BRISE-VIENNA

Planning and living together

BRISE – the future of public administration

The BRISE digitisation project set out to improve public administration in the City of Vienna and thus the lives of the population. In a “city of short distances” like Vienna, it allows for faster and more efficient administrative processing. Digital and analogous participation processes guarantee democratic, service-oriented progress towards a modern, sustainable city administration.

BRISE has set new standards for submission and permit procedures in building and construction. The project results can be transferred to other fields of administration and other European cities.

The research and development project BRISE received about EUR 4.8 million in funding from the EU initiative “Urban Innovative Actions”. Expert partners from the fields of science (civil engineers and computer scientists at TU Wien), public administration (City of Vienna), BIM (tbw-ODE) and from the local Chamber of Civil Engineers (for Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland) worked in close cooperation to implement the project by March 2023.

BRISE – digital construction processes

BRISE (Building Regulations Information for Submission Envolvement) generally stands for smart, efficient public administration. Based on administrative procedures in building and construction as an example for smart digital administration, the City of Vienna has taken on a pioneering role in Europe.

Innovative technologies help digitise building permit applications and procedures, making the entire process faster, more efficient, more transparent and less costly. The digital processes developed for BRISE can be transferred directly to other fields of public administration.

BRISE – building in a growing city

Vienna is a major international city whose total population has grown by around 300,000 people over the past 10 years. Population growth has also led to an increase in construction activity. Currently the Vienna City Administration processes around 13,000 building applications every year.

The City of Vienna makes a point of protecting and preserving the large stock of older buildings in the city, while at the same time setting high social, architectural and ecological standards for new construction projects. Submission processes have become increasingly complex. As a result, processing times for conventional pen-and-paper building applications have increased, taking up to a year by now.

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BRISE – high tech solution

The BRISE project combines high-tech methods like Building Information Modelling (BIM), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Augmented Reality (AR) to allow for a comprehensive, fully digital and automated building permit procedure. It uses digital 3D building models instead of 2D planning documents. As a result, BRISE provides an innovative basis for the entire building administration process – from planning and submission to building site inspections and, finally, handing over the finished structure.

Advantages of BRISE

The combination of high-tech methods reduces project risks and expenses, improves schedules, eases the workload of administrative staff, increases transparency and leads to better results overall. Digitising these processes has many advantages. Here is a brief summary:

SAVING TIME

Digital building permit procedures take up to 50 percent less time than the conventional procedure. All parties involved can see the current application status in real-time, at any time. The system starts providing feedback on the submitted building model and thus on the building project as early as in the preliminary inspection stage, contributing substantially to planning security.

INCREASING TRANSPARENCY

All relevant steps from project planning to approval are represented in a generally accessible 3D model. This allows interested citizens to view and better understand new construction projects in the form of 3D models, even before construction starts.

SAVING RESOURCES

The new procedure saves time, money and energy – both for individuals and companies applying for building permits, as well as for the City Administration.

BENEFITS

For science and research, this is an opportunity to gain valuable experience and test fields for the further development of digitised administrative processes. The expertise and know-how gained over 3 years will be directly applied for teaching in practice.

Technology

Building Information Modeling (BIM) is a networked planning method for building models based on coordinated planning information from the fields of architecture, structural engineering and building services. The model generated with BIM is also useful in building construction and operation. The BIM application in BRISE uses the international software-neutral IFC standard from buildingSMART. This allows for digital building submission models to be compared with official reference models in a so-called collision check. What is more, testing routines can be used to search and access legal content – and a corresponding report can be created from the results.

Artificial intelligence (AI) aims to enable machines to perform tasks “intelligently”. AI is used in BRISE as a combination of machine learning and intelligent semantic search. It allows for legal sources to be used more quickly as a basis for decision-making. Provisions of the Vienna Land Use and Development Plan are automatically classified, and submission documents are automatically categorised. Signatures, or the lack of signatures, are displayed automatically.

Augmented Reality (AR) positions models in space. This allows for building projects that are still in the planning stage to be visualised in their future form and effect, providing a realistic rendering that can be displayed on different devices (tablet, smartphone, etc.).The BRISE research project pursues two overarching goals: On the one hand, the establishment of simple, transparent and fast approval procedures based on digital tools; on the other hand, enhancing transparency through a new, citizen-oriented approach. Innovative use of AR enables the use of Building Information Modelling (BIM), thus opening up completely new possibilities in the cooperation between building authorities and citizens.

PROJECT PARTNERS

The project is implemented by an interdisciplinary team of experts from business, science and the Vienna City Administration.

City of Vienna – Chief Executive Office for Strategic ICT
City of Vienna – Chief Executive Office for Construction and Technology
tbw – ODE (the better way – office for digital engineering) – expert consultants for digitisation processes
TU Vienna – Vienna University of Technology – Construction Engineering and Computer Science
WH – Media
ZT-Kammer – Chamber of Civil Engineers, Architects and Engineers for Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland

Urban Innovative Actions (UIA), an initiative of the European Commission, promotes innovative measures in sustainable urban development. UIA provides room and resources for urban authorities across Europe to test new approaches and solutions to complex, real-world challenges. The projects funded must be innovative, of high quality, developed with the participation of key stakeholders, oriented towards results, and suitable for implementation.

BRISE was successful among 175 projects submitted by applicants from 23 EU member countries. As a European showcase project, BRISE creates essential future know-how for Vienna and the whole of Europe.

BRISE’s unique approach combines aspects of technical and organisational relevance. It further develops ICT infrastructure and software with the help of AI, AR and BIM, always oriented towards practical application.

PUBLICATIONS AND INFO MATERIAL FOR DOWNLOAD (IN GERMAN ONLY)

SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS

ITcon Volume 26: Potentials of Augmented Reality in a BIM based building submission process (2021)

Frontiers: Digital Twins in the Construction Industry: A Perspective of Practitioners and Building Authority (June 2022)

Österreichische Ingenieur- und Architekten-Zeitschrift (ÖIAZ) #166: Einsatz von openBIM und KI im Bewilligungsverfahren der Stadt Wien (September 2021) / in German

Bauingenieur Volume 95 no. 9: Entwicklung eines openBIM-Bewilligungsverfahrens (2020) / in German

CONTACT FOR PRESS RELATIONS

BRISE Vienna Project Management
brise-vienna@post.wien.gv.at

This post is also available in: German