Who is the building for? Embedding occupant information in digital twins
The 9th International Project and Construction Management Conference - IPCMC 2026, Gaziantep, Türkiye, 16 - 18 Ekim 2026, ss.1-8, (Tam Metin Bildiri)
- Yayın Türü: Bildiri / Tam Metin Bildiri
- Basıldığı Şehir: Gaziantep
- Basıldığı Ülke: Türkiye
- Sayfa Sayıları: ss.1-8
- Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet
Özet
Digital twins are increasingly promoted as assets that support the full building lifecycle, from design and construction to operation. In practice, however, the information models handed over at project completion remain centered on geometry, components, and systems, while the occupants that buildings serve are largely absent from the delivered data. This omission constrains AI-based operational applications such as predictive control, comfort optimization, and fault detection, which depend on occupant-related assumptions and data. This study argues that occupant representation in digital twins is not only a modeling issue but also a project delivery and information management challenge. It proposes personas, which are structured, human-interpretable representations of occupant routines, comfort preferences, motivations, and constraints, grounded in empirical behavioral data, as a tool for carrying occupant information through the delivery process. Persona-based information is organized across briefing, design, construction, commissioning and handover, and its potential role in AI-supported operation is investigated. The study thereby offers a conceptual pathway for translating occupant-centric research into information requirements that project teams can specify, validate, and transfer to the operational digital twin, bridging project management and human-centered artificial intelligence.