Circularity assessment across construction project phases with Building Information Modelling

To facilitate circular design and construction practices, project stakeholders need insights into circularity across different project phases. Building information modelling (BIM) technologies provide new opportunities for developing methods to assess the circularity performance of buildings. However, most existing BIM-based circularity methods are not well-suited to handle different amounts of available information or varying Levels of Development (LOD) across project phases. This study, therefore, used a Design Science Research Methodology to develop a prototypical BIM-based circularity assessment tool. This standalone tool integrated three calculation models with a user interface to offer circularity insights based on BIM models with different LOD, covering initiative, design and construction phases. The tool's potential was validated through twelve user-based evaluation sessions and its implementation in a renovation project in the Netherlands. This study contributes to the field by introducing an innovative approach that takes information availability into account and showcases BIM's capabilities to support circularity assessments. • Stakeholders require circularity insights across different project phases in a construction project. • A design science research methodology was adopted with active stakeholder involvement. • A BIM (Building Information Modelling)-based circularity assessment tool has been developed. • The tool incorporates three calculation models for different project phases characterised by LOD (Level of Development).