Towards an open model for integrated planning of the built environment: research agenda

Increasingly complex challenges in the planning of the built environment require comprehensive and holistic approaches. Yet, projects frequently fail to integrate central factors and impacts, which leads to poor outcomes. This can be attributed to a lack of modelling approaches that enable integration and convergence of multiple disciplinary perspectives. In this paper, we aim to motivate a paradigm shift, from an exclusive and disciplinary modelling culture towards a more comprehensive and holistic one. For this purpose, we present the conceptual idea of the open model. This collaborative integrated modelling approach – both digital tool and process methodology – combines architectural, structural, social and environmental aspects of built environment projects. Guided by the conceptual idea of the open model and based on interdisciplinary discussions and literature reviews on integrated modelling, we identify fundamental dilemmas and research questions that represent the preliminary theoretical scoping for a long-term interdisciplinary research into integrated modelling.