The IKT Regulations: BIM requirements in public construction
When there are requirements for building models, IFC and digital submission
If you design a project for the state, a region, a municipality or a social housing organisation, there is a high probability that your models are covered by the ICT regulations — regulation no. 118 of 6 February 2013 on the use of information and communication technology in public building and no. 119 of 7 February 2013 for social housing. They oblige the building owner to demand digital methods throughout the building process, and those demands end up on the drawing board.
§When do the requirements apply?
The regulations apply above certain amount limits: For state building, the requirements apply to an estimated contract sum of over 5 million DKK excl. VAT, while the limit for regional, municipal and general housing is 20 million DKK excl. VAT. Below the limits the developer can still choose to impose ICT requirements voluntarily — and many do because the benefits of structured digital collaboration are the same.
§The key requirements
- 01Digital communication and project web: all exchange of project material takes place via a shared digital system.
- 02Object-based building models: design is based on BIM models where building parts are objects with properties—not just lines.
- 03Exchange and delivery in IFC: models must be able to be delivered in the open vendor-neutral IFC format so the building owner is not locked to one CAD program.
- 04Digital bids and offers including bids with quantities on relevant projects.
- 05Digital handover: operation and maintenance data are delivered structured so they can be used in building operations.
- 06Digital defect information at handover.
§The IKT agreement distributes responsibility
The requirements are specified in the project's ICT agreement (often with an ICT process manual), which sets file naming, coordinate system and zero point, information levels for objects, who owns which models, and how collision control is performed. As a technical designer, it is a document you should read before you draw the first line — it determines how your model should be structured and what it should contain when.
§Your everyday life under ICT requirements
| Phase. | Typical task for the technical designer |
|---|---|
| Design | Model building parts as correct objects with agreed properties |
| Coordination | Participate in collision checks between trade models (architecture, structure, installations) |
| Offer | Extract quantities from the model for descriptive quantity lists |
| Execution. | Revise models after changes so as-built matches the constructed |
| Handover | Export IFC and structure operations and maintenance data for digital delivery. |
Collision checking deserves a special word: when the architect's, structural engineer's and MEP engineer's models are combined, the software finds where a duct strikes a beam or a drain crosses a foundation. Every collision caught on screen is an error that shouldn't be solved expensively on the construction site — and it is often the technical designer who prepares the models for the check and corrects them afterwards.
The IKT regulations are in other words not bureaucracy on top of work — they are a description of how modern construction projects actually collaborate digitally. If you can deliver a well-structured model, a clean IFC export and documented delivery, you are precisely the documentation specialist the competence objectives aim for.