Leveraging collaboration through the use of building information models

Building information models are a major new means of design information communication and therefore they are of primary importance for successful design collaboration. However, in addition to communicating the design information, models are used in many different situations for different purposes by different stakeholders at different stages in construction projects. The developing model is a result of the different situations encountered in its production through the interaction of stakeholders. Consequently, it is important to evaluate different uses of models by different stakeholders collectively in order to understand the implications of these differences on models and therefore on design collaboration. The paper investigates this through two educational building projects and establishes the origins of these differences to identify how particular situations affect the developing model. Findings suggest that a successful collective use of models requires structure and planning but these plans need to be adapted to the situations in order to enable collaboration.