Building an emergent learning environment for construction health and safety by merging serious games and 4D planning

Abstract

Serious games provide an avenue for people to experience what occurs on a construction site and develop beneficial skills before they enter a live construction site. These tools have traditionally been designed around the assumption of users engaging with preset construction scenarios with the goal of learning specific skills or behaviours that are important when interacting with the site for real. The construction industry has other tools it can exploit to increase the training value of serious games. 4D and 5D planning and visualisation tools and techniques can help expand the horizons of these types of training games. In particular, by merging virtual training environments with a 4D design ethos, the range of potential knowledge the game can impart would be significantly increased. This research paper is exploring how a cross-pollinisation of these two techniques can yield a richer environment for transferring skills and knowledge. This paper explores the creation of a multi-user virtual environment capable of providing health and safety training and orientation to groups of trainees before they step foot on site.