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Abstract:
Digitalization and digital technologies are buzzwords in today's building industry. Because of their promising opportunities to improve (among others) the sustainability footprint of the built environment, they have emerged as an important topic for policymakers, managers, and researchers. Yet, the debate is dominated by references to Building Information Modelling (BIM) and to the success of digital businesses in other industries; it thereby fails to consider other promising digital building technologies and ignores that—in the building industry—many digital technologies require alignment with buildings' physical components. For these reasons, it is unclear how the implications of digital transformation of the building industry for policy and business. In this paper, we develop a typology of digital building technologies, and categorize and assess 29 important building technologies. The substantive differences among different types of building technologies provide valuable insights into how digital building technologies affect the functioning, structure, and competition in the building industry and where digital building technologies offer opportunities to remedy the industry's sustainability footprint. Based on our findings, we offer recommendations to policy makers, companies, and researchers interested in digital building technologies.
