A decade of BIM in Europe: Scepticism, standards, and the road ahead
Ten years ago, BIM in Europe was at a crossroads. BIM had been around for some time, but it was by no means widely adopted. Back then, some countries were experimenting with mandates, firms were trying to get Revit, Archicad, and Tekla models to talk to each other, and most collaboration still happened via email (with heavy file attachments!). Inbox overload and stacks of printed drawings were the daily reality — an exhausting way to “collaborate” compared to the centralized issue management dashboards we take for granted today. For many, coordinating a federated model meant countless late nights in Navisworks, managing clash reports in Excel, and a seemingly endless amount of phone calls.
Progress isn’t always fast, but huge strides have been made in this last decade. To appreciate how far we’ve come, it’s worth looking back to understand how the discipline has matured, and why the challenges we face now are fundamentally different from those we were wrestling with a decade ago.
2013–2015: The age of proving BIM works
In this time, the biggest hurdle to embracing BIM wasn’t technology, it was mindset. Many contractors and clients were still skeptical: BIM was seen as extra cost, another tool that would require intensive onboarding, or “for architects only.” Those who implemented BIM workflows often did so in silos, preventing its true efficicacy from being apparent. Most models were used for one purpose: clash detection. The idea of using BIM as a single source of structured information — a living database of a project — was still years away.
Other challenges included:
- Tool fragmentation: Revit vs. Archicad vs. Tekla, with very little interoperability beyond IFC — and even IFC was treated like an experiment!
- Manual coordination: Clash detection was rarely automated or integrated; it was more about reacting to problems than preventing them.
- No standard way of working: BIM Execution Plans (BEPs) were bespoke for every project, and half the time they weren’t followed.
- Unclear ownership: Who “owned” the model? Designers said one thing, contractors another. The idea of a Common Data Environment (CDE) was still abstract.
2016–2019: Standards, mandates, and the maturity curve
This period saw real acceleration in the BIM space. The UK’s BIM Level 2 mandate (also referred to as “fully collaborative BIM”) in 2016 created ripple effects across Europe. This mandate required public sector projects to utilize intelligent 3D models, the ability for models to be exported in an open file format (such as the IFC), and for all project and asset information to be stored in a CDE.
In the wake of these massive shifts, countries like Norway, the Netherlands, and Germany began shaping their own frameworks, and ISO 19650 created a shared reference point that helped support standarization. This saw important changes take place:
- CDEs became real: Tools like BIM360, Trimble Connect, and cloud-based platforms moving BIM coordination out of inboxes.
- Standardization gained traction: Model naming, responsibility matrices, and workflows became less “creative” and more repeatable.
- Information, not just geometry: Clients began asking for data-rich deliverables that could support facility management. Suddenly, COBie wasn’t just a buzzword, but an expectation.
- More demanding clients: Owners started inlcuding BIM deliverables in their contracts, forcing firms to take it seriously or lose out on major opportunities.
This was also the time when issue management began to professionalize. Instead of screenshots pasted into Word docs or sent as email attachments, BCF (BIM Collaboration Format) provided a structured way to manage clashes and design issues.
2020–2023: Collaboration becomes the default
By the start of this decade, BIM had matured into a standard expectation on major European projects. But with this progress, new challenges emerged:
- Data overload: Models became heavier, dense with information. BIM coordinators had to become data managers, often grappling with less-than-ideal information management systems.
- Multiple CDEs: Inevitably, different stakeholders preferred different platforms, leading to questions of integration and interoperability.
- Remote collaboration: COVID accelerated cloud adoption, forcing teams to rethink how coordination meetings were run. Digital model reviews using tools like BIMcollab became the norm.
- Lifecycle thinking: BIM shifted closer to operations. Facility managers and owners demanded handovers that were usable and could help them oversee maintanence of projects more effectively.
Technology had caught up to the vision, but complexity had also multiplied. BIM managers weren’t just troubleshooting models anymore; they were orchestrating ecosystems.
Where do we stand today?
In Europe, BIM is now the baseline for most large projects. Standards are in place, workflows are defined, and clients increasingly expect not just models, but data-rich handovers that feed into operations and facilities management. Even for smaller projects, BIM adoption is accelerating, particularly in countries where public mandates and openBIM frameworks are cascading into private-sector practice (European Commission, 2023).
And yet, challenges remain. Model quality control is still too reliant on manual checks. Interoperability headaches persist. Clients are also beginning to push for the next step: sustainability metrics, digital twins, and seamless integration with GIS and IoT (European Commission, 2023; buildingSMART, 2024).
Where once decisions were made standing around walls of 2D drawings, now project rooms are dominated by live 3D models, and the expectation for faster, data-driven decisions continues to rise. For many BIM managers, the pressure is less about whether BIM can deliver, and more about whether their teams can scale it efficiently without drowning in complexity.
Where is BIM going?
If the last 10 years was about proving the necessity of BIM, the next decade will be about making it invisible. It won’t be seen as an “extra process”; it will simply be how projects are delivered. The same buildingSMART white paper on Digital Twins outlines how openBIM standards — IFC, BCF, and IDS — are evolving to support rule-based validation, lifecycle integration, and the transition from BIM to connected digital-twin ecosystems.
We expect AI and rule-based checking to reduce manual quality assurance, digital twins to become standard project deliverables, and open collaboration to (finally!) dissolve the platform wars.
At BIMcollab, we’ve been part of this journey, helping teams move from ad-hoc clash reports to structured, scalable issue management. Ten years in, our vision hasn’t changed: eliminate chaos, connect people, and enable seamless collaboration. Our own journey has seen our focus shift from model checking and BCF managers to building full-spectrum model quality assurance capabilities, and a CDE that connects information to models in a way that truly embraces openBIM principles.