Digital Building Permitting

Digital building permitting is emerging as a distinct interdisciplinary field at the intersection of the built environment, public administration, law, and digital technologies. This volume brings together the peer-reviewed papers presented at the Digital Building Permit Conference 2026 (DBP26), reflecting the continued evolution of research into the digitalisation of building permitting processes and, more broadly, the scientific understanding of building permitting as a socio-technical and administrative system.

The book covers a wide range of topics, including process modelling and optimisation, automated compliance checking, Building Information Modeling (BIM), Geographic Information Systems (GIS), semantic technologies, artificial intelligence, information management, governance, regulatory complexity, and comparative analyses of building permitting systems. Collectively, they demonstrate that digitalisation has become more than a technological objective; it has become a means of understanding building permitting itself. Alongside advances in digital methods and tools, the contributions provide new insights into organisational structures, decision making, legal interpretation, institutional responsibilities, and human collaboration. The volume illustrates how technological and non-technological research perspectives complement one another in establishing the scientific foundations of digital building permitting.

This book is intended for researchers, practitioners, public authorities, policymakers, software developers, and postgraduate students working in digital construction, BIM, GIS, artificial intelligence, regulatory technologies, digital government, and public administration. It will also serve as a valuable reference for anyone interested in the future development of building permitting and its digitalisation.

Judith Fauth is Postdoctoral Researcher at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) in Germany at the Chair of Computing in Civil and Building Engineering starting in April 2024. Before she joined her current position, she was Marie Skłodowska Curie Postdoc Fellow at the University of Cambridge (UK), postdoctoral researcher at Technische Universität Wien in Vienna (Austria) and researcher in the research project iECO at RIB Software GmbH in Germany. Judith completed several research stays abroad in the USA (University of Southern California), Italy (Fraunhofer Italia), New Zealand (University of Auckland) and Israel (Technion - Israel Institute of Technology). She obtained her Doctorate in Engineering from Bauhaus-Universität Weimar (Germany) from the Department of Construction Engineering and Management in 2021. She received various awards for young scientists in Germany and Austria for her dissertation. Judith graduated with a Bachelor degree in Architecture and a Master degree in Facility and Real Estate Management. Judith’s research interest is on the digitalization of building permits starting in 2016. Her main focus lies on transdisciplinary perspectives of project and process management. She published several scientific journal and conference articles on the topic. Judith is member of the management committee of the EUnet4DBP.

Stefan Fuchs is a postdoctoral researcher and group lead of the Foundation Models group at the Technical University of Munich, Chair of Computing in Civil and Building Engineering and TUM Georg Nemetschek Institute – AI for the Built World. He holds a PostDoctoral scholarship from the TUM Leonhard Obermeyer Center (LOC) and earned his PhD from the School of Computer Science at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, in 2024. His doctoral research focused on leveraging neural networks to interpret building regulations, enabling their application in automated compliance checking (ACC). In his postdoctoral research at TUM, Stefan is expanding his expertise in Large Language Models and Vision-Language Models in the context of Building Information Modelling, with the goals of developing a fully automated compliance checking system and using ACC as a feedback signal for generative design.

Robert Amor is a Computer Scientist who received his BSc (Hons) and MSc degrees from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. After receiving his PhD from the University of Auckland, New Zealand he spent five years working at the Centre for Construction IT at the BRE in the UK. He was the Head of Department of Computer Science at the University of Auckland for nine years. Prof Amor undertakes research in the field of Construction Informatics. Achieving interoperability is his core research interest and to achieve this he investigates integrated environments which covers information modelling (e.g., BIM), automated code compliance checking, process modelling, user interaction, implementation frameworks, information mapping, and communication strategies. From 2003-2025 he coordinated the working group CIB W78 (IT for Construction) for the International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and Construction (CIB). Since 2012 he is Editor-in-Chief of the ITcon journal.

Yonghan Kim is a doctoral researcher at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), Germany, at the Chair of Computing in Civil and Building Engineering and the TUM Georg Nemetschek Institute – AI for the Built World. His doctoral research is conducted within the TUM Institute for Advanced Study’s focus group on AI-Based Design Compliance Checking. His research focuses on automated code compliance checking, Building Information Modelling (BIM), and artificial intelligence for the built environment. In particular, he investigates the use of large language models and multimodal AI to interpret textual and graphical building regulations and to integrate regulatory requirements into BIM-based compliance checking workflows. Prior to joining TUM, he conducted research at the Building Informatics Group at Yonsei University in the Republic of Korea. His broader research interests include construction informatics, computer vision, multimodal information processing, and the automation of regulatory compliance processes. His work aims to contribute to more scalable, intelligent, and automated approaches to digital building permitting and compliance checking.

Simon Fischer is a postdoctoral researcher in the Digital Building Process research unit at the TU Wien in Austria. He studied civil engineering and graduated with a doctoral thesis on the automation of building code-compliant escape route analysis and checking for digital building permits. His work generally focuses on process automation using digital building models and openBIM standards. This involves defining information requirements, carrying out automated verification and analysis, and processing results. One of his major projects was the BRISE-Vienna research project, which focused on developing an openBIM building permit process for the City of Vienna, including semi-automated compliance checking. He also disseminates knowledge about BIM and open data standards in this field as a co-author and participates in a national standards committee on openBIM building authority procedures.

Jiabin Wu is a doctoral researcher at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), Germany, at the Chair of Computing in Civil and Building Engineering and the TUM Georg Nemetschek Institute. His research focuses on Building Information Modelling (BIM), AI-enabled code compliance checking in early building design, and digital innovation in engineering design. In particular, he investigates BIM-based automated design enrichment and rectification methods that support code-compliant building design. His work includes the development of “Design Healing” approaches, which aim to enhance existing BIM models and adjust non-compliant building designs toward regulatory compliance.

Jernej Tekavec is a Slovenian researcher, and university teacher at the Chair of Geoinformatics and Real Estate Cadastres, Faculty of Civil and Geodetic Engineering, University of Ljubljana (UL FGG). He earned his PhD in Geodesy from UL FGG in 2021. His doctoral research focused on the development of the existing real estate cadastre towards a multipurpose 3D cadastral system. His main research interests include real estate cadastres, 3D cadastral systems, 3D city and indoor modelling, the integration of building information modelling (BIM) and geographic information systems (GIS), spatial data interoperability, and advanced 3D spatial analysis. His work also addresses cadastral data quality, the modelling and integration of indoor and outdoor spaces, and the processing, management, and visualisation of large geospatial datasets. He is actively involved in national and international research and development projects, professional networks, workshops, forums, and scientific conferences. Through this work, he contributes to the development of methods and digital solutions that support modern land administration, spatial planning, geospatial data management, and evidence-based decision-making. He has authored and co-authored scientific publications on topics such as 3D cadastral modelling, indoor spatial models, procedural generation of large 3D datasets, spatial data integration, and the quality of cadastral boundary data. Alongside his research activities, he is involved in teaching geoinformatics, programming and geospatial data processing, spatial statistics, and project-based courses at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. His teaching emphasises the practical application of modern geospatial technologies and the integration of theoretical knowledge with real-world datasets and problems.

Ronny Weinkauf is a Professor of Computer Science, Databases, and Distributed Systems at Merseburg University of Applied Sciences, as well as a practitioner with many years of experience in the digitisation of public administration. As a co-founder of brain-SCC GmbH, he develops innovative software solutions and digital services for municipalities, government agencies, and other public institutions. His academic and professional work focuses on the redesign of digital administrative and permitting processes based on cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, building information modelling, geographic information systems, and digital twins. A particular focus is on digital building permits and on scalable solutions that provide end-to-end support to applicants, planners, local building authorities, and other stakeholders throughout the entire process. Ronny Weinkauf combines academic research with the practical implementation of large-scale digitisation projects in the public sector. He has contributed to the development of collaborative technologies and to the nationwide “One-for-All” solution for digital building permit applications in Germany. His current work examines how AI, BIM, and geodata can improve decision-making processes, automate selected reviews, and make administrative procedures more efficient, transparent, and user-friendly. His goal is to introduce modern technologies nationwide, including within federal, state, and local government administrations, thereby creating significant, measurable added value.

Francesca Noardo is a Researcher and Project Manager in the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). Prior to join OGC she has developed her research in geomatics at the Politecnico di Torino (Italy), where she obtained her PhD, and in the 3D geoinformation group at the Delft University of Technology (NL), where she worked as a postdoc for more than 3 years. She has been working towards the interoperability and integration of multi-source spatial data, in particular, detailed 3D information systems (from survey or from design), in interoperable 3D maps, leveraging Open standards and adopting a user-centric approach for the concrete uptake of such technologies for urban applications. She is coordinating an international multidisciplinary collaboration as founder and leader of the European Network for Digital Building Permits (EUnet4DBP). She participates in various European projects and coordinated the CHEK project.