The use of the BIM will be obligatory in all the civil works and building contests of the Generalitat of Catalonia with an amount superior to the 5.5 million euros from next June 11, according to what  the general secretary of Territory and Sustainability of the Generalitat of Catalonia, Ferran Falcó, announced during the opening ceremony of the European BIM Summit that took place this morning at the AXA Auditorium in Barcelona.

Photo : José Iglesias Etxezarreta

Falcó has also highlighted the importance of the BIM White Paper in the implementation of this methodology. The document considers, among other measures, the creation of an Internet portal that concentrates all the bids of the Generalitat in BIM environment from any of its departments, as well as encouraging the training of all the agents participating in the competitions, especially the suppliers.

The president of CAATEEB, Jordi Gosalves, has remarked the driving role of the European BIM Summit to achieve a more efficient and respectful building sector with both natural and economic resources and thanked the Public Administrations for their efforts to implement the BIM in any type of public contract. Currently, one out of every two public tenders in Spain already requires some use of the BIM.

The European BIM Summit, which this year reaches its fifth edition, is organized by the Col·legi d’Aparelladors de Barcelona (CAATEEB), BIM Academy and Building Smart Spain, with the company Roca as main partner.

One of the highlights of the European BIM Summit this year will be the presentation of a study on the implementation and impact of the blockchain in the building sector that is made by a British company consortium. According to the director of contents of the congress, Ignasi Pérez-Arnal, this kind of initiatives are making progressively the investor groups see business opportunities in the digitization of the sector.

Another of the main novelties of this edition of the European BIM Summit is the presence of the Nordic countries (Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland). According to the President of Building Smart Spain, Fernando Blanco, “these countries have a very advanced knowledge of this methodology and are the ones that have been working with it the longest”. For Blanco they represent “the ideal counterpoint of the prevailing Anglo-Saxon culture, which is very normative, but this lack of normality in the application of projects that occurs in the Scandinavian countries, where for years the BIM stopped being innovative”.

In this sense, the director of contents of the European BIM Summit, Ignasi Pérez-Arnal, has underlined the participation of the Chambers of Commerce of the invited countries. Pérez-Arnal believes that “the financial world is looking at the construction sector with wide eyes because it sees many opportunities in the digital transformation of the sector.” An example of this change is the study carried out by a consortium of 80 companies in the United Kingdom on the changes that the blockchain application will entail.