The BIM4Ren project held its fifth General Assembly on April 7-8, organised online due to the sanitary conditions around Europe linked to Covid-19. The consortium discussed the developments and results achieved by implementing the BIM4Ren concept and solutions in BIM in energy retrofitting research, while also making further decisions on how to better deploy and promote the technologies developed.

Building on Tech Day #2 held just a week before, a series of technical meetings dedicated to demonstrations and the revision of the BIM4Ren tools, the project coordinator Nobatek/INEF4 started the meeting by providing a general overview of their functionalities and discussed the need for greater cooperation between complementary tools. Additionally, workshops were held with a focus on the situations in the pilot buildings in France, Italy and Spain in order to create the best conditions for increased testing activities. Indeed, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the tests in the pilot use cases is slightly delayed, but nevertheless, it has allowed polishing the development of tools and the OSAP environment. The second day also started with three technical workshops: the first on the integration of the BIM4Ren tools in the OSAP, the second on the interaction between the tools, and the third on how to better respond to users’ experiences.

This meeting also marked the start of a phase of increased interaction with all stakeholders who have shown interest in BIM4Ren developments and findings, including Horizon 2020 sister projects, as the consortium is expanding its community and preparing a training program on the BIM4Ren One-Stop Access Platform and tools. Indeed, a workshop was held on the methodology for the training program, which will consist of a two-fold approach with training activities for partners but also for all construction stakeholders, especially those from the BIM4Ren Stakeholders Community. Guiding the user to select the most appropriate tools, identifying the best workflow for one’s own renovation project, teaching to navigate through the BIM4Ren platform, and many others, are at the heart of the discussions on the future project training scheme. Finally, a workshop was dedicated to the adjustment of the communication and dissemination activities to creatively reach the BIM4Ren community and to develop an advocacy strategy.

These two intense days demonstrated the cohesion and good understanding of the partners, dedicated to making available tools and technologies that concretely contribute to and facilitate the use of BIM in building renovation, especially for SMEs. An ambition that is even more important today in the context of the Renovation Wave that European institutions are aiming for!