Construction & Built Environment · Research
Research and development for construction — actually delivered.
In February 2025 the Australian Government's Productivity Commission found that construction is among the country's least innovative industries: we complete about half as many homes per hour worked as we did in 1995, and construction labour productivity has fallen 12% while the wider economy rose 49%. Ignition Research works on the other side of that finding — as a registered Research Service Provider (RSP000047), we help building and construction firms turn real technical problems into structured, defensible research, and, where it belongs, into published work. The R&D Tax Incentive angle →
On this page: the productivity gap · what we do · behind a citation · published research · FAQ
Why construction is stuck — and why it is a research problem
The Productivity Commission's report, Housing construction productivity: Can we fix it? (16 February 2025), sets out the pattern in the industry's own data:
- Productivity has gone backwards for 30 years — roughly half as many dwellings completed per hour worked as in 1995, and labour productivity down 12% against a wider economy up 49%.
- Innovation is the lowest of any industry — take-up of digital tools and prefabrication is slow, and the average residential building firm employs fewer than two people, with little room to run research on its own.
- Approvals, not building, are the bottleneck — much of a project's timeline is spent in assessment, coordination and waiting, not on site.
The Commission's own remedies are research-shaped: invest in R&D, spread modern methods through “extension services”, and give reform an empirical basis. That is the gap we work in — not selling a build or a tool, but doing the research and evidence behind adopting one.
What “doing the research” looks like on a build
Our construction clients are working on prefabrication and modular construction, digital twins, automated compliance review, automated estimating and planning research. In each case the uncertainty is the same shape: will this actually hold up under our conditions, our data and our compliance requirements? We frame that question, design the experiment, run it and keep the record — the six steps of our research approach, applied to the built environment.
- Prefab & modular (DfMA) — where performance can't be assumed from standard details.
- Digital twins — reading current state and predicting behaviour, tested against reality.
- Automated compliance & drawing review — turning drawings into checkable evidence, decision kept human.
- Automated estimating & cost intelligence — a novel method built and validated, not a spreadsheet.
- Planning & approvals research — quantifying where time is actually lost.
Check whether your project is research · Start a project assessment · Our registered building-research field
What sits behind a citation
Each listed output can be traced to its method and, where publishable, its data. That traceability is the point — it is what separates evidence from a claim.
- Study framed — the question, the population, and what would count as a negative result, agreed before any analysis.
- Analysis run — carried out with the method documented so it can be repeated.
- Peer or partner review — reviewed by the venue or the partner institution before anything is claimed publicly.
- Published with a citation — a citable reference, with the limits stated in the text rather than omitted.
Published research we helped clients produce
Two peer-reviewed studies, framed and run with our clients and university partners. Client identities are withheld by request; the venues, authors and public bodies are on the record.
Best Paper Award · AUBEA 2025
Unlocking the Building Pipeline in a Housing Crisis: Data Mining South Australia’s Planning Approval Processes
48th Australasian Universities Building Education Association (AUBEA) International Conference, University of Canberra — Best Paper Award, sponsored by MDPI Sustainability.
- A first quantification — data mining traced South Australian planning-approval delays to procedural complexity, not the merits of the application.
- A rigorous method — approval timelines were modelled with a generalised linear mixed-model (GLMM) over mined planning records, separating structural drivers from case-by-case noise.
- Evidence for reform — the analysis gives policymakers an empirical basis for targeting the workflow triggers that add the most time, rather than what is built or where.
Where it applies: The study now underpins the client’s planning-approval feasibility analysis — the same records, method and limits, applied to real projects.
Presented at WSBE26 · Melbourne
AI-Assisted Decision Support for Drawing-Based Residential Compliance Review: Integrating Large Language Models and Computer Vision
WSBE26 — World Sustainable Built Environment Conference 2026, Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC).
- Research question — whether a residential drawing set can be turned into structured, checkable evidence for a compliance decision.
- Method — large language models integrated with computer vision to interpret residential drawings against requirements.
- The boundary — the method reads and structures the drawings; the final compliance decision is kept with a human reviewer.
Where it applies: The study defines how the client’s drawing-based compliance review works — evidence assembled by the system, judgement retained by a person.
The AUBEA study is the basis of Chapter 2 of the Australia Housing Market White Paper (2026), published by RESI, the Australian Residential Construction Institute. It examines 20,000+ residential subdivision planning-consent applications lodged through PlanSA — South Australia's statewide digital planning portal — between January 2022 and June 2025, across 18 Adelaide metropolitan councils. The white paper is published by RESI, not by Ignition Research.
Bring us the uncertainty, not a finished brief
If your team is weighing prefab, a digital twin, automated compliance or a smarter estimating method — and nobody can say yet whether it will hold up — that is exactly where a research pathway starts. A researcher reads your enquiry and replies within two business days.
Start a project assessmentQuestions we get about the research
Where can I read the papers?
Both studies were presented at international peer-reviewed conferences (AUBEA 2025 and WSBE26). The AUBEA study’s findings are also published, in synthesised form, as Chapter 2 of the Australia Housing Market White Paper (2026) on the RESI Knowledge Hub. Proceedings links are added here as they are published; until then, both papers are available on request through our research team.
Do you build the software, or do the research behind it?
We do the research. Ignition Research frames the technical uncertainty, designs the experiment, runs the analysis and keeps the evidence — the work that lets a claim (or a system) stand up to review. We are not a software vendor and we do not sell a build; where a client operates a system, our role is the research and validation behind it, with human decisions kept human.
We do prefab, digital twin, automated compliance or estimating. Is that research?
It can be. Adopting prefabrication/modular methods, a digital twin, automated drawing review or an estimating model is routine when the outcome is known. It becomes research when the outcome is genuinely uncertain under your conditions — and that uncertainty is what can be framed, tested and documented. The R&D Pathway Assessment is the first, low-commitment step to tell which one you have.
Is Ignition Research a registered RSP for construction research?
Yes — Ignition Research is a Registered Research Service Provider (RSP000047), with registered capability spanning the built environment, software, data science and engineering. You can verify the registration on the public RSP register at business.gov.au.
Sources
General information only — not tax, financial or legal advice. Productivity Commission figures are summarised from the cited report and may be updated; confirm them against the original. Research outcomes depend on each project's specific activities and circumstances, and R&D Tax Incentive eligibility is self-assessed — always confirm current rules with the Australian Government (business.gov.au and ato.gov.au) or a registered tax agent. Last reviewed: August 2026.