Domain News

Please click the link to view the final technical report.

BuildingSMART, the AEC industry’s digital transformation leader, has taken a significant step towards enhancing collaboration and interoperability. Their groundbreaking ‘DocumentsAPI’ has been submitted as a candidate standard to the standards committee. This milestone brings us closer to a future where seamless information exchange and streamlined workflows become the norm.

The DocumentsAPI addresses the challenges faced in sharing project documentation effectively. By providing a standardized framework, it has the potential to revolutionize workflows, reduce errors, and improve project delivery times. If approved, this API will empower professionals to connect diverse software tools, fostering transparency and efficiency throughout the project lifecycle.

BuildingSMART has requested the Standards Committee to review, ensuring the DocumentsAPI aligns with industry needs. This submission underscores the commitment to driving the industry’s digital transformation on multiple levels.

Voting closes on 22nd September 2023.

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buildingSMART’s Information Delivery Specification (IDS) has been approved as a candidate standard, marking a crucial stride for the architecture, engineering, construction, and operations (AECO) sector.

buildingSMART, a nonprofit focused on transforming the AECO sector through open digital information flows, proposed the IDS as a solution to standardize the exchange of building information management (BIM) data in construction projects.

The IDS aims to enhance interoperability between digital tools and platforms, fostering efficiency and accuracy throughout built assets’ lifecycle. Its approval signifies its readiness for more extensive real-world testing and evaluation.

The IDS candidate standard provides protocols for sharing and using BIM data, facilitating collaboration among industry stakeholders. It ensures that different digital tools and platforms can communicate using a common language, allowing seamless data flow across various applications.

This milestone comes at a pivotal moment as the AECO industry navigates the complexities of digital transformation. The IDS, as a candidate standard, could streamline digital workflows in construction, leading to time and cost savings.

As the IDS moves into the next stage of its journey, the feedback from stakeholders will be crucial in refining the standard. If all goes as planned, the IDS could be confirmed as an international standard within the next year, significantly transforming data sharing within the AECO industry.

The approval of the IDS as a candidate standard not only propels the AECO industry closer to digital maturity but also reaffirms buildingSMART’s leading role in this critical transformation.

The Standards Committee feedback and results can be viewed using the following link.

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Tristan McDonnell served for many years on the buildingSMART International Infrastructure Room. We discuss this as well as his responsibilities being a Director at ARUP. We recall the experiences developing openBIM standards for infrastructure and the positive impact that IFC 4.3 is going to have on the industry. We also cover the importance of aligning to the bSI Strategic plan and the role this community has with industry thought leadership. And Tristan shares his experiences of selecting, then applying, robust sustainability solutions to an aging home.

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Alex Plenty has recently been elected to the buildingSMART International Building Domain Steering Committee. He discusses how openBIM standards are needed to improve buildings and infrastructure from the perspective of a new generation of digitally enabled industry leaders. We cover the responsibilities of tackling carbon reduction through better ways of working enabled by digital data sharing and the challenges of making decisions about how to maintain our elderly homes. He’s looking forward to promoting new projects at buildingSMART and bringing more people together to collaborate on delivery.

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A report highlighting that there is a need for the Nordic public owners in infrastructure to agree on common guidelines and levels for information in digital models. This report will be of high interest to clients in other regions.

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Marc Goldman of Esri, discusses his election to the buildingSMART International Infrastructure Room, how BIM and GIS standards are going to reshape the future of the building and infrastructure industry, the emergence of digital twins and their real world benefits plus some insights into his personal life.

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The Airport Entities Project team is looking for Airport BIM experts to take part in some industry surveys to help identify and map airport specific objects.

This is in connection with: Security Systems & Passenger Control, NAVAID & Meteorological Equipment, Terminal and Civil – Airfields.

If you have any information that could help us, please complete our 4 surveys.

The surveys are available in:

and coming soon in Français, Ελληνικά and Italiano.

The deadline to complete the surveys is 30th August 2023.

The American Concrete Institute have produced a user guide on how to use IFC in the exchange of reinforcement models. ACI have been working with the Building Room steering committee and the UCM team to make this available for the wider bSI community. Thanks to ACI and to all involved in this initiative.

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London, U.K. – March 15, 2023 – London, – buildingSMART International (bSI) is delighted to announce that the annual openBIM® Awards Program is open. Registration opens on March 15, 2023.

Since its launch, the buildingSMART Awards Program has continued to grow, with many submissions received worldwide. It was also the first time in three years that the Awards program was held at an International Standards Summit in Montreal. A report of the winners for 2022 can be found here.

There are some new additions to the program, including more definition around Sustainability Excellence, which includes the demonstration of circular economy, low carbon strategies, energy management, renewables, sustainable materials, and other green practices. There is also a new ROI and Business Value survey that aims to showcase some of the direct benefits and impact of standards and services in the projects.

Aidan Mercer, Marking Director, buildingSMART International, said, “the Awards Program has become such a feature of our activities at bSI, and we always look forward to learning more about some of the projects submitted. It is a place where we see best practice, technical excellence, and applied use of standards and services against our benchmarking. The program always evolves, and 2023 will also no doubt be an exciting year for awards which will culminate in the finalists presenting at the International Standards Summit in Lillestrøm, 18-21 September 2023″.

For more information about the program, please visit the dedicated web page.

About buildingSMART International

buildingSMART International is a vendor-neutral and not for profit body that leads the development of open digital information flows across the built asset economy. Its mission is to proactively support industry participants who want to develop open standards for planning, design, procurement, assembly and operation of buildings and infrastructure worldwide. It provides the international network plus the necessary technical and process support. Its members, who range from across the built environment spectrum, collaborate under the buildingSMART organization. buildingSMART is engaged with other international standards bodies such as ISO, the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) and the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). Its core Industry Foundation Class (IFC) standards achieved ISO approval in 2012. Further information is available on the Internet at www.buildingsmart.org.

About buildingSMART International

buildingSMART International is a vendor-neutral and not for profit body that leads the development of open digital information flows across the built asset industry. Its mission is to proactively support industry participants who want to develop open standards for planning, design, procurement, assembly and operation of buildings and infrastructure worldwide. It provides the international network plus the necessary technical and process support. Its members, who range from across the built environment spectrum, collaborate under the buildingSMART organization. buildingSMART is engaged with other international standards bodies such as ISO, the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) and the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). Its core Industry Foundation Class (IFC) standards achieved ISO approval in 2012.

The Information Delivery Specification (IDS) Candidate Standard has been issued to the Standards Committee for their review and feedback. The vote closes Friday 2nd June 2023. The IDS is a standard for defining information requirements in a way that is easily read by humans and interpreted by computers. This standard helps people in the built asset industry to better define their exchange requirements and adds clarity amongst various stakeholders. It ensures asset owners can specify accurately what they want and allows project participants with a better insight into what they need to deliver. It adds certainty and clarity when used in combination with other standards and services. With IDS, users can demand and verify the use of properties (including quantities and attributes), materials, classifications, entity types, and object dependency (partOf). As of now, IDS does not have the capability to define the details of geometry.

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Please follow the link to view the document.

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The OMA project team – part of the wider project on Fire Safety Engineering – has published an Industry Report on use cases relating to openBIM and OMA. Please click the link to read the report.

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Please click the link to view the Ports and Waterways information in the Use Case Management (UCM) system.

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Following several years work and review of the final documentation by Infrastucture Room SC and in accordance with the bSI Process, the project team have provided the final deliverables of the project. The relevant objects and properties have already been incorporated into IFC4.3; the full standards including a slide deck that explains the work in detail are available in box if you click the link.

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The PRSC has met in-person in Brussels for a 2 day workshop. The content included presentations from Product Manufacturer guests including Schindler, Site-Log and Stora Enso. The output will help shape the Product Room Roadmap and the priorities for the next 5 years. Further input was provided at the Montreal bSI Summit in October 2022 when the draft Roadmap themes were discussed further in workshop format. PRSC intend to review further in January 2023 with a view to providing an update at the Rome bSI Summit in March 2023. Watch this space.

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Building Room are pleased to annouce the publication of a technical report providing an overview of requirements for developing IDMs and corresponding data exchange specifications between building information modelling and building energy modelling, simulation, and analysis throughout a project lifecycle. Click the link to view the report.

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The Standards Committee feedback and results can be viewed using the following link.

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Guidance for Regulators on using openBIM Activity Proposal is unanimously endorsed. The SC feedback and results for the Regulatory Information Requirements Activity Proposal can be viewed using the following link.

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Voting is underway by the bSI Standards Committee on this Detailed Project Plan by the Railway Room. Please read the proposal at the link below. Please contact your Standards Committee representative to ensure your opinions are represented.

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Voting is underway by the bSI Standards Committee on this activity proposal by the Regulatory Room. Please read the proposal at the link below. Please contact your Standards Committee representative to ensure your opinions are represented.

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The Building Room invites you to review the call for for sponsorship and participation for the Fire Safety Engineering project. This project is linked to that for Occupant Movement Analysis which has been running for some time. The aim is to identify new project members who can fund the development activities by sponsoring as stakeholders. Please click the link to read more

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The Building Room invites you to review the latest call for participation for the Steel Construction MVD activity. The aim is to identify additional members who would like to work on this project including those who can fund the development activities by sponsoring as stakeholders. Please click the link to read more.

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The Regulatory Room has published a report of a outcomes of the survey which set out to discover and analyse the general perception of openBIM adoption in the compliance processes of both regulators and the regulated industry. The final goal of the assessment was to find the best messages and communications channels to improve the engagement needed to foster openBIM adoption in regulatory processes. Please follow the link to read the report.

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These are the deliverables of the first phase, which will be used as a basis for the second phase. To view the documents in the UCM system please use the following links: 1. Circulation Analysis – International https://ucm.buildingsmart.org/use-case-details/2551/en  Evacuation Analysis – International https://ucm.buildingsmart.org/use-case-details/2424/en  Evacuation Analysis – RIBA https://ucm.buildingsmart.org/use-case-details/2436/en

The Facility Management Handover – Equipment Maintenance (FMH-EM) project has been progressing with an initial phase where the Technical Team is developing a draft specification of technical requirements for a data exchange based on IFC4.3. These requirements consist of general framework requirements for this and any other FM Handover data exchanges and are currently being reviewed by the IFC4.3 Delivery Program Board and bSI Technical Director with the intention of making any necessary revisions to the schema before final release. The project is still looking for FM stakeholder sponsors to participate and fund the remainder of the project. Enquiries can be made to jwouellette@gmail.com or by clicking the link for our project webpage and completing the Project Participation form.

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Tiina’s career in civil engineering includes the Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency and is now an InfraBIM specialist with Ramboll. She is also the chair of buildingSMART International’s Infrastructure program. Hear Tiina recount her experiences of delivering digital transformation in the construction industry and explore the benefits of data sharing on complex projects, limitations still to be overcome, and a future with digital twins.

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The Regulatory Room Steering Committee (RRSC) election process is underway. Candidate Nomination emails have been sent to your chapter or Member representative. This election is to fill the four vacancies that exist in the RRSC. See the bSI Process Addendum 1 for details of a Steering Committee member’s responsibilities. If you wish to put forward a candidate for the election, please provide the name and contact details of your nominated person to regulatory@buildingsmart.org

The IFC 4.3 Infra and Rail Extension Deployment Production Standard has been endorsed by the SCE. The SC feedback and results can be viewed using the following link.

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Following positive feedback and voting by the Standards Committee, the IFC4Precast standard has been endorsed by the SCE. Follow the link to view the IDM.

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Following SC review and endorsement, the FM and openBIM project team are in the process of formally launching their project. Expert Group members who are particpating in the creation of use-cases/whitepapers have been contacted to start their work.

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The IFC 4.3 Infra Extension Deployment project and the IFC Rail Project teams are asking the Standards Committee to consider and approve as a Production Standard the output from their coordinated projects. Voting closes on 20th October 2021. These Projects have harmonized and validated IFC 4.3 for Roads, Railways, Bridges, Earthworks, Geotechnics, Ports & Waterways. This will deliver IFC 4.3 as an official buildingSMART production standard which will be made available to implement and use by the industry at large. The two main objectives of these projects are: 1. Validation of the Production Standard schema in accordance with the bSI Process based on test-cases implemented and tested in collaboration with software vendors. 2. Harmonization of taxonomies and property set definitions across the domains (Road, Rail, Bridge, Ports & Waterways). Both objectives serve the same common goal: to deliver a refined IFC schema and documentation with harmonized property sets to be submitted to bSI for SC voting to become a Production Standard.

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The SC feedback and results for the Occupants Movement Analysis Detailed Project Plan can be viewed using the following link.

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The SC feedback and results for the Spatial Zone Requirements Technical Report Proposal can be viewed using the following link.

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FM and openBIM Standard Proposal has been issued to the Standards Committee for their review and feedback. Voting closes on 31st August 2021.

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The SC feedback and results for the Steel Construction IDM/MVD Activity Proposal can be viewed using the following link.

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The SC feedback and results for the Regulatory Information Requirements Activity Proposal can be viewed using the following link.

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The openCDE Documents API Detailed Project Plan (DPP) has now been reviewed and endorsed unanimously by the Standards Committee. You can find the DPP by visiting https://app.box.com/s/n1qe0p5nrgsj8pvlgey8wh15fv2n58ep. The SC feedback and results can be viewed using the following link.

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The pioneering effort to extend IFC into the domain of Infrastructure is now nearing completion. The Infra Extension project seeks to harmonise and validate IFC 4.3 for Roads, Bridges, Earthworks, Geotechnics, Ports & Waterways. There is close collaboration with a similar effort within the IFC Rail Project and both Projects are working hard to deliver IFC 4.3 as an official buildingSMART production standard which will be made available to implement and use by the industry at large. On June 23rd at 14:00 CEST the Project Team will present the results of the endeavour to validate IFC4.3 before its general publication and implementation. As part of the buildingSMART standards process, we seek to ensure a broad international consensus for our development work is maintained. As experts in your field, this is an opportunity to analyse and critique our work. Following this event, we will analyse your feedback and use it to help us proceed with the next stage in the approvals process to have IFC4.3 published as an official buildingSMART production standard. Click the link to register!

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The FM and openBIM project team are close to finalising their detailed project plan. Please follow the link to review the current version. The objectives of the project are: 1. Representing the FM industry in developing openBIM and the ecosystem of digital twins. 2. Deliver an FMIR and FMIDM/H standard based on the ISO41000 series that will make automation of handover/transfer and revision of data more accessible for FM. 3. Deliver, based on 2., an FMCDE standard that will increase real estate value by 2%, bring down FM failure costs by 5% and simplify FM services processes.

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The Production Standard proposal for the IFC4 Precast project has been issued to the SC for their review and feedback. The documentation takes the form of an Information Delivery Manual for prefabricated concrete.

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Voting is underway by the bSI Standards Committee on this technical report proposal. This project will deliver a documentation that includes a list of the potential use cases of IfcSpatialZone and a guideline to encourage Software vendors to implement functions that can facilitate the use of ifcSpatialZones in their BIM author tools. This technical report proposal has been sent to the Standards Committee for vote. Please contact your SC representative to ensure your opinions are represented.

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Voting is underway by the bSI Standards Committee on this activity proposal. This project will deliver an openBIM® standard to ensure that the regulatory information requirements, common across many jurisdictions, have an appropriate representation in IFC, whilst leaving jurisdictions free to add local information requirements and implement their own checklists and rules. This standard proposal has been sent to the Standards Committee for consultation. Please contact your SC representative to ensure your opinions are represented.

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The buildingSMART Regulatory Room recently hosted the first webinar in a series of ‘Open House’ sessions, planned to occur in-between the biannual buildingSMART Summits.

‘Open House’ showcases the work of the Regulatory Room and picks up particular themes, starting with ‘The Role of Open Standards for Regulators’ to introduce the benefits and opportunities that digitalisation can offer to Regulatory Agencies. Attendees were encouraged to question and challenge the speakers.

Are you an Airport looking to actively engage in developing international standards by helping to set and develop the requirements? Please email contact@buildingsmart.org to get involved

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Please review the report by clicking the link.

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The Room Steering Committee elections are underway and the voting forms have been sent to your member representatives. Be sure to tell them which of these candidates you wish them to vote for. There are six places. See the bSI Process Addendum 1 for details of a Steering Committee member’s responsibilities. Any questions please contact richard.kelly@buildingsmart.org

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This working draft paper identifies mapping requirements for the bSI Facility Management (FM) Handover – Equipment Maintenance Model View Definition (MVD) to its Spreadsheet Physical File Format. It is a positioning paper to support a forthcoming Standards Proposal to which the bSI Community invites contribution.

To deliver requirements for an AECO/FM Common Data Environment that will increase real estate value, bring down FM failure costs and simplify FM service processes

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Integration of Fire Safety Engineering and OMA into BIM will providetangible benefits to Fire Engineers and others, which will be useful during the building design as well as the operational phases.

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The Regulatory Room encourages you to view and register for this free International Workshop on Digital Building Permits. The link provides details – you must register by 15th Jan 2021 to take part. See you there!

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Complete the Industry feedback survey and let us know what you think our priorities should be for the next wave of InfraRoom projects.

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The final draft of the IFC-Tunnel Requirements Analysis Report is now available for your review and comment. Please send your feedback to infrastructure@buildingsmart.org

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For the upcoming bSI Virtual Summit, the Technical Room will be holding three sessions, November 3rd, 4th, and 5th. The first session will focus on updates of initiatives currently in the early stages of the bSI Process, while the second session highlights notable topics that could influence future bSI efforts. The final session will be an open discussion with the community in laying out how these technical initiatives, and others, can support the Technical Room strategy and roadmap.

The IFC4 Precast project has been approved by the Standards Committee as Candidate Standard and documentation relating to the standard published on the bSI website. Please follow the link to review.

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The Standards Committee has voted for the technical report titled Beyond e-permitting: Framing the Business Case for Automated Rule Checking in AEC in the Era of Big Data.

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The Product Room Steering Committee have extended the deadline for the submission of new ideas and proposals to the end of August 2020. Please submit using the attached link.

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The Standards Committee and the Standards Committee Executive have reviewed and endorsed the publication of this Technical Report provided by the Regulatory Room. Please follow the link to review the report.

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The Infrastructure Room sponsored this study with a number of Nordic sponsors. The results and conclusions can be viewed at the link below.

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The Regulatory Room has launched a new survey to better understand the dynamics and characteristics of the Regulatory process in the built asset industry. It is available in English, Spanish and Italian.

Congratulations to the Building Room sponsored project team for IFC4 Precast who have obtained candidate standard. The published work can be viewed at the following link.

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Voting is underway by the bSI Standards Committee on this activity proposal sponsored by the Technical Room. Please read the proposal at the link below.

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The Construction Domain is expanding and is in the process of forming a steering committee. For further information please contact the Construction Room leader Ken Endo of Kajima Corporation.

The Product Room steering committee would like to thank all bSI members who submitted ideas following their recent Call for Papers. These have been reviewed by the SC with some being selected for further work and presentation at the next virtual Summit.

A full list of Airport specific entities is being prepared. The final version of Onepager is finished

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