Towards Blockchains for architectural design: consensus mechanisms for collaboration in BIM.

Dounas, Theodoros; Lomardi, Davide; Jabi, Wassim

Abstract

We present a Blockchain collaboration mechanism on optimisation problems between distributed participants who work with building information modelling tools. The blockchain mechanism is capable of executing smart contracts, acting as a reward mechanism of independent designers attempting to collaborate or compete on optimising a design performance problem. Earlier work has described the potential integration through different levels of Computer Aided Design and Blockchain. We present an expanded version of that integration and we showcase how a team can collaboratively and competitively work, using BIM tools, through the blockchain. The original contribution of the paper is the use of the design optimisation performance as a consensus mechanism for block writing in blockchains. To accomplish that we introduce mechanisms for BIM to Blockchain Integration but also describe a special category of blockchains for architectural design and the built environment. The paper concludes with an analysis of the relationship between trust and values as encapsulated in the blockchain and how these could affect the design collaboration.

Citation

DOUNAS, T., LOMBARDI, D. and JABI, W. 2019. Towards blockchains for architectural design: consensus mechanisms for collaboration in BIM. In Sousa, J.P., Henriques, G.C. and Xavier, J.P. (eds.) Proceedings of the 37th Education and research in computer aided architectural design in Europe (eCAADe) and 23rd Sociedad Iberoamericana de Gráfica Digital (SIGraDi) joint conference 2019 (eCAADe SIGraDi 2019): architecture in the age of the 4th industrial revolution, 11-13 September 2019, Porto, Portugal. Porto: eCAADe; SIGraDi; FAUP, volume 1, pages 267-274. Hosted on CumInCAD [online]. Available from: http://papers.cumincad.org/cgi-bin/works/paper/ecaadesigradi2019_296

• Conference Name: 37th Education and research in computer aided architectural design in Europe (eCAADe) and 23rd Sociedad Iberoamericana de Gráfica Digital (SIGraDi) joint conference 2019 (eCAADe SIGraDi 2019): architecture in the age of the 4th industrial revolution
• Conference Location: Porto, Portgal
• Start Date: Sep 11, 2019
• End Date: Sep 13, 2019
• Acceptance Date: Apr 1, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Sep 13, 2019
• Publication Date: Dec 31, 2019
• Deposit Date: Sep 15, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 15, 2020
• Publisher: Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe (eCAADe)
• Volume: 1
• Pages: 267-274
• Series ISSN: 2684-1843
• ISBN: 9789491207174
• Keywords: Blockchain; BIM; Agent; Collaboration; Competition
• Public URL: https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/967938
• Publisher URL: http://papers.cumincad.org/cgi-bin/works/paper/ecaadesigradi2019_296
• Additional Information: Also available from: Blucher (ISSN 2318-6968), https://doi.org/10.5151/proceedings-ecaadesigradi2019_296 ; eCAADe, http://ecaade.org/downloads/eCAADe-SIGraDi2019-proceedings-volume1.pdf