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The central motivation for this study was to examine alternatives against the apartment area reduction as a safe way to reduce construction costs, adopted by many construction companies. From the building economic compactness index concept, it was studied the cost and environmental impacts (material consumption, embodied energy – EE and CO₂ emission).

The research strategy takes advantage of a case study aiming to investigate the relation between design characteristics related to area (m²) and building economic compactness index (%) with cost (Research Stage 1) and with environmental impacts: (Research Stage 2). The study involved real data from social housing projects, chosen in terms in terms of very similar features like size, area and constructive method (constants), however, with dissimilar compactness (variable).

The lack of direct relation between area and cost signs the importance of including the cost of vertical plans considered in the economic compactness building. The higher the economic compactness index, the lower the cost, the lower the amount of material, EE and CO₂ emission parameters. However, due to the wide range of EE and CO₂ values available, the reduction in the amount of materials achieved by increasing building economic compactness index may not be reflected in EE and CO₂ gains.

As the limitation of this study, it must be taken into account a limited number of case buildings and the fact that the analysis is dependent on the reliability and accuracy of the data provided by constructors and the available information of EE and CO₂ emission. As well discussed in the literature, the consistent database is a great challenge for the construction sector.

There might be alternatives to higher areas with relatively low-cost increments since results from buildings with the same area present different cost estimative and suggest a strong relationship with the economic compactness index. The large variation of EE and CO₂ emission data indicates that reductions obtained by compactness increase may be impaired if the construction materials are produced with high levels of EE and CO₂ emission. Thus, there must be an integrated effort on the part of designers (design and material specification) and manufacturers (material production), since isolated solutions may not be enough.

Facility management (FM) is regarded as an emerging issue in civil engineering and is responsible for ensuring the building's expected performance. The purpose of this study is to analyze buildings' current FM processes for educational and high residential segments and propose an FM-building information modeling (BIM) (BIM6D) to understand the information flow and leading players with and without FM-BIM integration.

The research strategy was a case study with data from the FM process of two buildings. This study was carried out in three stages: diagnosis of FM of the two buildings, FM-BIM integration and information flow and leading players analysis. Maintenance activities were categorized according to periodicity and status criteria for each project element for FM-BIM integration and were visualized in the Revit design using Dynamo software.

The results of this study show differences in how FM is conducted, especially in formalization and preventive character, and similarities regarding the difficulty of foreseen and lack of control because of scattered, disconnected and incomplete information on both. The visual appeal of the FM-BIM integration facilitates information access. It optimizes the use of the digital model through the most prolonged phase of the life cycle of a building (post-occupation phase). However, FM-BIM challenges buildings that do not have digital model expertise as residential segments. This study suggests a more significant role for construction companies in these cases.

This study investigates BIM-FM integration of buildings in two different contexts and reveals the importance of a construction company's role in buildings in the residential segment. This study contributes with real-life cases on BIM in existing buildings, discussing the value and challenges of BIM in FM applications.