Design Validation in Construction Project Management Using 3D Printing (2025-07)¶

This paper explores the usefulness of 3D printing in the conceptual stage of creating and validating building designs from the perspective of planning construction project activities. Adequately planning the execution, and the phases of a construction project can be demanding due to the difficulty in assessing the impact of certain design choices on resources and time. This article proposes and tests through a case study a methodology based on multi-criteria analysis to determine the impact of adopting specific technical solutions. The comparison of the initial and revised methods provides a deeper insight into the complexities of project management in the field. This allows for the creation of more detailed recommendations that aid the engineering teams involved in the design, implementation, and commissioning of a building. This is further connected with other supporting technologies and approaches such as digital twins and building information modeling (BIM). When a construction project is approached from the beginning through an integrated digital system, it is possible to limit the number and impact of poor decisions and to enhance efficiency and other key indicators of interest for the contractor and the beneficiary. The proposed mechanisms of intervention can be summed up as a digitally enhanced construction framework.