Building Information Management for monitoring user behaviour in operational stages

New paradigms are increasingly affecting and changing traditional building processes. Indeed, innovative methods, iterative processes, new roles and identities, and advanced technologies are emerging and characterising the construction sector. This shift is connected to several aspects; among them, the evolution of buildings has to be mentioned: nowadays, buildings should be designed and managed not only as products, but also as service providers to support and satisfy the needs of occupants. Considering the lack of efficiency and effectiveness of linear building processes, the paper presents the first results of an ongoing research, aiming to analyse the centrality of users as related to building behaviour, focusing on building in-use stages. Advantages in tracking occupants’ activities and satisfying users’ needs should be derived through the availability of real-time information, i.e. collected by sensors. In this way, users’ behaviour could be taken into account, predicted performance could be correlated with real measurement and, consequently, the building performance gap should be estimated and filled. Therefore, by establishing a connection between as-designed virtual models and as-delivered physical assets, building processes could rely on both performance oriented design and validated building operations. The research aims to investigate how the building process could benefit from the availability of multi-faceted information collected in real time during the operational stages of a building. In this way, it should be possible to explore how digitally-enabled practices and technologies could improve a data-driven asset management, by enriching Building Information Models through data gathered by Building Management Systems.