The Abstract
Connected Building Data: Application and Economic Viability
Published
Workshop at HWZ University of Applied Sciences in Business Administration Zurich, June 2026
Construction projects are considered one-offs. But look closer and you see: conditions and form may be unique – building patterns, rules, and processes repeat. Always. A construction project is really a projukt: half project, half product.
With this thesis, Simon Dilhas, architect and founder of abstract.build and digitalbau.ch, opened his contribution at the HWZ event «Connected Building Data: Application and Economic Viability» – organized by the Department of Banking & Finance, Controlling and Real Estate under Dr. Nadine Rusch Schenker.
Four parallel working groups tackled concrete questions: How can buildings be understood digitally? Where do normalized room names help? How does a data model support the change process? And how could SIA standards be made machine-readable and openly accessible?
The results show: the potential is large – and so is the appetite to act on it.
What's next?
The four topics should not end with the workshop. If you would like to explore one of them further – as a pilot project, working group, or in conversation – get in touch: