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Global concerns toward environmental issues have induced growing demand for new approaches in the construction because of its considerable impact on the environment and use of natural resources. Through using construction sustainability tools, methods and techniques, a greener design can be applied during various building phases. In this connection, it is argued that the analytical and integrated models applied by Building Information Modelling (BIM) may also facilitate this process to be performed more efficiently. BIM and construction sustainability are quite different initiatives, but both have received much attention in recent years in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry. A rigorous analysis of the interactions between them implies that a synergy exists which, if properly it is understood that can be helpful to reduce the environmental impacts of the AEC industry. A BIM-based design model can contribute to sustainability through its three main dimensions which are environmental, economic and social. In this paper, by reviewing the existing literature on BIM and construction sustainability and using a matrix to analyze construction sustainability dimensions and BIM functionalities a number of interactions have been discussed. It can be concluded that despite there are many improvements in implementation of BIM in environmental and economic aspects of sustainability, its potential impact on social dimension has not been explicitly explored hence further studies need to be undertaken in this area.

Considering the organized complexity of the city problems, the study tends to understand the process of urban transformation concerning the relation between social and spatial practices in the public places. Thus, the study conducts a comparative syntactic analysis of the urban public spaces, within the past five decades, along with the social exploration in order to understand the process of continuity and change in the historic walled city of Naein, located in the central part of Iran. The interconnections of the people and the hierarchical structure of urban public spaces have led to a considerable spatial configuration in the walled city. Adopting qualitative and quantitative approaches, the study implements the combinational research methods including the descriptive-analytical, comparative simulation, and logical reasoning methods in the case study of Naein. Furthermore, the study uses direct observation, face-to-face interview, questionnaire, documentation, and desk study. Firstly, the paper tends to explore the social attributes of the urban public spaces in the walled city of Naein. Secondly, the study implements a comparative syntactic analysis of the integration, connectivity, and depth factor through a simulation using space syntax approach. In order to understand the process of continuity and change in a comparative study of the sociospatial relations, in the urban public spaces of the case study, the results of the paper provide a descriptive exploration of the urban transformation by reading the syntactic maps in relation to the social attributes of the case study.