Bringing Human-Centredness to Technologies for Buildings: an Agenda for Linking New Types of Data to the Challenge of Sustainability

The politics around data and power relations related to technologies for buildings is a new area for HCI. This paper proposes an agenda for linking new types of data to the challenge of sustainability, bringing human-centredness to a particular tool for design and engineering professionals, Building Information Modeling (BIM). BIM is the preferred technology platform for coordination and collaboration in architectural design and construction. BIM contains different types of data and information about a building including 3D (geometry), 4D (time), 5D (cost), 6D (facility management) and 7D (sustainability). Once constructed, this ‘digital twin’ of the building allows for adding new services and for stakeholders interacting with the building design through through sensors, immersive experiences and virtual, augmented and mixed realities. As a socio-technical software process, BIM also accommodates diverging agendas on design and construction for sustainability, and these diverging concepts about ‘sustainability’ “live” in different places with implications for the resulting BIM models. Based on our findings, we suggest a better integration and coherent representation of such issues of interest not only to new services but also stakeholders into the different forms of data (e.g. facilities management and sustainability). We argue for a stronger shared understanding of BIM as a platform for engaging with technologies designed for interacting with buildings and push agendas of sustainable construction.