How is BIM Used in Urban Planning in 2025?

The digital-first method of tying together a construction project's whole design process is called Building Information Modelling, or BIM. From the beginning of a project to its conclusion, it generates and maintains data about a constructed asset, even helping with operations and maintenance. 

Through the use of tools and technologies like Revit, Navisworks, Dynamo, BIM 360, and others, it facilitates the dissemination of information to all of the project team's important stakeholders.  Beyond the conventional 2D and 3D models, BIM modeling allows for collaborative project execution with minimal errors by combining 4D, 5D, 6D, 7D, and 8D into a single visualization.

Professionals in the AEC sector have reduced costs, time, waste, and other aspects of the building process by using BIM. The importance of BIM technology has grown significantly, particularly in light of the quick digitization of building projects worldwide. For example, while some nations strongly favor its usage, others, like the UK and Turkey, have made BIM mandatory for all government projects.

Because of its advantages, design experts and BIM managers from numerous AEC sector verticals are implementing BIM, and evidence indicates that this trend will only grow over the coming years, increasing the demand for qualified BIM professionals. Urban planning is one such sector that has benefited greatly from BIM modeling procedures. Let's get started!

What is Urban Planning?

The built environment, which includes land use, public and private infrastructure, and public accessibility, is the focus of the technical and sociopolitical process of urban planning. Land zoning, geographic mapping and analysis, park space analysis, water supply survey, population growth prediction, transportation pattern identification, food supply demands, healthcare and social service allocation, and land use impact analysis are some of the tools used to develop the most effective infrastructure plans.

In its modern form, urban planning places a strong emphasis on using city planning as a tool to improve people's health and well-being and guarantee sustainable growth.

How Does Urban Planning Help Urban Growth?

Urban planning is a complex process that strategically shapes the growth and development of urban areas by combining technical know-how with socio-political savvy. Urban planning uses a toolkit that includes land zoning, geographic mapping, park space analysis, and other techniques to carefully consider land use, infrastructure, and public accessibility. Urban planners use these technologies to design optimal infrastructure designs that meet the changing needs of the expanding population. 

Urban planning is a powerful instrument for enhancing communities' physical and social well-being in the modern world. It is a holistic approach that goes beyond basic urban development to enhance people's lives while ensuring sustainable advancement. As cities expand into hubs of dynamic development, urban planning acts as a pillar, directing urban growth in the direction of a successful, resilient, and inclusive future.

What is the scope of BIM in Urban Planning?

With limited resources, the number of people living in cities around the world is growing quickly. With 68% of the world's population expected to reside in cities, the present population of just over 8 billion people may increase to almost 10 billion by 2050, according to recent forecasts. The building and construction sector is responsible for over 40% of the global carbon footprint, while cities alone are responsible for 70% of emissions.

In order to provide the expanding needs for housing, transportation, water, energy systems, education, health care, waste management, access to public areas, and more, cities' natural resources are unavoidably under tremendous strain from rapid urbanization.

Therefore, creating master plans that meet the demands of the populace while also assisting in the achievement of the "net-zero carbon by 2050" aim is the largest problem facing urban planners.

This is where BIM comes in! 

BIM in Urban Planning and the case of Smart Cities

BIM is an analytical tool used in urban planning to produce digital models with a wealth of information on buildings, roadways, parks, water supplies, and other infrastructure. The effectiveness and impact of the suggested development are then evaluated by visualizing and analyzing these models.

Planners may use BIM models to create data-driven, tech-driven, networked, creative, citizen-focused urban ecosystems that, most critically, encourage sustainable construction—a goal that many people aspire to but only a select few really meet. The Smart City model is one example.

Smart Cities - The embodiment of a smart and sustainable urban future

Smart Cities are technologically advanced, planned metropolitan areas that employ information and communication technologies (ICT) to collect particular data and use it to improve the quality of life for its residents while optimizing the way the city operates. In India, they are part of the government's urban rejuvenation and retrofitting initiative, which aims to make cities more livable and environmentally sustainable.

Master planning of metropolitan regions is used in smart city initiatives, and numerous public and private specialists and agencies are involved in the infrastructure development. Working independently of other components exposes one to the same operational and decision-making traps as in the past.

These could include significant last-minute alterations to the built structure, tainted data, postponed project completions, loss of funds and resources, inconvenience to the public, increased carbon emissions, and more. Furthermore, smart cities are by nature technologically advanced and data-driven. As a result, any planning should employ instruments that align with the city's basic principles.

The Internet of Things (IoT), a network of interconnected devices that can exchange data and communicate, such as sensors in cars and home appliances, is at the heart of smart cities. Urban designers use this data, which is saved on servers and the cloud, to combine the digital and physical elements of cities for better planning and governance.

In this situation, BIM is a useful tool that maximizes the efficiency of the built environment and supports effective planning and data-driven decision-making. Actually, BIM and smart cities share a lot of fundamental principles.  

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• sustainability,

• increased efficiency, collaboration and communication,

• equitable information dissemination,

• time and cost-effectiveness,

• powered by data,

• transparency, and so on.

  
  

One example of how BIM can assist urban planners in creating smart, efficient infrastructure that satisfies public demands and complies with green building regulations is in smart cities. Around the world, efforts are being made to lessen the carbon footprint of the building industry with the aim of reaching net zero emissions, which was first established by the Paris Agreement.

Thus far, we have examined the definition of BIM technology and its application in urban planning. Let's first examine the reasons why planners ought to employ BIM in urban infrastructure projects before moving on to the specifics.

What are the Benefits of Using BIM in Urban Planning?

The current trend of planning and design and development of Smart Cities offers us a sneak peek into the scale of BIM and other technological adoption that will occur in the next couple of decades.

It is expected to completely transform the way the AEC industry operates. For urban planners too, there are many upsides to tech adoption. Let’s look at some of the key benefits urban planners can reap by using BIM:

1. Better collaboration

BIM's primary function is to make it easier to gather and share information at every stage of the construction process. As was previously said, urban development initiatives such as metros, smart cities, etc. are often large-scale and include numerous agencies and design teams. By closing the communication gap, BIM promotes an atmosphere of data-driven decision-making and increases team and agency collaboration.

2. Greater accuracy

Every BIM project has data at its core. Early error identification in the design is made possible by urban planning approaches like site analysis and data visualization along with seamless data sharing.

Consider the Museum of the Future in Dubai, which was created by the architectural firm Killa Design. During the planning and design phase, the team used BIM software to produce immersive renderings that let industry professionals and public and private decision-makers tour the entire museum and check every component for defects.

Similar to this, urban planners are able to produce visual models, identify design defects early on, geographically assess how the design interacts with the environment and surrounding elements, include observations, and fully optimize master plans with greater accuracy when construction is underway.

3. Early error detection 

Early error detection means fixes to the plan are made before starting the actual building process. Using BIM technology, urban planners can reduce the margin of error and waste of resources like money, labour, and time considerably thereby increasing the accuracy of the design process. 

4. Reduced public inconvenience

Although the goal of urban planning projects is to enhance the quality of life for the residents, due to its size, the building process itself may generate problems for the users. In urban infrastructure projects, limited access to excavated roads and land can result in pollution, traffic, and other issues.

With the use of BIM technologies, planners and urban designers can investigate modular prefabricated construction, a technique in which built environment components are assembled on-site after being produced elsewhere.

It shortens the time spent building on-site and contributes to the safety and quality of life of the local population. Both planners and citizens' experiences with urban infrastructure initiatives are being revolutionized by BIM

5. Reduced project delays

Although the goal of urban planning projects is to enhance the quality of life for the residents, due to its size, the building process itself may generate problems for the users. In urban infrastructure projects, limited access to excavated roads and land can result in pollution, traffic, and other issues.

With the use of BIM technologies, planners and urban designers can investigate modular prefabricated construction, a technique in which built environment components are assembled on-site after being produced elsewhere.

It shortens the time spent building on-site and contributes to the safety and quality of life of the local population. Both planners and citizens' experiences with urban infrastructure initiatives are being revolutionized by BIM.

6. Increased sustainability

Improved teamwork within project teams results in early problem identification, improved accuracy, quicker project completion, and reduced disruption to the general public. These are the practical advantages of urban planning with BIM. A sustainable, long-lasting, energy-efficient built environment is a bigger, more significant advantage that urban planners and the population at large can enjoy.

Architects and urban designers can incorporate energy efficiency into the built structure from the beginning of the project thanks to BIM's inherent transparency, data collection and dissemination capabilities, and the capacity to use advanced analytics to predict a building's operational performance before it is even built.

By cutting waste, BIM-driven urban projects also improve the sustainability of construction. Before construction begins, planners can use BIM to reduce the amount of waste generated throughout the project lifecycle by creating detailed virtual models of the entire plan, analyzing how the proposed built environment interacts with surrounding and existing city components, and identifying conflicts and design errors.

By analyzing and contrasting the embodied energy and potential for global warming of various materials, they may then use BIM 3-D modeling to choose building materials with the least environmental impact.

In conclusion, BIM technology may be used by urban planners to design and build smarter, healthier, and more livable cities that can sustainably meet the demands of the growing urban population. 

BIM Techniques for Urban Planning

1. Site analysis with BIM

Site analysis is the pre-design stage of planning that entails examining the site’s geographical, climatic, demographic, historical, legal, and infrastructural conditions. It is one of the most critical elements of a planning process as building infrastructures does not happen in isolation from the environment in which it is being built from the socio-political, topographic and morphological elements.

Examining the site's geographic, climatic, demographic, historical, legal, and infrastructure factors is part of the pre-design phase of planning, known as site study. Given that infrastructure development is influenced by the sociopolitical, topographic, and morphological aspects of the surrounding environment, it is one of the most important aspects of the planning process.

By compiling all of these data points into a BIM 3-D model, planners are better able to visualize the site as a whole and work effectively with all stakeholders to identify errors early and optimize plans.

Because of this, planners must integrate site analysis with climate change scenarios, which can only be accomplished by utilizing technologies such as Geographic Information System (GIS) and Building Information Modeling (BIM). Future floods, landslides, and excessive precipitation can be taken into consideration with the use of precipitation and satellite data. Planners can prepare for upcoming heat waves or droughts with the use of temperature forecasts.

The opportunities are waiting to be seized, and the list is unlimited. In order to create constructed environments that are ready for the future and will endure over time, urban planners might use BIM technology to analyze historical, present, and future contexts while analyzing a site.

2. Integrating BIM and GIS for data-driven urban planning

A computer system that generates, saves, analyzes, and maps geographic data is called a geographic information system (GIS). For the most accurate visual plotting of any region of the planet, it collects attribute and spatial data (or tabular data) and merges them. For instance, a hospital's pin location is an example of spatial data. Attributable data includes other details about the hospital, such as its name, services, and capacity. 

Simply enough, GIS uses collected raw data to graphically depict the features of distinct locations, just like BIM does. This data can be seen in a variety of ways, from polygons (which map entire cities or states) to point data (which shows the precise location of a pin on a map).

Beginning with the planning phase and continuing through construction and maintenance, AEC professionals have been adopting BIM for construction or promoting its usage more and more in recent years. It is further accelerated by the objective of attaining net neutrality. The use of BIM in urban planning and design has, of course, also been increasing.

For example, the Capacity Assessment Tool at the London Underground Station, which combines BIM and GIS, enhances passenger flow control. Planners can improve station design for less congestion by using BIM data to produce 3D models of the stations and GIS data to create passenger flow simulations.

The ability to precisely move from a bird's-eye-view analysis to examining particular elements and features of the built infrastructure plan, and then moving beyond the site plan to the larger city, state, country, or even the world—all supported by data—is the most significant benefit of integrating BIM and GIS. 

3. BIM and Sustainable Urban Planning

The most important advantage of integrating BIM and GIS is the ability to precisely move from a bird's-eye-view analysis to examining specific elements and features of the built infrastructure plan, and then moving beyond the site plan to the larger city, state, country, or even the world—all supported by data.

A single urban development project's various design visualizations are displayed in the aforementioned photographs. Only with the advent of technology like BIM in urban planning and architecture has such visualization become feasible.

Planners can run several realistic stimulations, view pedestrian and traffic flow, and determine the optimal layout that will accommodate both the present and future populations by feeding in pedestrian and traffic movement data collected during the site investigation phase.

Without using BIM, planners run the risk of putting up plans that restrict public access to the built infrastructure while simultaneously tearing down and rebuilding what has already been constructed using the faulty design. This results in more waste, a shorter built environment life cycle, and higher carbon emissions—a vicious cycle that planners of the past were always battling.

By serving as the only source of information and reality, BIM facilitates the development and implementation of more risk-adjusted, sustainable urban planning that can meet present and future demands without placing undue burden on the city's natural resources and infrastructure.  

Future of BIM in Urban Planning

Consider these two statements - 

• Construction and buildings account for ~40% of the global carbon footprint.

• At the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP27), the United States launched the Net-Zero Government Initiative, inviting governments to lead by example and achieve net-zero emissions from national government operations by no later than 2050.

  
  

We are at the height of urbanization. The current reality is climate change. Therefore, how do urban planners and designers meet the demands of the constantly expanding urban population for a variety of facilities, such as energy systems, housing, water, transit, and recreation?

The use of BIM in urban planning has grown significantly in recent years and is only anticipated to continue growing. Leading BIM adoption nations like the US and the UK have made significant efforts to speed up its integration through programs like requiring the use of BIM for all large-scale building and remodeling projects, establishing BIM standards and guidelines, forming task forces to ensure successful BIM implementation, and incorporating BIM into curricula, to mention a few. 

Singapore has established the standard for the use of data in urban planning and the adoption of BIM in Asia. Winning the title of the world's smartest city emphasizes the point!

Can you guess what these urban infrastructure projects—the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, the Nagpur Metro Rail Corporation, the Bangalore International Airport, the Central Vista in Delhi, and the Personal Rapid Transit System in Amritsar—have in common?

All of them are massive government projects powered by BIM! A further step towards greater BIM adoption in India, which would enhance demand for BIM-skilled personnel, is the recent partnership between the UK Government and NITI Aayog, a public policy think tank of the Indian government. 

Stay tuned with PrimaVerse as we share current insights and trends in the engineering industry, including the latest in generative design. Have a project in mind? Contact us today and let’s build a better world together!