The paper introduces a framework for decentralised architectural design in the context of the fourth industrial revolution. We examine first the constraints of building information modelling in regard to collaboration and trust. We then introduce Blockchain infrastructure as a means for creating new operational and business models for architectural design, through project governance, scaling collaboration nominally to thousands of agents, and shifting trust to the infrastructure rather than the architectural design team. Through a wider consideration of Blockchains in construction projects we focus on the design process and validate our framework with a prototype of BIM design optimisation integrated with a Blockchain mechanism. The paper concludes by outlining the contributions our framework can enhance in the building information modelling processes, within the context of the fourth industrial revolution.
| Authors | Dounas, T.; Lombardi, D.; Jabi, W. |
|---|---|
| Year | 2020 |
| Venue | International Journal of Architectural Computing 19(2), 157–173 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1478077120963376 |
| Source Database | Backtracking |
| Bridge-to-GNN | Category C |
| GNN Architecture | Knowledge Graph Embedding (inferred from title) |
| Graph Encoding | BIM Element Topology Graph (inferred from title) |
| AEC Task | Not yet extracted from PDF |
| Cohort | Early Infrastructure (2020–2021) |
| Implementation Framework | Topologic, Grasshopper / Rhino, Revit / Dynamo (heuristic — verify) |
|---|---|
| Primary Metric | Mean Average Precision (mAP) (heuristic — verify) |
| Quality Assessment | 2/6 · rigor: Low · Code/Data: ✓Baseline: ✓ (heuristic — verify) |
| GNN architectures detected | Knowledge Graph Embedding (TransE/RotatE/DistMult) |
|---|---|
| Frameworks / libraries | Topologic / Topologicpy · Grasshopper / Rhino · Revit / Dynamo |
| Code repositories found in text | https://github.com/bimblockchain/optimisation_prototype |
| Quality (heuristic, 6-flag) | 1/6 · rigor: Low Code/Data: ✓Benchmark: —Baseline: —CV/Split: —Ablation: —Reproducible: — |
Part of the GML/GNN in AEC Systematic Review (PRISMA 2020) — 112 papers, 2020–2026