State of play and review of existing initiatives

• Author: Carbonar, Giulia; Sterling, Raymond; Spirinckx, Carolin; Vandevelde, Birgit; De Groote, Maarten; Dourlens-Quaranta, Sophie; Lodigiani, Alessandro; Volt, Jonathan; Borragán, Guillermo; Glicker, Jessica; Kondratenko, Irena; Toth, Zsolt; Rajagopalan, Neethi; De Regel, Sofie; Rapf, Oliver; Calderoni, Marco; Loureiro, Tatiana
• Pages: 36-44

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CHAPTER 2: STATE OF PLAY AND REVIEW OF EXISTING

INITIATIVES

Introduction to Task 2

Objectives

Over the lifespan of buildings, data is routinely collected by multiple stakeholders for various

reasons as many decisions rely on data availability. However, the lack of a common approach

and structure among stakeholders which would make this wealth of information widely

available, organised and easily accessible, makes this data often unusable as it gets

discarded, forgotten or it is not compatible with other stakeholders’ systems13. The lack of

an overarching structure shared across the built environment leads to information

asymmetry, lack of transparency and higher risk for investment and decisions.

Tools for information management applied to buildings have the potential to enable better

decision making throughout the building lifespan: management of technical and function

aspects, safety, conservation of economic value, certification14, improved energy and

environmental performances, etc. Organised and shared data that can be re-used would not

only reduce uncertainty but also time and cost needed for recollecting missing information.

In a more simplistic concept, building logbooks are a repository developed for the

management of buildings information. Overtime, due to the complexity of buildings and the

number of stakeholders involved, the idea of building logbooks has developed in different

ways, resulting in the creation of an array of tools and requirements across Europe and

worldwide for collecting and using buildings’ data.

To be able to inform future decisions and set a direction that will support the widespread

use of digital building logbooks across Europe, it is important to understand what is already

available, in particular what works and what doesn’t, in the existing (and past) building

logbooks.

As part of Task 2, 40 building logbook initiatives in different countries have been analysed

with the aim to highlight key success factors and barriers to the implementation of building

logbooks.

Approach implemented

The identification of the initiatives started with a thorough literature review and desk

research, which was then integrated with the feedback received by the stakeholders during

interviews and online survey as part of Task 1. The final list includes 40 initiatives (see

below): thirty-one are from EU countries, one is from Iceland (non-EU/COSME country), one

from the USA and one from Switzerland (both non-EU/non-COSME countries) together with

six H2020 research projects.

Each building logbook was analysed using an evaluation template (see Annex A in Report 2

– Building Logbook State of Play [2]) which covered several aspects:

• Description of the initiative;

• Data fields and functionalities included;

• Public or private, paper or digital, mandatory or voluntary;

13 RICS Et.al. “Global trends in data capture and management in real estate and construction”, Nov. 2017 – see

rics.org/insight

14 Dejaco, M. et al. (2017) “Streamlined management of the built environment: the district and the building

logbook as risk prevention tools”. Re-shaping the construction industry, Maggioli Editore

https://re.public.polimi.it/retrieve/handle/11311/1032396/227766/Building%20and%20urban%20logbook.p

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