Keywords: construction space requirements, spatial temporal conflict, 4D CAD, utilization factor, congestion analysis, dynamic space interference.

This paper presents a new modelling methodology for construction space requirements, which attempts to quantify conflict and congestion from a semantic analysis of the two effects. The proposed modelling methodology incorporates multiple construction perspectives, allowing various construction space requirements to be included. The construction space requirements are closely related to the project perspectives of products, processes and resources.

The introduction of a new attribute utilization factor to further describe the utilization of a construction space provides a link between the low-level operation spaces to the high-level activity space. In this way, the space utilization can be defined from the activity viewpoint, while congestion due to utilization can be quantified with respect to low-level operation spaces.

This utilization factor can be decomposed into two different dimensions: spatial and temporal. Spatial utilization provides a quantifiable measure for the intensity on a space imposed by an activity, while temporal utilization is a measure of the actual amount of time required by the operator or equipment in comparison to the activity's operation time. From the ontological analysis viewpoint, the degree of congestion is not merely determined by the overlap between the boundaries of workspaces as applied by many existing analysis tools, but also by the possibility of interference between the operators or equipment associated with the workspace entities. This is often overlooked by the existing models, and is a reason for inconsistencies in the present analysis methodologies.

A dynamic space interference indicator is also developed based upon the considerations of spatial and temporal interferences, as well as the utilization factor. It is intended to be used as an index to indicate how affected an activity is in accommodating time and space constraints due to the other competing activities. It can then be used as a measure of the degree of congestion between dynamic space entities

Finally, a case study involving the refurbishment of an oil refinery column is used to illustrate the application and analysis of the proposed methodology on the planning process in a construction project for improving its constructability.

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