Designing buildings on the clouds: Needs and concerns

Abstract

The digitalization efforts in the construction industry made the computing power required for designing and constructing project increase rapidly. The personal computer is pricey; it needs periodical maintenance and has limited computational power. Cloud computing offers unlimited computing power as an on-demand time-sharing service where the required computational power can be customized according to the user need. However, storing data on the cloud is not a preferable choice for construction companies due to security concerns and traditional work practices. This article aims to examine the technology, the currently available service providers, and the applicability to use during construction design as a replacement for traditional local computing. The findings show that most BIM cloud-based services focus on collaboration and sharing data instead of creating BIM content. While using the Windows operating system as the main environment to run BIM authoring applications make running it in the cloud harder. The article addresses the privacy and cyber-attacks risks using cloud computing and the role of emerging technologies such as Blockchain in reducing the risks of adoption. This study adds to the digitalization research a new aspect where most of the literature discusses methods of sharing the design content online. The study discusses the possibility of creating construction design on the cloud to improve the design workflow, in addition to discussing the possible risks and obstacles for adopting the technology. (c) Fédération Internationale du Béton (fib) International Federation for Structural Concrete.