BIM to achieve sustainability throughout a building life cycle towards a Sustainable BIM Model

What is it about?

The research addresses the issue that there is no an integrated approach or model to activate and implement sustainability in a project throughout its life and not benefit from the potentials of Building Information Modelling (BIM) technology in achieving and supporting all sustainability aspects as a human need. Therefore, the research aims to establish and achieve a Sustainable BIM Model for applying within projects throughout their life cycle, managing the relationship between BIM and sustainability, and obtaining best interoperability performance. Consequently, sustainability and the potentials of dealing with it by modern techniques and tools were investigated and identified to simulate its indicators and criteria. Besides, strategies to establish sustainability that can be activated. Then related sustainability indicators to the performance of project aspects were collected and categorized to facilitate linking with BIM platforms. Moreover, the potentials of the overlap between sustainability and many BIM platforms were examined and demonstrated, and their employability in supporting sustainability aspects in a balanced manner. Eventually, a methodology to manage the relationship between BIM and sustainability was deduced and formulated to achieve a Sustainable BIM Model during a building life cycle.

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Photo by Bárbara Sampaio on Unsplash

Photo by Bárbara Sampaio on Unsplash

Why is it important?

The research presents a methodology that will achieve and support sustainability and its aspects through a Sustainable BIM Model for managing the overlapping relationship and interoperability between sustainability and BIM during the life cycle phases of a building. Hence, this methodology will be one of the future ways of enhancing the sustainability performance of buildings and using BIM tools to monitor building performance that can be employed in proper scenarios to achieve maximum benefits for balancing the design and building performance as a Sustainable BIM Model. Besides, the delay problem for the real implementation of sustainability assessment systems will be solved. The overlap potentials between the two concepts have remained the use of BIM for modelling a project, but after the Sustainable BIM Model is applied, other sustainability scopes will be included to retrofit and improve existing and new buildings. In addition to the proposed model will promote the renovation of existing buildings to accomplish rating systems and certifications of sustainability aspects during a shorter period. Linking BIM to sustainability or green buildings is the overall concept of the Sustainable BIM Model during achieving the methods of the sustainable design that can be utilised to analyse the impacts of green buildings.

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