Why “Level of Development” Is Still Widely Misunderstood (And How It Breaks BIM Contracts)

Level of Development is one of those BIM concepts everyone claims to understand, yet it continues to cause friction on nearly every project that uses it. Part of the problem is that LOD is often treated as a proxy for completeness or accuracy, when it was never meant to serve that role. LOD is fundamentally about intended use at a specific moment in time, not about whether a model is “done” or reliable for every downstream purpose. When that distinction gets blurred, expectations quietly drift apart long before anyone notices there is a problem.

In practice, teams often collapse geometry, information, and responsibility into a single number. A model labeled LOD 300 is assumed to be buildable, costable, and coordination-ready, even though none of those assumptions are guaranteed by the definition itself. The result is a model that appears authoritative while still containing placeholders, inferred dimensions, and unresolved design intent. Downstream users may rely on it anyway, because the label suggests certainty that does not actually exist.

This misunderstanding becomes particularly dangerous once contracts enter the picture. LOD is frequently written into agreements as if it were a measurable deliverable rather than a communication framework. When disputes arise, teams point to the LOD level to defend their position, even though the underlying assumptions about use were never aligned. The model technically meets the stated LOD, yet fails the practical needs it was quietly expected to support.

A more mature use of LOD requires separating what the model shows from what it is safe to rely on. That means being explicit about allowed uses, prohibited uses, and known gaps at each stage, rather than hiding those realities behind a single acronym. Until teams stop treating LOD as a quality stamp and start treating it as a boundary-setting tool, it will continue to undermine the very coordination and clarity it was supposed to provide.