Integrating Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Sustainability Indicators and Criteria to Select Associated Construction Method at the Conceptual Design Stage of Buildings (original) (raw)
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Sustainable Cities and Society, 2015
Designing environmentally friendly buildings that provide both high performance and cost savings is of increasing interest in the development of sustainable cities. Today, we are looking at not just buildings' certification but sustainable practices that go beyond ratings to satisfy our social responsibilities. The construction industry in general will benefit from an integrated tool that will help optimize the selection process of materials, equipments, and systems at every stage of a proposed building's life. Building information modeling (BIM) has the potential to aid designers to select the right type of materials during the early design stage and to make vital decisions that have great impacts on the life cycle of sustainable buildings. This paper describes a methodology that integrates BIM with the Canadian green building certification system (LEED©). Also, it explains how this integration would assist project teams in making sustainability related decisions while accumulating the required number of points based on the applied green building rating system. The methodology depicts the implementation of a model that automatically calculates the compiled number of LEED certification points and related registration costs for green and certified materials used in designing sustainable buildings all within the concepts of BIM. Using BIM in this methodology will help designers to invent and animate sustainable buildings in 3D mode easily and efficiently at the conceptual stage. The design information of the proposed sustainable building will be produced in a timely manner by using new plug-ins, which are developed for that reason, and which will link the BIM model with an external database that stores sustainable materials and assembly groups. A real case project is presented to illustrate the usefulness and capabilities of the proposed model.
Journal of Information Technology in Construction, 2014
It is commonly known that the energy consumption of buildings is quite high; therefore, owners, architects, and engineers should be more concerned about the sustainability and energy performance of proposed building projects. For years, energy analysis tools have been used by designers to design energyefficient buildings. Generally, the energy analysis for this type of facilities is mostly conducted at the end of the design stage, once their components and elements have already been selected. However, analyzing the energy consumption of those components at the conceptual design stage is very helpful for designers when making decisions related to the selection of the most suitable design alternative that will lead to an energy-efficient building. Building Information Modeling (BIM) has the capability to help users assess different design alternatives and select vital energy strategies and systems at the conceptual design stage of proposed projects. Furthermore, by using BIM tools, designers are able to select the right type of materials early during the design stage and to make energy-related decisions that have great impact on the whole building life cycle. The main objective of this paper is to propose an integrated methodology that links BIM and energy analysis tools with green building certification systems. This methodology will be applied at the early design stage of a project's life. It will help designers measure and identify potential loss or gain of energy for different design alternatives and calculate the potential LEED points they may accumulate and gain and accordingly select the best one. An actual building project will be used to illustrate the workability and capability of the proposed methodology.
Building information modeling for sustainable design and LEED ® rating analysis
Today, there is a high level of demand for sustainable buildings. The most important decisions regarding a building's sustainable features are made during the design and preconstruction stages. Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED ® ) is the most widely adopted sustainable building rating system in the United States. For projects pursuing LEED ® certification, designers have to conduct in-depth sustainability analyses based on a building's form, materials, context, and mechanical-electrical-plumbing (MEP) systems. Since Building Information Modeling (BIM) allows for multi-disciplinary information to be superimposed within one model, it creates an opportunity to conduct these analyses accurately and efficiently as compared to the traditional methods. In this exploratory research, a case study was conducted on Salisbury University's Perdue School of Business building to demonstrate the use of BIM for sustainable design and the LEED ® certification process. First, a conceptual framework was developed to establish the relationship between BIMbased sustainability analyses and the LEED ® certification process. Next, the framework was validated via this case study. The results of this study indicate that documentation supporting LEED ® credits may be directly or indirectly prepared using the results of BIM-based sustainability analyses software. This process could streamline the LEED ® certification process and save substantial time and resources which would otherwise be required using traditional methods.
Using Building Information Modeling technology to empower sustainable design
The increasing awareness of the accelerating rate of depletion of natural resources, climate change and carbon dioxide emissions from the built environment is resulting in the high level of demand for sustainable buildings. The most important decisions regarding a building's sustainable features are made during the design stages. Designers historically relied on physical models and manual calculations to optimize building designs for optimal energy and resources consumption and maximizing user comfort. But since the advent of computers, digital tools had an ever growing role in performing engineering simulations and rapidly exploring new design options to reach the best solution. Under optimum conditions, simulations and design tools would be well integrated that each time an architect altered any design aspect, the building’s predicted environmental performance would be updated and displayed instantly. Along the way, other aspects of a building, such as how well a building uses daylight, how its materials l affect the planet, and how much it will cost to build, could be tracked and optimized. And all of this would be done while sharing a design seamlessly across disciplines, enabling design teams to explore more options, with more accuracy in less time. Still facing problems, CAD technologies are getting closer every day to that target. Within this context, Building Information Modeling (BIM) is increasingly being looked upon as a robust tool to achieve that target. Relying on powerful parametric-object based-engines and comprehensive integrated database structures, BIM has a great potential to offer significant enhancements to sustainable design aspects. In this paper, analysis of the implementation of BIM in sustainable design activities is presented. First, main concepts of BIM technology are presented. Then strategies to approach a sustainable building design will be illustrated. Finally, the possible applications of BIM data rich models in sustainable design will be deduced and illustrated.
Design of Certified Green Buildings Using Building Information Modeling
Proceedings of International Structural Engineering and Construction, 2019
Design of green buildings involves specific processes compared to conventional construction projects that require participation of several disciplines. Having particular activities, functions, and physical aspects, green buildings impose their own difficulties during design. Building Information Modelling systems (BIM) use different software for virtual simulation of characteristics of projects, which promotes early detection of potential problems even before production of the intended design details. Implementing BIM technology in design stage, not only helps to minimize design problems, but also to shorten the stage itself. With this effect of BIM combined with sustainable practices and energy efficient technologies, design stage alone can be considered as a sustainable application of construction activities. Therefore, principles and requirements of green building certification systems can easily be performed for projects with capabilities of BIM technologies and tools. In this s...
The advent of building information modelling (BIM) is revolutionising the conventional practices of the construction industry and has reinforced the impact of the design process on the building project's overall life cycle. The industry is also moving towards sustainability through owners being committed to having green rated buildings and infrastructure. However, green buildings and their rating systems face several obstacles and shortcomings that hinder their sustainability. Several studies have considered BIM for sustainability aspects, but these were not connected directly with such obstacles. This paper is a literature review that links the obstacles and shortcomings faced in green buildings and their associated rating systems with the potential capabilities of BIM. The limitations of BIM in the green building industry was also addressed. The main obstacles and shortcomings faced are high upfront costs and delays, design complexities and documentation requirements, superior performance enhancement requirements, and skewness towards environmental sustainability. The paper was written from a realisation that a more consolidated future research direction is needed in academic studies that address the quest for sustainability though BIM. Findings indicate future areas of BIM technology research include fully automating BIM-rating system integration, collaboration and intellectual property issues, and the unaccommodating contractual approaches for multiple party involvement needed in a BIM platform.
Optimizing the Sustainable Aspects of the Design Process through Building Information Modeling
Sustainability, 2021
More than thirty years after the definition of sustainable development, the commitment to protect the planet has been renewed, and all sectors of human activity have been called to contribute to this critical challenge of our time. Therefore, the construction sector can also make an essential contribution. Designers are called upon to modify their actions to consider the environmental, social, and economic impacts during the entire life cycle of construction. The digital revolution could be a suitable opportunity for a profound renewal oriented towards sustainability. The new digital technologies and the increased computing power are useful for managing the increasing complexity in current projects and supporting collaboration between the many experts involved. The presented research analyzes the current state and identifies the signs of change and the cues to imagine possible virtuous complicity between sustainable development goals and the digital revolution’s potential, which is ...
Construction Research Congress 2014, 2014
Owners, architects and engineers are more concerned about the sustainability and energy performance of proposed buildings. Evaluating and analyzing the potential energy consumption of buildings at the conceptual design stage is very helpful for designers when selecting the design alternative that leads to a more energy efficient facility. Building Information Modeling (BIM) assists designers assess different design alternatives at the conceptual stage of a building life so that effective energy strategies are attained within the green building constraints. As well, at that stage, designers can select the right type of building materials that have great impact on the building's life cycle energy consumption and operating costs. The aim of this paper is to propose an integrated method that links BIM, energy analysis and cost estimating tools with green building certification system. The successful development of the proposed method helps owners and designers evaluate different design alternatives taking into consideration the sustainability constraints in an efficient and timely manner. BIM's tool is customized to allow its integration with the energy analysis application in order to identify the potential gain or loss of energy for the building, to detect and to evaluate its sustainability based on the US and/or Canadian Green Building Council (USGBC and/or CaGBC) rating systems and to approximately estimate the costs of construction early at the conceptual design stage. An actual building project will be used to illustrate the workability and capability of the proposed method.
Journal of Construction Engineering, 2014
Quantifying the environmental impacts and simulating the energy consumption of building’s components at the conceptual design stage are very helpful for designers needing to make decisions related to the selection of the best design alternative that would lead to a more energy efficient building. Building Information Modeling (BIM) offers designers the ability to assess different design alternatives at the conceptual stage of the project so that energy and life cycle assessment (LCA) strategies and systems are attained. This paper proposes an automated model that links BIM, LCA, energy analysis, and lighting simulation tools with green building certification systems. The implementation is within developing plug-ins on BIM tool capable of measuring the environmental impacts (EI) and embodied energy of building components. Using this method, designers will be provided with a new way to visualize and to identify the potential gain or loss of energy for the building as a whole and for e...
Integration of Building Information Modeling (BIM) and LEED for A Green Building Rating
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Green building design and construction is a global demand to save this earth. Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is the world's most widely implemented sustainable building rating system. Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology assist to keep multi-disciplinary information into a single model, and it provides an ability to perform this research. The aim is to assess the pre-certification of a proposed residential building project in integration with BIM and LEED and find out the impact of cost for a green building project. A Prototype 3D model was developed by BIM technology for the LEED certification process. A total of 704 simulations was conducted by using Green Building Studio (GBS) tools. All simulation results were calculated based on nine categories of the LEED rating system. The results of this study indicate that the lifecycle cost can be reduced significantly for a high-performance green building despite of having a high initial investment cost...