buildingSMART International Welcomes UAE as a New Chapter in Development

London, U.K. – September 29, 2020  buildingSMART International is pleased to announce a new Chapter that was approved by the board. buildingSMART UAE formally submitted their application for consideration for the buildingSMART board and enters the status of “Developing Chapter”.

The Chapter will be led by Dubai Municipality and will be based in Dubai. Within the Municipality, the Dubai’s Building Permit Procedures Development Committee launched in January 2020 a project under the supervision of the GIS Center aimed at designing and implementing the Dubai BIM Roadmap and BIM standards. This roadmap includes a better focus on BIM and GIS integration and developing tools for BIM e-Submission and Automated Code Compliance Checking.

The Chapter will focus on direct cooperation with government agencies, private companies and specialised educational institutions and augment this work in conjunction with the work done at buildingSMART. One of the Chapter’s core mission statements is to enable data sharing, optimized work processes, develop BIM and GIS standards and seamless collaboration by all stakeholders who design, construct, own, operate and maintain built assets.

Richard Petrie, Chief Executive, buildingSMART International commented that “the impressive submission from Dubai Municipality as the driving force for the Chapter in the UAE made it easy for buildingSMART to welcome them into the community.  We are looking forward to working together and aligning activities in support of their important initiatives”.

His Excellency Dawoud Al Hajri, Director General of Dubai Municipality said: “The building and construction sector worldwide is moving towards digitalization by increasing the usage of modern technologies and methodologies such as BIM, which has multiple benefits throughout the entire life cycle of the asset. The municipality has established a working group to lead the digital transformation in building and construction sector in Dubai and to implement Building Information Modeling (BIM). Hosting the local chapter of buildingSMART is expected to enhance UAE’s global leadership position in the field of digital transformation and innovation in the building and construction sector and to make it a global contributor in this field, with its wide experience that made it ranked among the best countries in the international competitiveness reports in the areas of road quality and ease of issuing building permits. The UAE chapter will participate actively in the various buildingSMART working groups especially the ones related to regulations, automated code compliance checking, roads, airports, integration with GIS, and digital twin. The local chapter is going also to contribute in raising awareness about the importance of using open BIM standards by organizing workshops and conferences that targets participants from the UAE and the region.​

About buildingSMART International

buildingSMART International is a vendor-neutral and not for profit body that leads the development of open digital information flows across the built asset industry. Its mission is to proactively support industry participants who want to develop open standards for planning, design, procurement, assembly and operation of buildings and infrastructure worldwide. It provides the international network plus the necessary technical and process support. Its members, who range from across the built environment spectrum, collaborate under the buildingSMART organization. buildingSMART is engaged with other international standards bodies such as ISO, the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) and the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). Its core Industry Foundation Class (IFC) standards achieved ISO approval in 2012.

Press Contact:
buildingSMART International
aidan.mercer@buildingsmart.org
Aidan Mercer, +44 7181-304-3435