The legal framework for design liability in building information modelling

Abstract

Building Information Modelling (BIM) is a solution to achieve productivity, efficiency, life cycle enhancement and sustainability in the construction industry. It also promotes the two symbiotic factors information sharing and collaborative approach among the professionals. Transference from the conventional practice to BIM will make the design liabilities change and create legal uncertainties among the professionals. This was expected to be acting as an obstacle to achieve the desires in BIM’s wider adoption and a suitable legal framework was found to be necessary. The solutions for the legal uncertainties arising from the new environment needs to be formulated and on the other hand in order to adopt BIM in an effective manner it requires identifying of these legal uncertainties and provides a clear vision for the client and the design team on how they should work in the changed environment. With this prime intention, this research was conducted adopting mixture of legal and scientific research methods. Initially preliminary literature synthesis was carried out which discussed the present legal environment with the expected change through BIM. The legal analysis was carried out following the flexible iterative style where the researchers’ opinion blends with the experiences from primary sources of law to build up the tentative hypothesis. Through semi structured interviews with a group of experts representing different proficiencies in the construction industry, this tentative hypothesis was tested; the collected data from construction industry experts were subjected to content analysis based on opinions and suggestions, these findings were then interpreted to identify the suitable legal framework. The legal framework which was identified includes the preventive mechanism of negligent acts, liabilities of the human factor, process and enforceability, actions, proposed provisions and suggestion. Hence, this framework is recommended to be implemented in the BIM environment.