Building Information Modelling (BIM) is at the heart of the digital transformation of the construction sector and the built environment. Governments and public authorities across Europe and around the world recognise the value of BIM as a strategic driver of the cost, quality and public policy objectives. Action is taken proactively to promote the use of BIM in the construction sectors and in the delivery and operation of public real estate to deliver these economic, environmental, and social benefits.
From the perspective of ensuring quality design in architecture and engineering at European level, Directive 2014/24/EU (EUPPD) of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 February 2014 on public procurement and repealing Directive 2004/18/EC proposes contractors to use BIM in their construction projects in order to encourage bidders to implement innovative design solutions, to deliver high quality services, while supporting authorities to organize bidding procedures that can ensure a fair competition in the construction market. Since 2016, the Directive has encouraged EU Member States to use BIM for publicly-funded construction projects.
According to a survey, there is a relatively high average adoption rate of BIM in EU Member States. Denmark and Austria are the countries with the highest adoption rate, but all Member States reported some degree of use of BIM. The survey results can be complemented by other studies on BIM adoption in the EU. In France in 2017, 38% of construction companies reported using BIM.
Although BIM is not mandatory for public or private construction projects, over 35% of the French developers use BIM for their real estate projects. In addition, between 50-60% of France’s construction market leaders have switched to BIM.
Poland reports a more modest level of BIM adoption (12%). BIM adoption in EU Member States is also linked to the applicable legal framework. For example, Austria and the Netherlands are the only two Member States with a mandate for the “Open BIM” standard, while in several Member States BIM either applies to all projects or to investments that exceed certain thresholds.
As Europe seeks to overcome the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, refurbishment offers a unique opportunity to rethink, redesign and modernize our buildings to make them fit for a greener, digital society and support economic recovery. Implementing BIM can have a major impact on company operations as well as economic recovery. Certain reports suggest that a wider adoption of BIM will bring about savings of 15-25% in the global infrastructure market by 2025. Technology-driven change is most likely to have the greatest impact on the construction sector.
The adoption of European BIM standards in Romania was one of the steps taken at national level to establish an easy, coherent and transparent general framework for construction activities, as the need for investment remains high in Romania and the use of public funds is of a major interest, with visible, concrete, easily monitored results needed, with effects on the efficiency of their use and the increase in the quality of people’s lives, in terms of overall added value.
“The BIM process involves more attention given to information and data management processes than the traditional method in construction projects. It is therefore important to clearly assess and define the roles or functions related to data and information management at different stages of the building or infrastructure life cycle. In addition, one of the tools needed to support the effective and consistent use of the BIM methodology in a collaborative setting is the development of competences in collecting, managing, sharing building information and workflows. Thus, it is considered necessary to apply the BIM system in order to align the construction sector with the latest technological innovations, which have become mandatory by law in other EU Member States.” – Gabriel Marcu, Technical Director at Leviatan Design.
