How Finland is simplifying building permits with BIM
Many real estate developers, property owners, and city officials feel building permitting should be more streamlined. To reduce friction, efforts have been made to use online forms and submit 2D drawings as PDFs. While this saves time, Finland is taking a massive leap forward by introducing BIM-based permitting, with Solibri playing a vital role in this advancement.
BIM-centric data management is gaining traction
Today’s BIM is much more than designing with 3D geometry. The models can contain data for various purposes, such as simulations, bills of quantities, embedded CO2 calculations, procurement, etc. BIM is also an essential technology for digital twins.
It is no wonder that the idea of using BIM for automated compliance checking is gaining momentum. Regions leading this development include Singapore, the Nordic countries, Estonia, the UK, Japan, South Korea, and Dubai.
Finland’s national-level RAVA3Pro project is one of the leading examples of an openBIM-powered building permit process.
RAVA3Pro is a trailblazer
RAVA3Pro has laid the groundwork for the nationwide adoption of BIM-based building permitting, which will become mandatory in 1.1.2026. It has also set an example for others to follow. Canada is one of the countries investing in digitalizing the built environment sector.
We talked to Farzad Jalaei, a Research Officer at Canada's National Research Council’s Construction Research Center. He had visited Finland and was impressed by the progress in BIM permits.
“RAVA3Pro is very interesting because they have the same pathway that we are trying to explore right now,” he said.
Regulatory approvals require extensions to standards
Finland and other European countries use the open IFC standard for BIM exchange in the public sector. Despite building SMART's praiseworthy efforts, its standards have not yet provided the detailed data definitions required for regulatory approvals. RAVA3Pro also encountered this challenge.
For example, IFC does not have a standard way to locate values for specific interior wall types, such as partition walls, fire-rated walls, or sound-insulating walls. BuildingSMART’s Regulatory Information Requirements (RIR) project will fix many of these shortcomings in collaboration with the RAVA3Pro team.
Another challenge is converting regulatory requirements into model-checking rules. Pia Nitz, Solibri’s Senior BIM Specialist, has been working on both topics since 2017 and was a key figure in converting regulatory requirements into IFC4 Property Sets in RAVA3Pro.
Solibri was commissioned to complete the task after competitive bidding because of its expertise in model-checking and proof of mastery in several international projects in the compliance domain.
How compliance checking works in practice
BIM-based building permitting is now rolling out in Finland. The largest and most advanced cities were involved in the project, but its results will affect all 309 municipalities. Municipalities don’t have to build their version of the process and technology; instead, they can rely on Solibri for model checking and online portals like Lupapiste.
Permission applicants can either activate the rules from Solibri services to Solibri Office desktop or run the checks through Lupapiste cloud-based checking service at any stage of the design process.
Solibri can offer checking services for online portals. Designers can upload their IFC models to the portal and receive feedback on possible design issues.
European collaboration
Although building permitting and added code compliances are governed by national or even city-specific regulations in Europe, developing the essentials of BIM building permitting on a multi-national level makes sense.
Solibri is a partner in ACCORD, a Horizon Europe project that automates building permit and compliance processes using BIM and other data sources. It develops a semantic framework that will enable semi-automatic building permit processes. It also devises a ruleset database, open APIs, and a rule formalization tool.
Covering more areas step by step
The path to BIM-powered building permissions has a series of hurdles. Germany, the EU’s most populous country, with its 16 federal states and several municipalities within, faces significant challenges.
We talked to HafenCity University’s Professor Daniel Mondino, who is also active in BIM Hub Hamburg. He said several research and communal efforts are underway in Germany to understand and define how models should be used in building permitting. Some talking points include which software to use, who creates the checking rules, and how to simplify regulations for algorithmic checking.
Because permitting is a multifaceted process that mixes technical, measurable requirements with human-understandable legal text, it isn't easy to automate in one go. For example, fire safety regulations with multiple layers of conditions and exceptions can’t be expressed with simple rules, so development happens in phases.
There’s still a lot of ground to cover before highly automated building permitting is realized. Collaboration between authorities, industry organizations, researchers, vendors, educators, and software developers is critical to achieving scalable solutions.
