A Hybrid Multi-Level BIM–MCDM Data Fusion Approach for Early-Stage Sustainable Building Design

Abstract

Decisions made at the early stage of the design process have a substantial influence on the environmental, socio-economic, and technical performance of a building throughout its life cycle. Although an early-stage sustainability assessment is essential to achieving climate-neutral and nearly zero-energy buildings, its implementation remains challenging due to the need to integrate and evaluate large volumes of heterogeneous data originating from multiple sources and disciplines. In view of this challenge, this study presents a hybrid multi-level approach in which data fusion is combined with Building Information Modeling (BIM), web-based technologies, and multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods to support the assessment of sustainable alternative design solutions for buildings. The proposed approach is implemented in the BIM4NZEB-DS web-based decision-support system and validated through a case study. In the data fusion model, BIM-derived information is combined with data from external sources within a unified environment, enabling designers to define sustainability indicators, assign relative level of importance, and evaluate design alternatives across key sustainability dimensions. Automated multi-criteria analysis enables the ranking and comparison of design solutions. The results of the case study demonstrate the capability of the proposed approach in terms of efficiently combining heterogeneous datasets and automating and facilitating systematic comparison of early-stage design alternatives. The findings indicate that a combination of BIM-based information management, web-enabled data fusion, and automated MCDM analysis enhances the transparency, consistency, and robustness of sustainability-oriented decision making. The approach described here contributes to the advancement of digital decision-support systems for sustainable building design and represents a practical tool for supporting climate-neutral building development during the most influential stages of the design process.