In the last decade, the construction sector has made great efforts to digitise its processes and has experienced an unprecedented evolution, great advances emerging which have boosted the sector.

One of these advances has been the implementation of BIM methodology worldwide, which has recently reached an important milestone with the creation of the international standard ISO-19650. BIM (Building Information Modelling) has facilitated the integration of asset data from the design and construction phases, with subsequent facility management (FM) and operations.

In this line, the innovation project SPHERE BIM Digital Twin Platform, funded by the EU within the Horizon 2020 Program, aims to provide a digital platform based on BIM for the improvement and optimisation of design, construction, management and energy efficiency of buildings, reducing construction costs and their environmental impact, thereby increasing overall energy efficiency.

SPHERE project encompasses two levels of research, innovation and improvement: on the one hand, it integrates the processes under the BIM Digital Twin concept, in its design, construction and operation phases of the building; and on the other hand, through a platform formed by an underlying infrastructure of ICT systems based on the platform as a service (PaaS), it allows the integration of data, information and knowledge on a large scale.

SPHERE consortium, made up of 20 partners from different European countries and coordinated by IDP, has published the White Paper “Building Digital Twins: How to move the environments of digital twins to the AECOO sector”. The document aims to provide a standard framework for the future development of the Building Digital Twins, as well as its adaptation as an extension of the current procedures of Service Oriented Architecture (SoA) and the Architecture, Engineering and Construction sector, Owners and Operators (AECOO).

The document highlights topics such as:

• Digitisation in the AECOO sector.
• The current status of AECOO scanning for digital twins.
• Definitions of digital twins in manufacturing industries.
• Definitions of digital twins that arise in the AECOO sector.
• New definitions of the construction of digital twins for AECOO from the SPHERE project.
• Linking BIM standards with the construction of digital twins.
• New roles and processes to implement the construction of digital twins.

This White Paper will establish the future steps in the SPHERE project and the definitions, methodology and new roles will be tested and iterated in the 4 pilot sites that are part of the project located in Finland, Austria, Italy and the Netherlands.

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Download the White Paper