Threads of change: the evolution and future of building information modelling (BIM)

Simon Lewis, Partner in the Construction and Engineering Team at Womble Bond Dickinson, and nima Senior Vice Chair, reflects on the impact of building information modelling (BIM) in construction:

15 years ago, I became interested in something called "building information modelling" (BIM). 

At the time, this had just become more visible to us lawyers following the promotion of BIM by the then UK government and the original BIM mandate announced in the Government Construction Strategy of May 2011.

Back then, BIM was beginning to gain traction as a tool for improving calibration and efficiency in construction projects. It was underpinned by the Publicly Available Specification (PAS) 1192. PAS 1192-2 dealt with using BIM in the construction phase, PAS 1192-3 covered BIM in the operational phase and, later, PAS 1192-5 addressed the security aspects of BIM. PASs are often a precursor to more developed forms of standards, and this proved to be no exception in the case of BIM, as I will explain later.

I was curious about BIM because it was something new – an application of information management and technology into the building process. Also, as part of the government's drive to reduce the costs locked into the building process, and as a result of its promotion of BIM in particular, BIM began to gain some traction in this early period from 2010 to 2015. 

In those days, BIM was rarely mentioned at all in building contracts. Indeed most people had never heard of it (which unfortunately is in some areas still the case today). But the UK government had mandated the use of "level 2 BIM" for all public sector projects by April 2016, and while I am not convinced that this was ever entirely achieved, at least setting this goal helped to push BIM forward. 

The idea behind BIM "levels" was to describe the series of stages that BIM would go through as it developed, moving from its initial characterisation of "next-level CAD" through to a fully developed 3D virtual model of a building during its design and construction phase into which all parties could contribute - permitting the construction of the building virtually prior to the actual asset being constructed. The idea was to reduce, as far as possible, costly clashes and variations occurring during the build phase, often the most expensive part of any building project. As the years have progressed, and BIM has become used more often in this capacity, this has indeed achieved some significant success. 

The problem is, this is not the whole story. BIM was never intended just to be a way of producing a 3D virtual model of an asset for use in the design and construction phase: it is in fact a subset of the much larger Information Management (IM) arena which encompasses the entire lifecycle of the asset from the initial concept / design phase through the construction phase then into the operational phase and onto final refurbishment / demolition / repurposing. 

This development, from a concentration on the design / construct phase to a much broader IM-based approach, was underpinned by the development of the equivalent International Standard to replace the PAS 1192 series: the game-changing ISO 19650, which internationalised BIM or, as it might be more accurately termed, (B)IM. 

ISO 19650 mirrored the PAS series in a number of ways (with ISO 19650–2 replacing PAS 1192-2, ISO 19650-3 replacing PAS 1192-3 and so on). However, there were also differences, with the emphasis moving away from BIM "levels" to a much more complex and nuanced view of the development of the use of IM throughout an asset's lifecycle. 

Alongside the shift from BIM to IM, we saw the UK BIM Alliance changing its name to "nima", to emphasise the move away from focussing on BIM alone and also, perhaps, to remind those engaged in the IM process of the "thread" of digital information management that runs through the asset lifecycle – "nima" is Greek for "thread". Of course, this is also more recently echoed in the "golden thread" of digital information which is now required throughout the lifecycle of any Higher Risk Building (HRB) under the provisions of the Building Safety Act 2022 (BSA 2022). 

The BSA 2022 is a significant leap in the development of IM: for the first time, legislation now mandates the creation and maintenance of a digital bank of information linked to the design, construction and maintenance of a particular class of building and this must be properly completed, failing which the building cannot move from design to construction to occupation. It must also be properly maintained during occupation. Those who drafted the original golden thread guidance and developed the relevant regulations are also hoping that, once the obvious advantages of having this golden thread available become apparent to the market, it will increasingly be used on all buildings, not just HRBs. 

So over the time BIM has moved from one fairly self-contained part of the information management market to be developed into a much more all-embracing IM arena, backed by nima as the hub for information management professionals and the guardian of the ISO 19650 framework guidance in the UK. Also, internationalising (B)IM through ISO 19650 means it is now far more usual to see the use of "BIM models" in construction projects. 

Some of the many exciting challenges now are to expand the use of IM procedures across the lifecycle of an asset, increase the consciousness of the need to carry out appropriate security checks through the use of ISO 19650-5, and to continue to develop the use of IM and integrate it with other technologies like the Internet of Things and VR / AR. 

There are also still basic problems to overcome: whilst most people have heard of BIM, how many actually use it and how many realise that it is simply a subset of the much larger IM arena? More fundamentally, issues relating to interoperability (the effective and efficient exchange of information between systems such that the information can be verified, stored, reused and relied upon) is still an issue for many users. 

Aside from my role in nima, it's been fascinating for me as a lawyer to watch how this has also begun to develop in the legal system. Many in my profession have been unaware of BIM or just considered it to be a technical issue. In fact, this area is, perhaps uniquely, an intertwining of the legal and the technical. The development of template information management protocols underpinning ISO 19650-2 and -3 have helped those lawyers not particularly familiar with this area to understand the legal requirements inherent in the ISO process, and these are also beginning to be used more regularly than has been the case for some years.

Where next? The upward trend of awareness and adoption of IM will continue, thanks to ISO 19650 and the golden thread in HRBs. And I have no doubt the IM arena will continue to develop and expand and integrate more closely with more recent developments, such as the national digital twin project and the increasing use and development of AI in construction (and other) processes.