City Information Modeling – an expedient tool for developing sustainable, responsive and resilient cities?

Abstract

When initiating a property development project, an extensive amount of information has to be collected and evaluated to derive a development concept that can meet the needs, requirements and demands prevailing in the given urban context. This data is commonly gathered via desktop research and is usually not comprehensive enough to depict the whole picture. The same is true for information on development restrictions, design principles to encourage sustainable behavior of city dwellers, and information on the surrounding built environment to foster local synergies. On the building level, Building Information Modeling (BIM) has proven to be a useful tool to overcome these problems of incomplete and disjointed information and requirements. In recent years, an effort has been made to apply the principles of BIM to the city level and establish City Information Modeling (CIM) as a crucial analysis and planning tool for the sustainable cities of tomorrow. The research questions are thus: Which data sets should be included for CIM to become an expedient tool for urban development? What requirements must CIM meet? And what added value can CIM offer to all involved parties? First results indicate that CIM can contribute to the development of responsive and resilient cities, covering numerous sustainability goals.