Building Information Modeling: Applications and Practices

Structure has always been one of the main ingredients of building design. This is ascribed to the roles and meanings of safety, economy and performance of buildings to the society at large. From early civilizations to the present, structures have provided shelter, encouraged productivity, embodied cultural history, and represented an important part of human civilization. Hence, for many, the subject of structural design is frequently marked by complexity. In contemporary domain, structure has acquired an independent personality, so that its own spatial and aesthetic qualities are highly valued. At the same time structures must obey scientific and engineering laws to be safe and sound. The separation between these aspects in practice continued since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, when structural engineering has become a specialized field separate from architecture. Building Information Modeling (BIM) is one of the most promising advances in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industries that is significantly affecting 21st century practice. Presently, the AEC industry is actively informing their association members, stakeholders, etc., about BIM adoption. However, at the core of all this BIM evolution is education. This chapter considers the application of Building Information Modeling (BIM) and develops a contemporary framework for synthesizing aspects and constraints of structural and architectural design in education. The framework aims to enrich the design process by advancing the understanding of the interplay between architecture and structure. This relationship between structure and architecture is fundamental to the art of building. It sets up challenges to the technical, scientific, and artistic realms that architects and engineers must resolve. Beauty is a subjective parameter i.e., in the eye of the beholder, whilst the mathematical and experimental sides of the structural design, controlled by norms are objective and factual. The method, in which the resolution of such challenges is carried out, is one of the most critical criteria for the success of a building design. The framework presented here focuses on the resolution of such challenges by using BIM to enhance the tie between architecture and structure as well as expanding the design vocabulary. The framework combines various threads of knowledge; some may seem contradictory and incompatible, to arrive at structural beauty and correctness. The proposed framework will allow architects and engineers to applaud the fusion of art and science and cultivate professional qualities to meet the demands of today as well as tomorrow’s integrated practice requirements.

This chapter presents Building Information Model (BIM)-based model checking (BMC). BMC is often referred to as one of the major benefits in utilizing BIM, where everyone can perform compliance checking and design coordinating. Wide use of BMC software in BIM-based projects should therefore be expected. This study is based on a broad approach, ranging from exploring principles of model checking to practices in state-of-the-art companies, in addition to reviewing commercial software. Outcomes indicate that functionality in commercial software covers requirements for model checking in projects based on the use of simple rules and unspecified content of information in the BIM-file. Improved collaboration based on coordinating merged BIM-files and automatic clash detection was regarded as the main benefit. BMC was regarded as a part of company quality assurance systems for model coordination. Wide use was not observed, and the use of BMC software was regarded as a specialist tool operated by a limited number of users. This study indicates a potential for the further development of rule sets and procedures for trustworthy compliance checking. In this respect, BMC can be regarded as a catalyst for the exchange of high-quality BIM for cross-disciplinary collaboration. Utilization of BMC can be an indicator of BIM-maturity.

Using BIM for the cost estimating process is evolving and the cost estimator’s responsibilities are changing. As a result of these changes professional estimators from industry organizations have dedicated time to be actively involved in advancing the state of estimating in BIM. This chapter discusses the cost estimating process in detail and compares the traditional methods with BIM methods. The chapter also provides an overview of the constraints, variables, and opportunities for the BIM cost estimating process. A critical step in the BIM process is in generating a quantity take-off for which the cost estimator can trust that the information is reliable and accurate based on the project scope and level of development. Examples for proposed standards that define the information exchange needed between the design model and cost estimator is included in this chapter.

The U.S. Army was one of the original Building Information Modeling (BIM) pioneers in the federal government, having published the Army “BIM Road Map” in October of 2006. The Air Force followed suit and required BIM on vertical construction projects starting in October of 2009. This chapter will review the particulars of the Military Construction (MILCON) arena and provide updates on the latest strategies for the Army and Air Force. Additionally, it investigates programming and design phase technological initiatives aimed at helping decrease cost growth in the construction phase. These tools include the Parametric Cost Estimating System (PACES™) software, BIM-based projects’ statistical analysis, and BIM-based dynamic prototypes to optimize and standardize facility scope. Analysis resulted in inconclusive results with some BIM-based project types costing less per square meter to build and some costing more. For the category codes that were less expensive on the average (training facilities, hangars, and fitness/youth centers), researchers could speculate or infer that there was possibly less rework and greater design certainty, leading to less overall cost per square meter. Administration or headquarters projects cost more per square meter for BIM-based projects. As the results were inconclusive, more research is required in this area.

Whilst Building Information Modelling (BIM) promises significant improvements in construction quality and efficiency, current contractual models do not encourage its use; indeed actively inhibit the collaboration at its core. To help bring BIM into the mainstream, it is claimed we need to re-craft existing contractual relationships to facilitate collaborative decision making and to equitably allocate responsibility among construction participants. This chapter looks at the case of Sweden and aims to identify and appraise observed hindrances to BIM collaboration and digital information stewardship. It presents an understanding of the connections between the commercial environment and contractual provisions that regulate the party’s business relationships and the resultant procedural and behavioural phenomena that can be viewed to thwart BIM collaboration and degrade the value or integrity of digital deliverables. The study then, in a more general context, asks what we can learn here that may have wider application through consideration of suitable BIM collaboration support mechanisms that may reduce or remove collaboration barriers, induce open, sharing behaviours and support the creators and users of digital information. Methods employed include a critical review of existing contract forms, synthesized with focus group interviews (FGIs) with representatives from diverse AEC disciplines. Results indicate that a number of systemic difficulties exist that can create an inertia which can be traced through behaviours and circumstances to contractual provisions. An understanding of such difficulties is presented and a consensus emerges on a number of key supporting mechanisms that may better facilitate meaningful early BIM collaboration and oil the wheels of communication without recourse to re-writing the rule-book.

The symbiotic convergence of green building and building information modeling (BIM) is represented by an emerging trend – green BIM. Project teams find that synergies between green and BIM can improve project outcomes and they are in a better position to accomplish established sustainability goals. Nevertheless, the full potential of green BIM is yet to be explored, as indicated by recent market research. The hypothesis is that for companies to successfully deliver green BIM project, a holistic approach that strategically plans for BIM execution to achieve sustainability goals is needed. The BIM Project Execution Planning Guidelines (PEPG) is currently being adopted by project teams as a standard workflow of strategic BIM implementation. PEPG, however, was not configured to address green building projects specifically. This research sees an opportunity to inherit PEPG’s framework and develop an integrated green BIM process model for BIM execution in green building projects. Considering the prevalence of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green building rating system in the North American building industry, this research focuses on LEED projects as an exemplary use case. Two major activities conducted include: 1) a comprehensive literature review of existing green BIM strategies and best practices, and 2) the proposition of an Integrated Green BIM Process Map (IGBPM), which is essentially adapting PEPG and initiatives such as the Architecture, Engineering, Construction, Owner & Operator, Phase 1 (AECOO-1) Joint Testbed to address unique business processes of implementing BIM in LEED projects. The deliverables of this research include the overall framework of IGBPM, the Level 1 IGBPM and exemplary Level 2 IGBPM process maps, discussed along with case studies for verification and validation.

Advances in information and communication technology (ICT) have rigorously improved productivity in all industry sectors, and the role of information systems has changed further to support organizational strategies. Thus, utilizing information systems (IS) in the construction industry has been an issue of great concern in order to achieve competitive advantages of an organization and also to enhance the effectiveness of construction projects throughout their life cycle and across different construction business functions. Nevertheless, despite recent outstanding advancement in building information modeling (BIM) technology, practical BIM implementation has not been widely proven to be economically feasible. It is noteworthy that economic feasibility can encompass quantified intangible benefits from BIM. Therefore, an assessment of BIM deployment from a holistic perspective is required in order to appraise the strategic and managerial advantages in a project or in an organization. Several studies have asserted strategic benefits of BIM adoption focusing on specific application areas (e.g. scheduling or estimating) or addressing limited technologies (e.g. visualization or ontology). However, real-world implementation of information systems truly comprehends complex issues such as corporate strategy, management effectiveness, internal policy and culture, and also technical capability together at the same time. In order to explore these complex issues for effective BIM implementation; this study examines five different real-world cases of BIM implementations. The five case studies from United States, Japan, and South Korea will be analyzed within two major BIM frameworks developed by the author. Project delivery methods, construction business functions, types of integration methods, and level of automation for BIM usage are the most important variables for comparing and analyzing the five cases in terms of BIM benefits. This study describes the different approaches and different benefits that BIM has to offer for practical applications.

This chapter proposes an approach to deploying an adaptive cyber-physical system (aCPS) for project monitoring and control. In developing the system, we use a prototype platform which employs a radio frequency identification system that is capable of real-time location sensing to track construction processes and resources within spatially mapped activity areas. Data from the system are fed into BIM-based construction models such that project statuses are tracked and aligned with project schedule in an interactive manner. Outcomes of the procedure are primed on the impact of real time status tracking as project stakeholders are able to continuously create quick and preventive solutions against schedule delays and disruptions before overruns occur. Compared to existing project monitoring and control systems, extant approaches are susceptible to the limitations of manual approaches where data gathering and their syntheses are non-adaptive. Our findings also show that, in a data intensive environment as construction, satisfactory project outcomes are driven only by effective interactions between cyber and physical systems. We conclude that, to maximize system deliverables through cross-domain technologies – particularly to swiftly aid decision-making, autonomous systems must be able to shift boundaries dynamically, be context-adaptive and be capable of generating real-time information.

Building Information Modeling (BIM) has demonstrated important functional applications for architects, engineers and constructors, as both a tool and a process. However, its relative value for Facility Management (FM) has been widely debated in the industry. By leveraging the data resident in the geometric models, it can be reasoned that using BIM for FM is a valuable function of information management. The potential impact BIM has on cost reduction coupled with increased facility life cycle efficiencies are compelling arguments to keep developing and refining BIM for FM. As it continues to develop, BIM will facilitate efficiency gains in facility operations, ultimately yielding a more sustainable built environment. This chapter is a literature review of the current efforts in academia and industry that have looked at synthesizing the collection, dissemination and distribution of information through a project lifecycle and critically analyses how BIM can aid this process. It also describes the current technology that enables the said processes to occur. In conclusion, the authors present recommendations for future avenues of research.

The belief that Building Information Modeling (BIM) results in fewer conflicts and improved coordination has led many owners to mandate its utilization on new construction projects. However, owners are often unsure of what BIM deliverables and processes to demand and how proficient the entities they choose to contract with are in using such technologies. Furthermore, though owners are working to operationalize BIM for Facilities Management (FM) to obtain the full life cycle benefits, they may still lack the technical resources and core competencies to utilize models post-construction. The state of BIM deployment and execution among building owner organizations within the US is in its infancy. Using a survey consisting of primarily higher education building owners conducted at the end of 2012, this study looks at the state of BIM execution among facility owners. It aims to determine what requirements are being set forth for BIM deliverables and how those deliverables are being used post-construction for Operations and Maintenance (O&M) in the current market.

The management of complex information flow can be a crucial aspect of Facility Management (FM). Because of the increasing complexity of the present-day building projects, FM activities, for example, maintaining a building facility or a system, normally involve enormous human multitasking across different knowledge domains. Lessons learned from the present successful FM instances manifest that the FM teams are increasingly interested in applying more viable technologies to achieve the effective management of massive information. Building Information Modelling (BIM) technology is one of the promising approaches, as it forms a platform for the users to manage the information of a facility and leverages virtual digital representations as a reliable basis for decisions during its life-cycle. Nevertheless, the fully immersive environments produced by BIM still lack the capability of mapping a virtual world into a real world, or vice versa. Augmented Reality (AR) is emerging as an advanced visualization which is possible to bridge the gap. It enables the demonstration of BIM context into the real world, and is envisaged to effectively improve the way of how information is displayed. Meanwhile, the virtuality-to-reality changeover from BIM to AR is conductive to a better understanding of information about a facility from the human perception perspective. The objective of the study is to explore that the merging of AR with BIM is a way for improving the information search and management in FM applications. This chapter firstly brief what is FM and how it is generally implemented. Followed by the state-of-the-art review of BIM/AR aided FM research, the chapter then proposes the viability of integrating BIM and AR and demonstrates its efficacy of processing complex onsite information based on four BIM+AR case studies. Finally, the chapter discusses the technological transferability issues in terms of deploying more and more BIM+AR scenarios in the prospective FM process.

The purpose of our built environment is to provide spaces in which human-designed activities may comfortably occur. An ever-increasing set of technical disciplines, economics, and societal norms place dynamic requirements on those who plan, design, construct, maintain, operate and manage our built environment. In this paper, a domain-independent framework to capture design requirements and then compare those requirements to the actual performance of a facility is presented. The foundations of this framework are five related Industry Foundation Class Model View Definitions that are partially implemented within commercial software and are contained in the United States National Building Information Model Standard (NBIMS-US V3). The application of this framework was tested using an algorithm that compares expected data with as-operated sensor telemetry. This algorithm was verified against simulated data and validated against sensor data. The sample models and tool kit developed for this project’s experimental test bed has been adopted by industry and academia to support their missions of streamlining design and construction processes and educating future design and construction professionals. In addition, the initial application of this framework to support wider sustainability, engineering economics, and business process analysis goals is introduced. These applications demonstrate how small additions to structured building information deliverables may quantitatively address current and future requirements placed on our engineered environment.

Building Information Modeling (BIM) tools and workflows have the potential to significantly improve the efficiency of design, construction and operation activities. Numerous BIM deliverables and their respective requirements have been widely discussed by industry stakeholders. This is evidenced by the intensity of online communications surrounding BIM topics and the accelerating availability of noteworthy BIM publications (NBP)s. NBPs are publically-available industry documents incorporating guidelines, protocols and requirements focusing on BIM deliverables and workflows. These publications are the product of various governmental bodies, industry associations, communities of practice and research institutions, intended to facilitate BIM adoption, and realize BIM’s value-adding potential. A specialized taxonomy is employed to analyze 57 noteworthy BIM publications from across eight countries selected for their active BIM scene. The BIM knowledge content (BKC) taxonomy includes three knowledge content clusters (guides, protocols and mandates) subdivided into 18 knowledge content labels (e.g. report, manual, and contract). Ten of these content labels are used to analyze and compare publications from Australia, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Preliminary content analysis is then performed which provides insight into the availability and distribution of BIM knowledge within noteworthy BIM publications. The analysis identifies knowledge gaps within publications and highlights opportunities for future research and complementary publication efforts. This chapter contributes to organizing BIM knowledge as contained within numerous noteworthy BIM publications and – by that - facilitates targeted access to their content. It provides a knowledge repository for construction industry stakeholder’s to utilize during BIM implementation and a research base for investigators seeking to identify and address knowledge gaps across the BIM domain.