BUILDing knowledge book in the blockCHAIN distributed ledger. Trustworthy building life-cycle knowledge graph for sustainability and energy efficiency

Project Information

BUILDCHAIN

Grant agreement ID: 101092052

DOI

10.3030/101092052

Project closed

EC signature date 18 November 2022

Start date 1 January 2023

End date 30 June 2026

Funded under

• Digital, Industry and Space

Total cost

€ 5 182 600,03

EU contribution

€ 4 495 770,44

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITA DI PISA
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - BUILDCHAIN (BUILDing knowledge book in the blockCHAIN distributed ledger. Trustworthy building life-cycle knowledge graph for sustainability and energy efficiency)

Reporting period: 2023-01-01 to 2024-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The idea of the project is to Build a Knowledge Base, that can be used to trace all activities related to the overall life-cycle of buildings. Since various EU directives are related to sustainability, transparency, resilience and energy efficiency of building stock, it is necessary to provide a marketplace where various actors can share their offers, including their quality certificates and credentials, and where it would be possible to log and trace every information, activity and change, and use the knowledge to improve sustainability. The project will extend Digital Building LogBook (DBL) with several available and novel data, tools and functionalities, by the help of a Decentralized Knowledge Graph (DKG), an open source blockchain based solution. DKG software will include specific building-related ontologies, so that the whole knowledge base about the life-cycle of the building can be logged and by that continuously updated, providing mechanisms and interfaces for the relevant stakeholders, to publish, trace, share, tokenize, end even trade models in a market economy. Such information integration can support decisions on optimal adaptation and intervention planning strategies for large populations of buildings. The DBL will be integrated with several new functionalities demonstrated on a dozen of use cases via easily accessible and publicly available APIs. These functionalities will assure a high interoperability between legacy systems and existing tools (e.g. BIM, HBIM), compliance with standards, providing automated warning and alerting system with the help of machine learning tools, digital twinning, and decision-making support. The new DBL based applications will be tested on pilot projects focusing on historical and critical buildings, and on building stocks. The project targets a smarter and more sustainable EU built environment providing new market and new value creation.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

In the first half of the project, significant strides have been made toward achieving the defined objectives, as described for each WP in the Technical Report (Section 1.2) and in the submitted Deliverables. The activities and main achievements can be summarised as follows:
o the high-level architecture of the BUILDCHAIN platform was designed in WP2 after an analysis of the current landscape of DBL implementation. User needs were identified, and several use cases were defined including their data flows and structures and describing the necessary tools and functionalities to make these use cases feasible and designed for the events and triggers. A common high-level ontology was developed, and mechanisms were introduced to ensure the discoverability, traceability, and secure accessibility of data.
o the off-chain and on-chain data management based on the DKG is under development in WP3. A solution based on the creation of a trustworthy oracle network is proposed with several aggregation layers considering data feeds, aggregation of many data sources and reputation mechanisms.
o several advanced tools for BIM and HBIM integration, operational energy efficiency, machine learning-based digital twins, and environmental impact analysis starting from DBL data, are now under development in WP4. Key tasks include creating renovation workflow tools, integration of APIs for BIM applications, and development of digital twins for building operations. Significant progress includes successful API development, semantic segmentation for architectural elements of historical buildings, and the creation of a digital twin tool for energy optimization. Refined workflows and machine learning models have been developed for reliability analysis, and environmental impact analysis tools are being integrated with ongoing efforts to enhance data integration and visualization in BIM environment.
o demonstration of Use Cases, tools and functionalities was initiated in WP5. BIM for all pilots were developed and uploaded on Bexel CDE. SHM system was installed in Pilot 1 and procedures for real-time monitoring of the building’s key structural parameters to ensure its preservation and safety are now tested. The integrated design of a new hospital in BIM environment was carried out for Pilot 2. The federated BIM model was compiled by amalgamating several models representing distinct disciplines, including individual project phases, aligning with project cost management, and enabling statistical analyses and data processing. For Pilot 3, a digital survey was carried out and the workflows developed in T4.2 for reconstruction of BIM and Finite Element (FE) models were initially tested. The SHM system was designed, and its installation planned, while the implementation process for energy performance monitoring is now underway. Data was collected for a large set of school buildings in the city centre of Florence (Pilot 4) and will be used to test Use Cases 2 and 4. Forced and ambient vibration test results from two tall timber buildings were collected, and BIM and FE models were developed for Pilot 5. Using the experimental data and the model updating framework from T4.5 model parameters were updated for the two buildings in a joint manner.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

BUILDCHAIN has made significant strides in advancing in several fields such as LCA, SHM, energy efficiency, construction economics, and follow-up procedures developing several use cases and tools supported by BIM-based technologies, and providing a platform for researchers to access and utilize the vast amounts of data collected throughout the construction process and the life cycle of the buildings
Progress to deliver economic impact has been made facilitating the digitization of the building sector by means of the DKG and creating a new marketplace around DBL data. DKG supports the creation of Knowledge Assets that encapsulate detailed and precise building information, with cryptographic quality proofs integral to the Decentralized Identifiers. This will foster transparency and reliability across the construction lifecycle.
BUILDCHAIN is supporting standardization of DBL data in many different areas: data modelling, data exchange, data verification, data portability, data reusability. This standardization will result in enhanced interoperability and increased competitiveness in the European building sector.
BUILDCHAIN is contributing to the acceleration of the twin green and digital transition of the construction sector not only through the digitization of building sector but also by the creation of a more efficient deep renovation strategy (U11 and Task 4.1 U2), the development of an user friendly tool to optimize operational energy efficiency (U12 and Task 4.4) and the achieved transparency of carbon footprint properties (U1 and Task 4.3).