BIM Solutions for Challenges in Participatory Housing Design: Insights from Architects and Experts

Participatory housing design is widely associated with social sustainability because it can support community-building, strengthen user acceptance, and foster long-term place attachment. At the same time, participatory processes are organisationally demanding, as they involve multiple stakeholder groups, frequent design iterations, and the need to communicate spatial and technical implications to non-professional participants. While recent research has examined BIM in housing, collaboration, and digital participation, fewer studies begin with empirically documented workflow bottlenecks in non-BIM participatory housing projects and translate them into actionable BIM-supported strategies. This study addresses this gap by examining (1) recurring process-related challenges in participatory housing design conducted without BIM-based workflows, (2) BIM-supported workflows that could realistically mitigate these challenges, and (3) the implications for socially sustainable practice. A qualitative research design is applied to two participatory multi-family housing projects in Vienna, Austria. The cases were reconstructed from earlier semi-structured interviews with project architects and complemented by a follow-up structured questionnaire to validate key process aspects. Two independent BIM experts then interpreted the empirically identified challenges and proposed BIM-based responses. The results indicate that the most persistent difficulties are procedural rather than formal, centring on iteration and variant management, decision traceability, communication with lay participants, and coordination under time pressure. Expert interpretations suggest that BIM can strengthen participatory workflows through CDE-based information governance, structured issue and decision tracking, curated option management, and improved visual communication, while also introducing constraints related to costs, training, interoperability, organisational readiness, and potential cognitive overload. Overall, the paper positions BIM as a socio-technical infrastructure that can enhance procedural justice and transparency when embedded within carefully moderated participatory workflows.