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Successful Conclusion of the Erasmus+ ProjectDIGITAL DECATHLON – A Model for Future Collaborations
The Erasmus+project DIGITAL DECATHLON has officially concluded on schedule, marking thesuccessful completion of an international and interdisciplinary collaborationaimed at advancing digital planning education through Building InformationModeling (BIM). Over the course of the project, students from five Europeanuniversities worked together to tackle design challenges, exchange knowledge,and enhance their digital skills within an innovative learning framework. Since itslaunch, DIGITAL DECATHLON has provided a unique platform for hands-on learningand collaboration among students, researchers, and faculty members. Thecompetition-based format, combined with real-world design tasks, fostered notonly technical proficiency but also teamwork, intercultural exchange, andinnovative problem-solving. The project motto, “Build Digital. Build Better.”,became the guiding principle, reinforcing the goal of using digital tools toimprove the sustainability and efficiency of architectural and constructionpractices. Throughoutits duration, DIGITAL DECATHLON facilitated workshops and competitions invarious European cities, including Wuppertal, Florence, and Warsaw, culminatingin a final workshop in Joensuu, Finland. (Video: https://video.hs-jade.opencast.elan.video/play/e8315e53-1cf3-429a-b8a7-9f7a9b1304c9 ) Theseevents created a strong sense of community and cooperation, which will continuebeyond the project's formal end.After 28 successful months, the DIGITAL DECATHLON project has come to an end with a final workshop in Joensuu, Finland. Now in its second year, the competition attracted students and teachers from across Europe to learn and apply digital design methods, in particular Building Information Modelling (BIM). Based on the first round's experience, this year's learning and teaching project was optimised and developed. The event not only highlighted the impressive achievements of the 50 students from five European universities, but also gave them the opportunity to present their projects to a wide audience at the internationally renowned 'Drivers for Wood Construction 2025' conference. The project was also presented to interested parties online, with the aim of attracting new partners to initiate a third round of the DIGITAL DECATHLON and ensure the long-term continuation of the project. In Joensuu, the international and interdisciplinary teams presented their optimised projects to a jury based on the practical skills and deep understanding of Building Information Modelling (BIM) acquired during the competition. This approach promoted not only knowledge transfer, but also intercultural and interdisciplinary collaboration between the participants..
