Abstract
As a developing country and according to the situations of war and siege experienced by it Syria has a good percentage of the Middle East nations in the field of adopting new technologies and systems. This research demonstrates the awareness of BIM between Syrian engineers in the public sector and the possibility of mandating BIM in the near future. A quantitative statistic did achieve the research aim using both open and closed questionnaire. The research showed that Syrian construction and engineering workers know a little about the BIM. However, more than 44 % via 89 respondents reported that the full adoption of BIM in Syria will be within the next five years with the emphasis on the need to develop the BIM standard before the start. About 61 % of the respondents believe that BIM can be useful in the design stage, while 21 % indicated that they can implement BIM in both design and construction stage of the project. Whatever the case, 49 % of respondents found that BIM can solve 50-75 % of the current building problems. Respondents identified the most expected benefits of BIM, also barriers and challenges that hinder the application of BIM: economic, technical, organizational, legal and human challenges. In addition to that, the risks were explained that may occur within the projects implemented using BIM. This study in association with Syrian organizations and universities showed the tendency towards the philosophy of building information modeling for the new generation of Syrian engineering. About 37 % of the respondents considered Syria government to be the main engine for the BIM adoptions; while more than 22 % believe that the designer is the main engine to adopt and convince others about the benefits of BIM during the building projects life cycle. Unfortunately, due to the lack of the budget allocated for the training and rehabilitation of employees, or fear of the high cost of adopting this technology and the use of programs 31 % of staff rely on self-training, and only 24 % of them receive formal training in addition to their effort. Researchers believe that this research will be the first step towards soft moving to BIM in Syrian projects.