Exploring Construction 5.0 Paradigms in the AEC Sector of New Zealand: Conceptual Foundations and Implications for Practice

The increasing emphasis on integrating technological advancements with human-centered and sustainable practices highlights the paradigm shift toward Construction 5.0 (C5.0) in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) sector. Despite its potential, investigations about C5.0’s key pillars, practical implications, and adoption challenges remain limited, with much existing research focusing on conceptual frameworks or literature reviews. This study addresses these gaps through an empirical investigation, incorporating insights from a focus group of 17 industry practitioners to explore C5.0’s key pillars, core features, technological enablers, and implications. The findings highlight three core features of C5.0: human-centricity, sustainability-driven practices, and collaborative intelligence. Seventeen emerging digital technologies were identified as critical enablers of C5.0, with artificial intelligence/machine learning, digital twins, and collaborative robots ranked as the most impactful technologies. These technologies support 31 application domains and enable AEC organizations to achieve enhanced productivity, innovation, sustainability, worker safety and well-being, and competitive advantage. Under the enhanced sustainability category, improved compliance with environmental regulations and increased capacity to meet client demands for sustainable practices were emphasized as key outcomes. This study contributes both theoretically and practically to the understanding of C5.0. Theoretically, it defines the key pillars, core features, and technological enablers of C5.0, bridging gaps in the existing literature and advancing the academic discourse on the evolution to C5.0. Practically, it offers a roadmap for integrating critical technologies with human-centered and sustainability goals, enabling AEC practitioners to prioritize investments effectively. Future research should expand empirical studies to conduct a cost-benefit evaluation of C5.0 technologies and explore C5.0’s impact on project management methodologies, stakeholder collaboration, and organizational strategy development.