sbim: sustainable building information modeling 2007-2010

Funded by Autodesk® Inc.

graduate students: Tajin Biswas, Tsung-hsien Wang, and Peng-hui Wan. Yi-chun Huang provided performance simulation expertise.

project website: under construction

The transition from conventional to sustainable building depends on a number of factors: technological, environmental, economic and social. From the perspective of computer-aided design, the first two are perhaps the most significant. To produce a design that fulfills a standard of sustainability requires more than designer assumptions or intuition. Current computer-aided design tools fall short of assisting designers with regard to meeting objective assessments of sustainable design during phases of design.

Sustainability standards are typically specified by a green rating system, for example: LEED, BREEAM, Green Star, Casbee, Green Globes, etc.

objectives

  • To develop a methodology and tools for evaluating the environmental consequences of design decision-making.
  • To assist designers to producing designs that fulfill certain sustainability requirements
  • To build a general framework that cohesively represents the different sustainable rating systems so as to facilitate interaction with building information models.

challenges

Sustainable building design requires rating systems, design tools and evaluations — although individually accessible, these are not available to designers in any usefully integrated way No readily available schemata to represent the informational and computational needs of sustainable design rating systems Sustainable building rating systems evolve; so too do their informational and computational needs

strategy

  • Examine different sustainability rating systems through the lens of their inherent categories, criteria, scope and assessment methods
  • Relate the different categories of sustainability measures from the rating systems to objects that are present in a building information model
  • Build database support rules to query the building information model for relative information about a sustainability category
  • Build databases, to access (or be queried) for default/relevant values prior to evaluation
  • Offer designer feedback on the sustainability status of a project

mapping information

Sustainability category → Evaluation measures → Rating system requirements → Objects in the BIM

sustainability information framework

an early implementation of the prototype



gap analysis


A gap analysis reveals the shortcomings of the building information model in meeting the needs of a green rating system’s requirements.

Gaps arise as a result of parameters or attributes missing in existing objects, missing objects, incomplete databases etc


the present and the future


evolving standards technology+software green designs


publications


  • Ramesh Krishnamurti, Tajin Biswas and Tsung-Hsien Wang. Modeling water use for sustainable urban design. Digital Urban Modeling and Simulation (Eds. Stefan Müller Arisona, Gideon Aschwanden, Jan Halatsch, and Peter Wonka) Springer CCIS series, 2010 [Invited book chapter]

  • Ramesh Krishnamurti, Tajin Biswas and Tsung-Hsien Wang. Soft Tools for Sustainable Design: Sustainability Information Framework. From Napkin to BIM, (Ed. Peter Russell and Odilo Schoch), 2010.[Invited book chapter]

  • Tajin Biswas, Tsung-Hsien Wang and Ramesh Krishnamurti. Framework for sustainable building design. Between man and machine – integration, intuition, intelligence, CAADRIA 2009 (eds. T-W Chang, E Champion, S-F Chien, and S-C Chiou), pp 43-52, Douliou, Taiwan: Shang Hao Print Co, April 2009

  • Tajin Biswas and Ramesh Krishnamurti. Framework for supporting sustainable design. Innovations for Building and Construction (eds. E Dado, R Behesti and K Zreik), pp 373-386, Europia Productions, Paris, 2009

  • Tajin Biswas, Tsung-Hsien Wang and Ramesh Krishnamurti. Integrating sustainable rating systems with building information models. CAADRIA 2008 (eds. W Nakapan, E Mahaek, K Teeraparbwong, and P Nilkaew), pp 193-200, Chiang-Mai: Pimniyom Press, April 2008


The sbim project was funded by a three-year grant from the Autodesk®.

ramesh krishnamurti, tajin biswas, tsung-hsien wang ©, January 2011