This study investigates why construction innovations like prefabrication and off-site manufacturing in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry face limited market adoption despite their technical benefits, unlike real estate innovations like “Space as a Service” that gain rapid acceptance. It attributes this disparity to value recognition asymmetry, where property valuation is dominated by locational factors, overshadowing built structure attributes such as design and technology. The research proposes that strategically decoupling the built structure from its location can enable independent evaluation and fairer valuation of property, thereby addressing market imbalance and supporting more informed decision-making among property buyers.
A serious board game simulating residential real estate property investment was developed to test this research proposition. Participants act as property investors aiming to maximise their wealth by evaluating and acquiring properties. The game is designed to distinguish investment decisions between coupled and decoupled (representing modular assets) scenarios of location and structure, enabling analysis of how players assess value in each condition. Gameplay sessions and decision-making data were analysed to identify patterns in asset valuation and investment preferences.
Results reveal that when the built structure is decoupled from the location, participants demonstrate greater sensitivity to the attributes of the built structure, considering it independently from the location during property purchase decisions. This shift suggests that the current coupling leads to suboptimal decisions where built structure innovations are underappreciated. The decoupling strategy encourages more balanced valuation, potentially increasing acceptance of construction innovations.
This study provides a novel behavioural simulation-based approach to real estate decision-making and offers evidence for rethinking how construction innovation is assessed. It emphasises integrating real estate market dynamics into the early stages of AEC innovation, design and strategy. The work offers practical implications for design, policy and construction management.
