utilise these opportunities.

Construction Research Congress, 2003

Managing knowledge is becoming more and more important within the construction industry because i... more Managing knowledge is becoming more and more important within the construction industry because it is considered critical for the competitiveness of a construction firm. Managing knowledge is particularly important to the construction industry due to the unique characteristics of its ...

Energies

Renewable, decentralised, and citizen-centred energy paradigms have emerged as feasible and relia... more Renewable, decentralised, and citizen-centred energy paradigms have emerged as feasible and reliable alternatives to the traditional centralised fossil-based infrastructure. In this scenario, energy storage systems (ESSs) are enabling technologies to boost the stability and flexibility of the power grid in the short-to-medium term, allowing local communities to envision energy autonomy in the medium term. Traditionally, ESSs have been installed in individual households for their own benefit. However, new storage paradigms focusing on building clusters and district scale have illustrated the need to revise the role of ESSs and to pay close attention to the social factors, while devising implementation strategies for scaling up these new energy infrastructural models. This study reviews recent research trends (2021–2023), proposing three integrated social pillars for the implementation of ESSs: (i) multi-dimensional geographical and institutional scales of ESSs; (ii) social components...

2023 Joint International Conference on Digital Arts, Media and Technology with ECTI Northern Section Conference on Electrical, Electronics, Computer and Telecommunications Engineering (ECTI DAMT & NCON)

One of the main barriers preventing construction industry worldwide shifting towards delivering s... more One of the main barriers preventing construction industry worldwide shifting towards delivering sustainable buildings as standard is the transfer of knowledge on how to build sustainably. This is partly because still only a small number of professionals possess the specialised knowledge and experience to design, build and operate sustainable buildings successfully. Also, there is a lack of understanding on how knowledge can be transferred and widely adopted between all relevant professionals and operatives, despite the significance of this transfer in the delivery of sustainable buildings. This results in a gap between the design performance and the actual building performance in use. This gap needs to be closed in order to secure a certain quality of sustainable buildings. Therefore this paper reviews the relevant literature on sustainable construction, then discusses its benefits and main barriers, and concludes by providing a basic understanding on the possibilities to enhance th...

KnE Social Sciences, 2019

Since the 1990s, several studies have focused on the concept of Transformative Pedagogy as a stra... more Since the 1990s, several studies have focused on the concept of Transformative Pedagogy as a strategy to foster inter-disciplinary abilities to rise to the challenge of sustainable development. Although the impact of these transformative pedagogies is widely recognized, their integration in traditional educational programmes is often neglected, speciﬁcally in programmes that develop future practitioners in the built environment(BE).In this realm,research has promoted the integration across disciplines as key element to build locally appropriate technological solutions to deal with energy issues that building and urban scales. However,the lack of inter-disciplinary training and tools necessary to support the understanding of complex problems within an inter-disciplinary context has remained an issue. This project deals with this lacuna by developing an innovative learning platform for knowledge integration in Energy Retroﬁt(ER).This paper starts with an overview of the methodological...

The purpose of this paper, which reports work that has been undertaken as part of a H2020<br&g... more The purpose of this paper, which reports work that has been undertaken as part of a H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie project, is to examine the transdisciplinary (multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary) practices in energy retrofit in the UK. Energy retrofit is defined as the refurbishment of existing buildings to reduce their energy demand. Currently, it is recognized as a relevant strategy to improve the environmental and energy qualities of buildings and cities. Nevertheless, its full potential cannot, at present, be exploited due to lack of integration among disciplines. This disintegration is considered to be one of the key reasons behind the performance gap between the design aspirations and performance in use. A literature review was conducted through a qualitative approach to evaluate the stateof- the-art in transdisciplinary practices and to identify emerging lines of inquiry in Energy&lt...

Journal of Construction in Developing Countries

International joint ventures (IJVs) are a specific type of strategic alliance between contractors... more International joint ventures (IJVs) are a specific type of strategic alliance between contractors from developed and developing countries and have been increasingly used. IJVs between multinational organisations are considered a successful strategy to benefit from international market opportunities in the globalised world. International construction joint ventures (ICJVs) have become of significant interest as the global construction market continues to be integrated into the more competitive business environment. The aim of this article is to uncover the knowledge transfer (KT) practices in an ICJV using social network analysis (SNA). The case presented here is the pilot study. A total of 19 questionnaire surveys were undertaken with selected team members. UCINET 6.0, an SNA package, was used to analyse the collected data and NetDraw was used to visualise the sociogram. This article first presents the actors' attributes; then, social network characteristics, which consist of ne...

This Roadmap is developed for a challenging Global environment where fundamental paradigms such a... more This Roadmap is developed for a challenging Global environment where fundamental paradigms such as data generation and analysis, are shifting at a seismic rate, while change in Construction Industries across the Globe is, in the main, confined to large-scale projects and slow. Against this background, the authors set out to also give a 'voice' to small-to-mediumscale projects through which the construction output Worldwide is delivered. Hence, project scale was one of the key considerations throughout this Roadmap. Moreover, the authors conceptualized data integration by taking the realities of 'doing business' in construction into consideration. The emergent framework facilitates the discussion of knowledge and data integration at organisational, team, operational and technical levels across key project phases. This approach recognizes that business is done through projects but change can only come about if appropriate organizational structures and processes are put in place. Last, but not least, the authors strived to ensure that data integration was not considered solely from a technical perspective. Organisational, team and individual aspects of data integration were integrated in the research framework. Through our work the individual's willingness to collaborate emerged as a critical driver for high levels of integration, while our survey did identify "Reluctance to work across professional boundaries" as a major barrier to integration. Hence, we conclude that research on integration should pay due attention to the individual.

The emergence of BIM in the construction industry has come with promises of improving efficiency ... more The emergence of BIM in the construction industry has come with promises of improving efficiency in project delivery and asset management. BIM concerns the digitization of the building project by depending on information technology capabilities already achieved in various professional domains associated with different stages of the building life cycle. While the utilisation of BIM in the various professional domains and project stages is increasing, research suggests that the building operation and management stage is being left behind. Exploring BIM applications that encompass the building operation are therefore important to improve efficiency during use and coordination with other stages in the project life cycle. As such a framework for utilizing feedback loops on building energy consumption to inform and improve design and facility management in a BIM environment is proposed. In this paper, the authors present the prototype from the implementation of the framework which is interfaced with a BIM-enabled tool. The paper concludes that the framework is useful in contributing to bridging existing gaps between the design, construction and operation phases of a building's life-cycle.

H2020 MCSA IF 2016, Technical Report, Deliverable 1.1

Building Information Modelling has been hailed as a panacea which will overcome the endemic fragm... more Building Information Modelling has been hailed as a panacea which will overcome the endemic fragmentation and collaboration issues in the UK Construction Industry. The Government’s target to make BIM mandatory for all public projects from April 2016, and its roadmap to Level 3 BIM are extensively discussed in the literature. It is now clear that a number of large main contracting companies such as the Kier Group, Laing O’Rourke have been positioning themselves as the market leaders in the delivery of projects using BIM. Despite such developments, the Government’s push and the general desire within the industry to make collaboration happen through BIM, industrial experience points to a number of important issues which can only be resolved by changing the way building projects are developed and delivered; and the way facilities are managed. Such changes would help close the performance gap by establishing feedback loops between operations, construction and design stages. This paper re...

Summary As a modern public procurement system, the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) was establish... more Summary As a modern public procurement system, the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) was established in 1990s and rapidly developed during the last ten years. It is now seen as an essential item in delivering public services in the UK. PFI changes the conventional method of delivering estate facilities to concentrating in supplying public services. This change shows that PFI has the responsibility to take care of the output performance in a long-term (say 30 years) contract rather than a short-term construction period. Sustainable construction is a new concept and now widely accepted by the construction industry. However it is not yet implemented widely in practice. In order to motivate sustainable construction, the UK government has the responsibility to lead this revolution. Meanwhile, PFI has been seen as one of the potential methods to deliver sustainable construction by the government. Is PFI a good mechanism for this transition? Or is PFI industry willing for this challenge? Ba...

Techne. Journal of Technology for Architecture and Environment, 2018

European Policies consider a multitude of Low Carbon Technologies to transform cities to Low Carb... more European Policies consider a multitude of Low Carbon Technologies to transform cities to Low Carbon Cities. Some of these technologies can form distributed systems. These are new forms of Energy Networks which can contribute to reducing the vulnerability and homogenization of urban patterns as they evolve to become part of the urban infrastructure. This evolution process also involves computerizing elements of the infrastructure, and thus relates to the Smart City concept. In this sense, a Distributed and Renewable energy system becomes interactive promoting a set of novel system properties. Following a qualitative approach, this paper presents an innovative conceptual framework in order to establish, communicate and disseminate these new system properties.

‘International Joint Ventures’ (IJVs), which are a specific type of strategic alliance between co... more ‘International Joint Ventures’ (IJVs), which are a specific type of strategic alliance between contractors from developed and developing countries, have been increasingly used. IJVs between multinational organisations are considered to be a successful strategy in order to benefit from international market opportunities in the globalised world. International Construction Joint Ventures (ICJVs) have become of significant interest as the global construction market continues to be integrated into the more competitive business environment. The aim of this paper, which is part of a Ph.D. study, is to uncover the knowledge transfer practices in an ICJV using Social Network Analysis (SNA). The case presented here is the pilot study. A total of 19 questionnaire surveys were undertaken with selected team members. UCINET 6.0, an SNA package, was used to analyse the collected data. NetDraw was used to visualise the sociogram. This paper first presents the Actors’ Attributes Then, Social Network Characteristics that consist of Network Structure, Network Density and Degree of Centrality, and Cliques of actors are presented. This analysis will be used to identify the key actors that influence the knowledge transfer processes in this pilot case study.

International Journal of Innovation, Management and Technology, 2020

In recent years, companies around the world are trying to expand internationally through collabor... more In recent years, companies around the world are trying to expand internationally through collaborative agreements. 'International Construction Joint Ventures' (ICJVs) have become of significant interest as the global construction market continues to be integrated into a more competitive business environment. Moreover, ICJVs can be a mechanism for creating, transferring and improving knowledge and skills between partners. Knowledge creation has also been recognized as the successful mechanism of creating knowledge between local and foreign partners. Therefore, local partners who wished to enter into the emerging market needed to quickly develop the required resources. Thus, it is especially important to understand how new knowledge in ICJV projects can be transferred and adopted. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate and characterise the knowledge creation process in ICJV projects and explore to what extent projects facilitate the process. A case study approach is adopted using three ICJV projects. As a result, this research provides the establishment of specific knowledge creation processes through an empirical investigation of ICJV projects in Thailand.

Mimarlık Fakültesi dergisi, Dec 15, 2009

Architectural Engineering and Design Management, Jun 10, 2013

Construction Research Congress, 2003

Energies

KnE Social Sciences, 2019

Journal of Construction in Developing Countries

H2020 MCSA IF 2016, Technical Report, Deliverable 1.1

Techne. Journal of Technology for Architecture and Environment, 2018

International Journal of Innovation, Management and Technology, 2020

This is can open call for case studies. I am co-authoring a book on integration within the built ... more This is can open call for case studies. I am co-authoring a book on integration within the built environment sector. This publication is conceived as a vision statement for rising up to Global Challenges such as design for an ageing population, while dealing with the persistent industry issues such as fragmentation, low levels of innovation and productivity; and skills shortages.
Alternative business models that transcend the existing organisational and contractual boundaries, can facilitate this integration. The book will include demonstration projects where information and knowledge has been integrated through such alternative models, which may or may not have been formalised. This is an open call for case studies of ‘integrated design & delivery (IDD)’ in small-to-medium-scale housing, building and infrastructure projects in your locality. This integration could have happened at any of the levels or stages in the project life-cycle. Therefore, projects where only partial integration was achieved are also welcome.
Please send me (ekurul@brookes.ac.uk) a short paragraph (200-300 words) describing the project, and what data and information integration has been achieved. If this case study has already been published, please send us either the publication or its full-reference.

Please do get in touch if you have any questions about this call.