Digital Inventory of Swiss Construction Systems

Area of Science:

• Construction Management
• Sustainable Engineering
• Data Science

Background:

• Circular economy implementation in construction requires detailed data on reusable components.
• Existing data lacks granular information on geometric attributes, material properties, and assembly of building products.
• A significant data gap hinders the prediction of component availability for reuse.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce the Digital Inventory for Swiss Construction Systems (DISCS) database structure.
• To address the data gap concerning component attributes in existing buildings.
• To provide a foundation for predicting the stock of reusable construction components.

Main Methods:

• Developed a database structure for detailed component attributes in as-built buildings.
• Digitalized 102 Swiss buildings into building information models.
• Parameterized components using a custom library of 78 attributes.

Main Results:

• The DISCS database provides granular data on component attributes for 102 buildings.
• The database structure facilitates the operationalization of a construction systems inventory.
• First-level analyses validate the database's utility for stock prediction.

Conclusions:

• DISCS addresses the critical data gap for component reuse in the construction sector.
• The database structure supports upscaling component reuse in new projects.
• This work establishes a basis for data-driven circular economy strategies in construction.