Architect and Engineer Collaboration: The Solar Decathlon As a Pedagogical Opportunity

While close collaboration between architects and engineers in building design is a well-recognized necessity, we still educate students in each of these professions separately (and generally in isolation). This paper describes the experience of integrating teams of architecture and engineering students as they progress through the design and construction of a home for the 2013 Solar Decathlon competition. This competition requires that engineering and architecture students, in addition to other disciplines, design, build, and operate a net-zero energy solar house prototype. The Solar Decathlon experience has identified three critical aspects for interdisciplinary collaboration: project logistics, the design process, and the collective values of the design team. Among the three, the design process is the aspect that seems to offer the greatest opportunity for innovation, especially as it relates to information technologies and building information modeling (BIM). BIM, required as a Solar Decathlon deliverable by the U.S. Department of Energy, provides an excellent conceptual framework for organizing teamwork and interdisciplinary collaboration. This paper describes how a BIM management system was used by students as a design tool and how it was used to support a collaborative interdisciplinary team approach. Also described are how the students' design processes were impacted by the use of BIM and how this facilitated an early collaboration with engineers. Our experience shows that the collaborative design process and the effectiveness of the teamwork still depend on conventional design review methods, such as face-to-face interactions, which enable the students to understand and appreciate different professional philosophies and values. Such coordination is greatly augmented by a BIM methodology, which allows the productive participation of different disciplines while ensuring that the responsible team members maintain control of the design in their area of expertise.