Client and User Involvement Through BIM-Related Technologies

Motivation and Aim

This review paper is part of an ongoing doctoral research project aiming at the digitisation of the briefing process, with a focus on operational requirements and social outcomes. Some of the Information technologies (IT) that could be implemented in order to involve clients and end-users in a BIM-based design process are described. BIM protocols and processes are not within the scope of this paper because the structured integration between them, information technologies, soft landings strategies and the briefing process in each project stage is planned as a next step of the research. The motivation behind the proposed research project deals with the need to consider BIM methods and tools as an effective support to the decision-making process; the focus is on early design phases and the involvement of the demand-side of construction in order to improve building use and benefit operations (Haugbølle & Boyd, 2016; Ashworth et al., 2016). To this end, the main actors taken into account in the paper are clients and end-users. Briefing is meant as the process to manage the dialogue between them and the design team that has to answer to their requirements and needs.