Evaluation of different typologies of Common Data Environment

BIM is leading the construction towards a more digital, resilient and sustainable sector. A pillar, introduced by standards, to sustain the collaborative BIM environment is the Common Data Environment, which consists of centralized storage where all the information are gathered, shared and managed. Many different IT solutions can be adopted for different typologies of CDE. Project Server, Extranet, File-Based Retrieval System, Cloud-Storage and more innovative integration of Blockchain and IPFS. Most of them present drawbacks and benefits from their implementation. This study aims to clarify their characteristics and compare them to provide the sector with a clearer view of the different typologies of CDE. Most of the centralized CDE present issues related to data security, trustiness, accessibility of information and some of the cloud-storage commercial platforms shows problems of interoperability. While DCDE aims to solve all previously mentioned issues and increase the level of collaboration and trustiness throughout the process, guaranteeing, at the same time immutable data records and storage of the BIM model throughout all the stages of the construction process. Nevertheless, further implementations need to be carried out. Moreover, in this study, practical implementation tips are provided and a trivial example of DCDE is done.