BIM uses for reversible building design: Identification, classification & elaboration

The construction industry urgently needs new approaches to design buildings that can be incorporated in the circular economy. Buildings are still predominantly conceived as static structures with one end-of-life option, demolition, which typically results in excessive amounts of waste. To cut waste, buildings need to be designed as reversible structures that enable transformations, disassembly and reuse of building elements. This may be complex in practice due to the significant information processing capabilities it requires, but previous research has suggested that Building Information Modeling (BIM) could be valuable in the additional gathering, interpreting and synthesizing of information needed. This paper aims to explore how BIM can support reversible building design through an in-depth case-study of the reversible building design practices of a Dutch system builder. Eight BIM uses were systematically identified, classified and elaborated on according to the extent they can support reversible building design. It is concluded that three ‘key’ BIM uses can fully support reversible building design (design authoring, 3D coordination and drawing production), two ‘viable’ BIM uses partially (quantity take-off and design review) and three ‘negligible’ BIM uses deficiently (phase planning, code validation and engineering analyses). The insights and recommendations derived from this paper hopefully assist in selecting BIM uses to design and study tomorrow’s reversible buildings.