An Ontology to Represent the Prevention through Design in the Construction Industry from an Architectural Perspective

The Prevention through Design (PtD) concept has been widely used to mitigate potential safety and health hazards and minimize residual risks during the early design phase. Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) prioritizes project-wide collaboration and coordination; therefore, the importance of PtD has been widely recognized. There are still neglected issues pertaining to the implementation of the PtD concept from the architectural perspective. Hence, to fill this research gap, this review was motivated to highlight the ontological framework of PtD practices in the construction industry from the architectural perspective. The study is a thematic review aimed to synthesize the literature from 2011 to 2022 on the PtD concept from an architectural perspective. The study, using ATLAST.ti 8, a keyword search, followed by a filter using inclusion criteria from Scopus, Science Direct, Web of Science databases, and the snowball method, identified and analyzed 93 peer-reviewed journal articles. However, only 41 articles were used in the final review after the inclusion and exclusion process. A thematic review of these 41 articles identified five clusters representing the ontological framework findings, namely (1) designer competency, (2) planning and design decision making, (3) technologies related to building safety, (4) design features and workplace condition, and (5) laws and building legislation. The finding is expected to improve the understanding and implementation of the PtD concept to further develop an architectural safety design framework.