Collaborative Workflows and Version Control Through Open-Source and Distributed Common Data Environment

Abstract

Collaboration in architectural design becomes an increasingly complex task involving various actors working distributed in different locations. This complexity is even more hindered by the fact that the various actors involved in a project operate on different software environments and need to access accurate and up to date data at any time. Consequently, managing and keeping track of design changes throughout the workflow still remains a challenge for all actors involved in the design. This is a review paper that presents the state of the art in advanced collaborative design workflows, both in academia and industry, and introduces Speckle, a distributed Common Data Environment (CDE) and open-source data platform for Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC), as well as its version control capabilities.