Construction 4.0, Industry 4.0, and building information modeling (BIM) for sustainable building development within the smart city

At present, the smart city offers the most desired state of urban development, encompassing, as it does, the concept of sustainable development. The creation of a smart city is closely associated with upgrading the construction industry to encompass many emerging concepts and technologies, such as Construction 4.0, with its roots in Industry 4.0, and the deployment of building information modeling (BIM) as an essential tool for the construction industry. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the current state of the art and development trajectory of the multidisciplinary integration of Construction 4.0, Industry 4.0, BIM, and sustainable construction in the context of the smart city. It is the first attempt in the literature to use both macro-quantitative analysis and micro-qualitative analysis methods to investigate this multidisciplinary research topic. By using the visual bibliometric tool, VOSviewer, and based on macro keyword co-occurrence, this paper is the first to reveal the five keyword-constructed schemes, research hotspots, and development trends of the smart city, Construction 4.0, Industry 4.0, BIM, and sustainable construction, from 2014 to 2021 (a period of eight years). Additionally, the top 11 productive subject areas have been identified with the help of VOSviewer software keyword-clustering analysis and application. Furthermore, the whole-building life cycle is considered as an aid to identifying research gaps and trends, providing suggestions for future research with the assistance of an upgraded version of BIM, namely, city information modeling (CIM) and the future integration of Industry 5.0 and Construction 5.0, or even of Industry Metaverse with Construction Metaverse.