Data Driven Building Digital Twins as New Business Cases in the Built Environment

Data Driven Building Digital Twins as New Business Cases in the Built Environment explores how data analytics and digital platforms are reshaping the architecture, engineering, construction, and operation (AECOO) industries. Produced within the SPHERE project — funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme — the report examines the emergence of data-driven digital twins as catalysts for new business ecosystems. It argues that digital transformation in the built environment extends beyond technological adoption to the reconfiguration of business models, partnerships, and roles. By positioning Building Information Modelling (BIM) within a Platform as a Service (PaaS) framework, the SPHERE project envisions an integrated Digital Twin environment (BDTE) that enables new value chains and service models. The document further anticipates the evolution towards “Building as a Service,” where Digital Twins fuse data fusion, simulation, and real-time analytics to optimize building performance and redefine value creation across the AECOO sector.