We had a productive internal discussion on BIM today. After more than two years delivering projects in a BIM environment, it felt like the right time to pause and ask some bigger strategic questions.
Would a client want to pay for work that doesn’t actually add value?
Of course not—and yet BIM requirements almost always ask us to do work that does not add value. So we asked ourselves another question:
How do we ensure BIM genuinely supports design and coordination—and that the time invested delivers real value?
LOD is central to this question. It is one of the many BIM terms and is commonly interpreted as “Level of Detail” or “Level of Development.” In practice, when project documents refer to “LOD,” they almost always mean “LOD as published by the BIMForum.”
We have been asked to follow the BIMForum LOD tables on many projects, and we have followed them. But after struggling to understand how some modelling tasks added value to our work—or to the client—we wanted to understand more:
Where did these tables come from? Who created them? And for what purpose?
Here is what we found.
The BIMForum tables originated with the AIA (American Institute of Architects) and were later expanded by the US BIMForum. BIMForum operates under the Ascend Building Knowledge Foundation (ABKF), a small US 501(c)(3) non-profit with approximately 1–5 employees. It is not a global standards-setting body, yet its LOD guide has become widely referenced.
Why?
As far as landscape architecture is concerned, we are yet to find an answer.
This led to an important realisation:
Does a universal standard LOD for landscape architecture exist? Give the varied nature of landscape architect, would a universal LOD be practically useful, or even possible?
Landscape is exceptionally broad and varied. The information needed for a public park in Europe is different from a streetscape in the Gulf, a resort in Asia, or a campus in North America. Climate, construction culture, regulatory environments, ecological systems, project types and even project delivery models all shape what information is needed.
This is why the intended use of the data must always drive the level of information produced.
If an LOD table does not provide the information needed for the end use, it falls short.
If it provides more information than needed, it creates unnecessary work and cost.
In both cases, the client loses value.
This is the real issue: project teams investing time in producing data that is not fit for purpose. In many briefs, LOD tables appear to have been copy pasted from generic guides for other disciplines without clear consideration of how landscape information is actually used.
After more than 20 years delivering complex landscape projects, we know what information genuinely matters at each stage: what supports coordination, what enables good decision-making, and what becomes busy work. So, two years into our BIM journey we see a pressing need to develop our own landscape-specific information-need tables, built around real design and coordination workflows and relevant for the end use of the data.
We remain strong believers in the potential of BIM—and increasingly LIM—to enhance landscape delivery. But clients should never have to pay for unnecessary effort. The key is applying these tools intelligently: tailoring modelling to actual project needs, supporting lead consultants with clear coordination information, and ensuring every digital output provides genuine value for the client—no more, and certainly no less.
