BRISE Vienna (Building Regulations Information for Submission Envolvement)

BRISE-Vienna pioneers a digital revolution in building permit procedures, addressing inefficiencies with a groundbreaking approach. The integration of AI, AR and 3D modeling accelerates the process, enhancing project quality. This innovative solution benefits administrative staff, project participants and citizens, ensuring a partially automated review, seamless networking, digital access, heightened transparency and 50% time savings.

Innovation Summary

Innovation Overview

Vienna is one of the most liveable cities in the world (Economist-The Global Liveability Index 2022). The attractiveness and interest in the city is also reflected in the steadily increasing number of inhabitants: between 2012 and 2021, the city grew by an average of 21,000 new inhabitants each year. The trend towards population growth continues. Against this background, the question of additional living space is pressing. In 2021, 14,800 new flats were approved in Vienna and 14,100 building applications were submitted to the City of Vienna. The Municipal Department 37 (MA 37) is responsible for the approval of building projects. These were previously handled in multi-stage, paper-based processes, resulting in an analogue file archive consisting of approximately 200 tonnes of paper and an average procedure duration per application of one year.

BRISE-Vienna pioneers a paradigm shift by digitizing and automating the entire building permit process. It integrates Building Information Modeling (BIM), artificial intelligence and augmented reality, ushering in efficiency and transparency. The innovative approach moves from 2D paper plans to a comprehensive three-dimensional digital model, enhancing visualization and enabling (partially) automated verification of regulatory and site-specific conditions.

The holistic, digitized project flow aligns with the needs of stakeholders, reducing project risks and improving schedules. The integration of artificial intelligence, augmented reality and BIM not only accelerates the process by up to 50%, but also promotes transparency. A 3D model makes each step visible, allowing citizens to understand projects before construction begins. The system's feedback during the pre-inspection phase increases planning security. The innovative solution saves time, money and energy for both applicants and the city administration.

With €4.8 million in EU funding, the successful pilot of BRISE-Vienna involved 13 construction projects and demonstrated its transformative potential. As a research and development initiative, BRISE-Vienna is not only shaping Vienna's urban digitization, but also providing valuable data for science and research. The dissemination phase aims to share knowledge and foster European collaboration, marking BRISE-Vienna as a beacon in the evolution of digitized administrative processes.

Innovation Description

What Makes Your Project Innovative?

BRISE combines BIM, AI such as legal tech and AR with a digitized process flow to create a prudent, end-to-end digital approval process. A key success criterion is also to rethink the entire process along the potential of digital technologies, instead of just digitizing an existing process. BIM enables automated checking of submissions based on 3D models. AI enables automated checks of legal framework conditions, document checks and digital support for the construction police. AR enables a comprehensible visualization of construction projects - instead of having to read construction plans, citizens can simply view 3D models of future buildings virtually.

What is the current status of your innovation?

The implementation phase of the BRISE project was completed with a closing event in February 2023, and has since entered a one-year knowledge management and dissemination phase. This has mainly taken place in a lively exchange with European cities such as Hamburg, Berlin, Bratislava, Ljubljana, Zagreb and Tallinn.

Innovation Development

Collaborations & Partnerships

BRISE was convened by the City of Vienna by an interdisciplinary team of representatives from science (Vienna University of Technology - Institute for Interdisciplinary Construction Process Management, Department of Construction Operations and Process Engineering), the Chamber of Civil Engineering (Vienna, Lower Austria, Burgenland), BIM experts (Büro ODE) and involved municipal departments of the City of Vienna. This ensured that the demands and needs of all stakeholders were identified.

Users, Stakeholders & Beneficiaries

3D visualizations empower citizens to understand future buildings, support decision making, and increase engagement.

AI streamlines workflows for building officials by identifying regulations, searching legal documents, and automating reviews.

The BIM approval process using open data accelerates approvals, benefiting small and medium-sized businesses.

Science and research gain insights that contribute to advances in digitization, management, and development.

Innovation Reflections

Results, Outcomes & Impacts

After initial internal tests, the new developments of the research and development project were tested in a pilot project based on 13 construction projects. Trained experts from MA 37 accompanied the participants selected in a buddy system for the entire duration of the pilot operation from May to December 2022. The result is 13 construction projects that, with BRISE's assistance, ended up with 13 real notices.

BRISE is thus a prime example of efficient, user-friendly e-government. In the future, no physical official channels will be necessary in the building submission process. The shorter lead time of building permit processes enables planning security and faster implementation of construction projects.

Challenges and Failures

Working with different stakeholders (made more difficult by Covid-19) and bringing together the complexity of the issues and technologies themselves was challenging. While the collaboration went very well, not all goals were achieved as planned. As the project team was aware of the risks that certain developments might not deliver, they also worked directly with other options. Since there was already a considered path or another option, it was taken. There was always appropriate coordination to ensure that everyone was informed.

Conditions for Success

A key success criterion is to rethink the entire process along the potential of digital technologies rather than just digitising an existing process.
In addition, close and continuous coordination with internal customers was essential for the success of the project. To this end, a three-person steering team was formed to act as a permanent point of contact for the project management. The steering team included both the strategic level (construction management and strategic ICT) and the office responsible for operational implementation. Constant communication and timely decisions ensured the success of the research and development project.

Replication

This project stands for more than “just” digitizing the process from building submission to approval by shaping the digital transformation of our society in a way that puts citizens, public welfare, sustainability and data sovereignty at the center of the digital transformation.
The project uses cutting-edge technologies not only to solve this problem, but also to make the applications along the way easy and smooth. It builds on user perspectives to ensure that the system is useful and has real value.
BRISE provides a blueprint for approaching the digital transformation of city operations in a way that delivers real value, and serves as a reference for any city in Europe that wants to benefit from the potential of technology.

Lessons Learned

A key learning experience is the choice of a suitable communication platform that can be used well by everyone. Small teams for content development and larger teams for coordination and knowledge transfer. Despite the possibility of failure, you should remain ambitious and take a risk, otherwise nothing new will emerge. External partners are important and help with both know-how and their own perspective. Don't be afraid to try a new solution if the old one doesn't work. Good and practiced project management helps a lot.