messyBIM: Augmenting a building information model with messy talk to improve a buildings’ design process

Designing a building requires collaboration between experts such as architects, engineers, and constructors as well as with non-experts such as clients or end-users. To gather input, experts present and discuss with non-experts parts of the design of the future building in feedback sessions. With the digitalisation of the construction sector, the design process is facilitated by technologies that allow experts to work on a shared digital model. This digital model often comes in the form of a building information model, or BIM, which serves as the basis for the physical spaces that later get constructed. In feedback sessions, parts of the BIM model are presented on paper or screen and the unstructured conversations which happen during these sessions (the messy talk) are later incorporated into the design. Navigating BIM models is restricted to the specialists who closely work on and with them. In this way, BIM platforms still have a series of limitations. To begin to address this, we present messyBIM, an interactive experience that includes a virtual reality environment that allows navigation and interaction with an augmented BIM. messyBIM shows different dimensions of a BIM and opens it up to a broader, non-expert audience by recording messy talk about the building. messyBIM helps us think about the data types associated to physical spaces. We hope that those who engage with it will think with us critically about the complexities related to designing and constructing large-scale building projects.