Developing a building information modelling approach for 3D urban land administration in Iran: a case study in the city of Tehran

In recent years, overpopulation in Iran has created a significant demand for urban land. Iranian land administration system currently relies on two-dimensional (2D) plans to capture, register, and manage vertically stratified ownership rights. This 2D method leads to issues in representing the rights, restrictions, and responsibilities (RRRs) associated with complex building structures. This study proposes a new approach driven from Building Information Modelling (BIM) to support 3D urban land administration in Iran by considering the critical data requirements for managing ownership spaces in the context of Iranian jurisdiction. The BIM data model was implemented for a case study building in the City of Tehran to demonstrate its feasibility. The proposed BIM-based approach was compared with the traditional 2D system using a questionnaire responded to by land administration experts. This research confirmed that a BIM-based approach could provide significant benefits for 3D urban land administration in Iran.