Identification of Key Design Phase-Related Risks in DBB Projects in the UAE—Towards Developing a BIM Solution

Building Information Modelling (BIM) has become a widely used concept in high-rise buildings in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). However, the risks associated with the design phase of multi-story high-rise building projects have, to date, not been addressed by the research studies conducted in the UAE. The results show that “Time Spent in Approval Process” is the main cause of delay, “Complying with the New Regulations and Rules” is the main cause of cost overrun and “Poor Coordination between the Design Disciplines” is the main cause of the quality deficiency. The results also indicate that “Poor Coordination between the Design Disciplines’’ is the only risk that has a high-risk index related to time, cost, and quality. “Change Initiated by the Client” and “Interface by the Client during the Design Process” are ranked among the top five risks which cause delay and cost overrun in UAE high-rise buildings. The paper mapped the root causes of the identified most significant risks against the possible BIM-based solutions. The results show that BIM can effectively mitigate 75% of the root causes of these risks and, further, BIM is also effective in managing the consequences of the root causes for the remaining the remaining 25%.