Integration, Isolation and IT Education for an improved Architecture Engineering and Construction (AEC) Industry

This paper concerns the IT Education of Architecture Engineering and Construction (AEC) professionals. It reflects on the relationship between these professionals and how the AEC Industry should change for the better of all stakeholders. These changes include a greater and improved use of IT, but the implementation of such changes has been disappointingly slow. Central to the associated complications are the difficulties in integrating a variety of people, processes and technologies. The creation of separate professional groupings within the AEC Industry over the past centuries and the associated ‘traditional’ working processes has had some benefits, but it has hindered integration. The majority of AEC education, including that relating to IT and particularly at undergraduate level, continues to be carried out in isolation. The discussions in this paper include reference to the author’s personal experience on interdisciplinary programmes and in the activities of the Construction IT Alliance (CITA). It concludes that if the AEC Industry is to make faster progress towards harnessing the true potential of IT, the education of the different professionals at all levels should be carried out in a more proactive and integrated manner.