HBIM (Heritage BIM) (HBIM)

HBIM — Heritage (or Historic) Building Information Modelling — is the application of BIM to historic and heritage assets, for documenting, managing, analysing and supporting the conservation of existing built heritage. It takes the BIM method and adapts it to buildings that were never designed in a model in the first place.

Three things set it apart from standard BIM. The geometry is irregular — deformed walls, vaults, asymmetry and the construction quirks of old fabric, which generic object libraries do not fit. It starts from the existing condition rather than design intent, so scan to BIM and survey data are central. And it carries conservation information well beyond geometry: deterioration, materials, archival sources, stratigraphy and the history of interventions.

A typical workflow captures the asset (laser scanning, photogrammetry, UAV), registers and processes the point cloud, builds the geometric model, then enriches it with historical and conservation attributes for restoration or management. Because heritage assets often lack complete drawings, the model is assembled from mixed evidence — scans, archives, material studies, inspection. There is no dedicated international standard; in practice HBIM is run on ISO 19650 information-management principles, and in Italy under UNI 11337. It matters here because historic and cultural-heritage buildings are a large share of the Italian and European built stock, and conservation needs structured digital information to make sound decisions. In Italian it is HBIM / modellazione informativa del patrimonio storico.