Automated building compliance checking : emphasis on building placement and parking availability

Abstract: Building permit automation has become a rising international topic in the past decade due to its convenience and efficiency. Automated compliance checking saves time and resources, which is beneficial for the construction industry. Researchers have already automated parts of the building permit process and the results proved that automated building requirement compliance checking is efficient. This thesis aims to contribute by developing an algorithm to automate the checking of building placement and parking availability. The algorithm should be able to: 1) check if the house is in a buildable area, 2) examine if the house placement meets the minimum distance requirement, 3) determine parking availability with accordance to house placement. The algorithm in this study is developed in Feature Manipulation Engine (FME). Building placement automation is achieved through minimum distance logic while parking availability automation is achieved through transformations that utilize geometrical relationships. To test the algorithm, a case study is conducted for Höganäs municipality in Southern Sweden. In Sweden, each municipality has its own detailed development plan, which regulates the usage of land and water within its geographical boundaries. The detailed development plan also regulates building requirements. The results of the testing indicate that the developed algorithm can accurately automate building placement and parking availability according to the requirements in Höganäs municipality’s detailed development plan. The results are satisfactory, demonstrating that it is feasible to automate the checking of certain building requirements in Sweden.