Leading Digitalization in Demolition
Lezama Demoliciones, in its journey towards digitalization within the demolition sector, is involved in multiple innovation projects, including the European project RecycleBIM. As a leading company in the demolition sector at the national level, we aim to contribute knowledge and update BIM methodologies to make them useful and accessible to companies in the construction/demolition sector, enabling benefits in terms of circularity and traceability without requiring significant investments in software or equipment.
In this context, a consortium funded by the ERA-MIN program of the European Commission has brought together 12 organizations from 6 different countries. The consortium is led by the University of Minho, and also includes prestigious universities such as Technische Universität Darmstadt (Germany), the University of Vigo, and the Universities of Stellenbosch and Cape Town in South Africa. Among the participating companies are Acca Software (Italy), Holcim (Switzerland), and Lezama Demoliciones, with the support of Tecnalia. We have all joined forces to develop a project aimed at creating an integrated framework for the circularity of construction raw materials, leveraging information generated through BIM. It is worth highlighting that the project was approved in the ERA-MIN-3 2022 call with a perfect evaluation score of 15/15.
The project includes five main developments:
- Development of a methodology for surveying existing buildings, using state-of-the-art methods and devices to enable the semi-automatic creation of digital twins of buildings at a controlled cost.
- Establishing appropriate BIM modeling rules and information requirements, allowing the BIM model to host all relevant data for a comprehensive analysis of deconstruction and material reuse.
- Creation of an open tool based on the IFC standard, for multi-criteria optimization of deconstruction and material strategies, so that new building designers or deconstruction planners can have their BIM models analyzed on a platform that manages an integrated multi-criteria optimization procedure.
- Strategic and optimized use of recycled demolition waste in 3D-printed concrete for construction.
- Integration of all previous developments into a specific set of tools for municipalities, to be used in their tendering processes for both deconstruction and new construction permits based on BIM models (openBIM), maintaining accurate records of material circularity at the local level—enabling global optimization strategies at the municipal level.
Lezama Demoliciones’ Role
Lezama is actively involved in all RecycleBIM work packages. The company leads one of the scientific work packages, focused on developing database proposals and producing case studies, addressing two main aspects:
- Providing expert knowledge in the field of demolition and waste management across the entire project and its work packages.
- Carrying out the case studies as part of one of the work packages. Two case studies were conducted: one at the La Robla Thermal Power Plant (León, Spain) and another in a residential building in Sestao (Bizkaia, Spain). In both cases, the full methodology of the project was applied to real-life scenarios. These were implemented during the spring of 2024. In this type of project, demonstration cases are considered crucial to highlight the usability and impact of the proposed solutions.
Previously, as part of the preparatory work packages prior to the case studies, Lezama’s technical office team contributed its expert knowledge and best practices from the demolition sector, generating several databases related to reusable construction elements. Similarly, the company’s internal databases concerning mechanical equipment used in demolition—particularly regarding average consumption and emissions—were refined. This data is used to infer the environmental impact of demolition activities and, along with data on waste and work performance, informs the development of the final project tool.
In the work packages where Lezama mainly played a supporting and advisory role as demolition experts, the aim was to study the state of the art and achieve a more automated scan-to-BIM process. This involves processing data captured through devices to semi-automatically generate BIM elements, resulting in a simplified digital model of the building. This stage is key to ensuring the agility and efficiency of the entire process.
Additionally, forecasting, planning, and optimization algorithms for demolition processes were developed. This included generating work items, creating task dependencies, and organizing operations to maximize material circularity. The BIM model enables prediction of material flows before demolition, facilitating the recovery and reuse of secondary materials more efficiently.
Demonstrators
In the use cases, the process was carried out as defined in the project. The buildings were scanned and modeled according to the techniques established in the initial work packages.
The demolition process was planned and optimized using the project’s tool and then executed according to the enhanced planning. This allowed for the prediction of recoverable elements for reuse and the estimation of waste quantities categorized by LER (European Waste Catalogue) codes.
The expected results generated by the tool were compared with the real data obtained, allowing the degree of accuracy to be assessed and enabling the identification of errors and areas for improvement. At the time of this publication, the data is still being analyzed, as the project is set to conclude in June 2025; however, the preliminary results are very positive.
The demonstrators aim to validate the processes and tools developed throughout the project, which is a key aspect in projects of this nature.
Dissemination
To conclude, it is important to highlight another key aspect of the project: dissemination. The project has resulted in various scientific publications, in addition to technical articles such as this one, and has been presented and described at several international conferences. All of this content is available on the project’s website and LinkedIn page, accessible through: https://recyclebim.eu/
Conclusions
The solution proposed by this project offers numerous advantages. Firstly, it is an open and reprogrammable digital tool that can be adapted to new regulations, updated waste classification codes, and future administrative requirements. Moreover, it strikes a balance between simplicity and functionality, focusing only on those features that are key for generating a simplified model, inventory, waste quantification, planning, and project visualization.
The tool is user-friendly and includes an integrated system that, within a single application, will provide all necessary information (geometry, elements, materials, waste, employed resources, indicators) and tools required to quickly prepare demolition proposals. It is specifically designed for the demolition phase, thereby addressing a need that is currently unmet by existing software, which is often incomplete and not tailored for this purpose.
Its impact on environmental sustainability is significant, as it positively affects multiple aspects of Lezama’s operations. It will contribute to reducing the volume of waste sent to landfills, lower the need to extract new raw materials from external sources, and optimize the execution of demolition works for large industrial facilities.
These three lines of improvement will also result in a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. As a reference, each ton of recycled mineral-based demolition waste avoids approximately 25–40% of the emissions associated with the extraction, processing, and transport of natural aggregates. With an estimated CDW (Construction and Demolition Waste) management capacity of over 100,000 tons per year, the CO₂ emissions reduction would exceed 166 tons. The broader adoption of the RecycleBIM software beyond the consortium could generate an even greater impact, though such estimates are beyond the scope of this analysis.
In short, the potential of leveraging BIM for quantifying and tracing circularity data, environmental impacts, and costs in construction projects is clear. However, further development and integration of solutions is still needed. Therefore, Lezama Demoliciones will continue to guide its strategy toward technical innovation.
