Digitalizing Building’s End-of-Life

Abstract

The end-of-life phase of buildings’ life-cycles is still missing a structured approach that could align digitalization with research and practice in a single flow of topics of interest, within and beyond the phase. Performed processes are often not understood in a larger context. They are not related to each other, despite the growing interest in the architecture, engineering and construction industry, and regulatory bodies aiming to address sustainability. With this research, a framework that can contextualize existing digitalization approaches is provided. Therefore, an overview of tasks performed by three project partners is used to propose a framework. It is conceptualized with lanes describing the actors, processes, and assets, and further divided into two parallel lanes dealing with physical and digital assets; the framework is verified with business models, research papers, projects, and regulations. It encompasses existing processes and provides a structured, high-level overview. This research serves as a base for defining relevant factors for each step of the end-of-life phase, required to determine the influence matrix needed for clarification of existing and future business models concerning both physical and digital assets in the phase of interest. The provided structured overview will be used to determine obstacles and potentials in the end-of-life phase, and overreaching influence on domains like circular economy, building planning or ecological performance.