Digital Built Environment

What questions are City Information Modelling (CIM) and Building Information Modelling (BIM) best suited to answer? This project examines what digital information is commonly available in UK cities and what new information can be retrieved from the built environment through BIM to aid planning. It...

This project aimed to fully document and make available the automated back analysis tool developed to support commercial implementation, as well as investigate barriers to the adoption of data-driven adaptive design in practice through a targeted workshop. It provides guidance on future research...

This project improved the foundations for applying tried-and-tested machine learning (ML) approaches to the built environment. This mini project reduced the cost of creating and deploying ML systems by creating versatile and extendable Application programming interfaces (APIs), data management...

This project set out to show the benefits of a manufacture-led approach to construction, showing how it would support the commitments made by the UK government to improving the construction sector. In particular, it looked at ways in which the construction sector could learn lessons from the...

This project developed a case study of The Edge in Amsterdam, billed as the world’s smartest building, for CDBB. This was not only for the sake of sharing this specific case, but also to use it as a template to build the “standard case study template.” When we consider other buildings, we can...

In this project we define ‘built form’ as the assemblage of individual buildings and structures in the built environment and we make use of a wide range of new insights and data to model the evolution of the built form in Britain. Building on the pilot CDBB project PolyChora, which has developed an...

The Stafford Area Improvement Programme was a joint venture by Atkins, Laing O’Rourke, Volker Rail and Network Rail to remove a bottleneck in the West Coast Main Line that resulted in high-speed trains being impeded by slower local passenger services or by goods trains. To alleviate this bottleneck...

Radar imagery taken by satellites (InSAR) can be used to monitor millimetre-scale movements of built environment assets over time. Because satellite data is collected and stored consistently, and—in the case of the European Space Agency’s Sentinel—freely available for retrospective analysis, it can...

The digital disruption of traditional norms fuels arguments that digital technology gives rise to completely new collaborative models and has significant impact on construction procurement systems. BIM and other digital technologies shine a harsh light on disjointed procurement practices and...