In a built environment often fragmented by siloed approaches, the Digital Buildings Council (DBC) champions a truly agile approach to digital transformation. Our Strategic Focus Areas represent the critical themes where our collaborative efforts deliver maximum impact, addressing challenges that span traditional boundaries. For a comprehensive overview of the challenges we address, please see our About page. These are not static concepts, but dynamic themes that guide our member-led Project Initiatives and broader Working Groups.
As highlighted on our About page, the DBC was formed to provide clarity and fill gaps in existing frameworks through smaller, agile, and representative groups. The persistent ‘project-operations gap’ between construction and operations, driven by increasing digitalisation, informs many of our planned initiatives. Discussions around digitally bridging this gap also drive our aim to enhance professional understanding through knowledge sharing and actively seeking partnerships with other relevant industry bodies and initiatives.
Our Operating Model: From Focus to Impact
The DBC’s agile structure is designed to facilitate impactful member collaboration. Here’s how our efforts translate from broad strategic themes to tangible output:
- Focus Areas: These are the overarching strategic themes, identified and agreed upon by our founding members, where the digital built environment needs clarity, solutions, and best practice. They represent the core challenges we seek to address (e.g., the project-operations gap, market confusion).
- Project Initiatives: These are specific, member-led projects proposed under a relevant Focus Area. Members develop a Project Charter, which is then greenlit by the Executive Committee (with escalation to the Steering Committee if consensus is not reached). Project Initiatives are where our members actively collaborate to develop practical guidance, research, or outputs.
- Working Groups: When multiple Project Initiatives converge under a wider umbrella, or a thematic area requires ongoing oversight and coordination, a formal Working Group may be established. These groups provide a framework for sustained, multi-project collaboration.
This structure allows for bottom-up member-led participation with top-down oversight, ensuring agility while maintaining strategic alignment and accountability as a not-for-profit industry group.
Our Flagship Initiative: The RIBA Smart Buildings Overlay 2.0 Review
As a direct demonstration of the Digital Buildings Council’s unique approach and commitment to practical impact, we are proudly facilitating the review of the RIBA Smart Buildings Overlay 2.0 to the RIBA Plan of Work with its original co-authors. This flagship initiative embodies our agile, collaborative model in action, directly shaping industry standards and bridging critical gaps.
This is a pivotal industry-wide effort, set to redefine how digital strategies integrate from design through to long-term operations. We invite all interested professionals to contribute their expertise and help shape Version 2.0. Learn more and register your interest here.
Our Strategic Focus Areas & Collaborative Opportunities
The DBC founding members have identified key issues needing attention for the digital buildings market to reach its full potential. These areas form the initial basis for our collaborative efforts, presenting clear opportunities for new members to contribute and shape future initiatives. It is worth noting that efforts within these Project Initiatives will also feed into our flagship RIBA Smart Buildings Overlay 2.0 Review, where applicable, to avoid duplicated effort and ensure comprehensive insights.
1. Project Scoping, Planning & Success Metrics
- Challenge: Clarifying the digital buildings technology adoption roadmap and its mapping to broader digital transformation programmes. This aims to reduce ambiguity and promote a common language in broader specifications, ensuring optimum digital building outcomes and value for all stakeholders.
2. Project Costing & the Business Case
- Challenge: Effectively demonstrating the business case for digital enablement often overlooks adopting a comprehensive approach to calculating ROI. We aim to drive approaches that align digital outcomes with costs early in the project lifecycle, mitigating value engineering challenges and ensuring comprehensive value.
3. Linking BIM and Smart Enablement
- Challenge: This Focus Area addresses the persistent chasm between BIM data (design/construction) and smart building operations, where inconsistencies and communication breakdowns often leave vital information untapped. Through member-led initiatives, we develop practical guidance and actionable solutions for seamless BIM-to-operations data transition, helping to plug critical gaps in existing industry frameworks and influencing broader standards.
4. Stakeholder Roles & Responsibilities
- Challenge: Clearly articulating the roles and responsibilities of key stakeholders in the digital building project delivery process, and defining the unique value each player and delivery model brings. Recent discussions have, for example, highlighted the evolving role of the Master Systems Integrator (MSI).
5. S&G also in ESG: Sustainable & Responsible Digital Buildings
- Challenge: This Focus Area addresses the gap between ESG ambitions and practical implementation in digital buildings, particularly for existing stock and retrofit. We provide actionable guidance on enhancing ESG outcomes by identifying ‘low-hanging fruit’ solutions, such as operational optimisation for carbon reduction and improved occupant wellbeing. Our collaborative discussions with partners aim to scale this practical guidance across the industry.
Strategic Partnerships & Knowledge Sharing Our Strategic
Focus Areas also shape how and why we actively seek partnerships with other relevant trade bodies and initiatives, as with our recent collaboration on the Digital Operations Stage at Digital Construction Week. This collaboration helps enhance professional understanding through knowledge sharing, bridging the project-operations gap, and driving several additional interrelated initiatives.
The RIBA Smart Buildings Overlay review, being our flagship initiative, is a prime example of how actively seeking partnerships translates into tangible results. Similarly, discussions around Digital Soft Landings (as explored at Digital Construction Week) exemplify our commitment to enhancing professional understanding through knowledge sharing, confirming that we are indeed “doing what we say on the tin” even as Project Initiatives are still being set in motion.
Get Involved with Our Initiatives
The DBC fosters active member engagement and discussion of Project Initiatives on our community platform. Members are actively encouraged to contribute to and review the output from all initiatives, even if they are not directly involved in a specific Working Group.
Reach Out to Learn More About How to Join Our Community and Contribute to Our Mission
If you’d like to get involved and contribute your expertise, please message us via our LinkedIn Page. We will follow up with you via email to discuss your interest and how you can participate in our mission.
Stay connected by following the DBC on LinkedIn for the latest updates, events, and insights from our members. To explore what our organisation and members are actively engaged in, please visit our News & Views section.
