DigiPLACE – future for the European Building Logbooks?

In the European Commission’s report of the ”Study on the Development of a European Union Framework for Buildings' Digital Logbook”, published last July, DigiPLACE is one of six relevant Horizon 2020 projects analysed.

Building logbooks, as information management tools, organise and allow data sharing to potentially enable better decision-making across the entire value chain. This improved decision-making can impact key aspects such as management of technical and function aspects, safety, conservation of economic value, certification, improved energy and environmental performances, etc.

The report presents the results of the analysis of 40 building logbook initiatives (and relevant H2020 projects) in different countries. The report provides an overview of the initiatives and highlights key success factors and barriers to the implementation of such logbooks.

Data availability is the most important factor influencing the decisions. Over the lifespan of a building, data is continuously collected by various stakeholders for different reasons. However, non-existence of structures and common approaches across the built environment, makes the data often unreadable, hence unusable.

After analysing the six relevant H2020 projects the possibility of pushing building logbooks beyond their current scope emerged: building logbooks can become enabling tools for initiatives such as the renovation roadmaps or for investment decision-making and can also be enriched with details that can support circular economy.

DigiPLACE, an ambitious attempt to enable the creation of a digital platform to integrate different technologies, applications and services in digital construction, could potentially be an EU wide data space for building logbooks.