Building information modeling in green building

Building information modelling (BIM) is used in the field of green buildings to help enable sustainable design, allowing architects and engineers to integrate and analyze building performance. Through this method, BIM enhances design and construction efficiency. Designers may quantify the environmental impacts of systems and materials to support the decisions needed to design sustainable buildings, using information about sustainable materials that are stored in the database and interoperability between the design and analysis tools. Such data is useful for life cycle assessments (LCAs) of buildings.

BIM services

BIM services, including conceptual modelling and topographic modelling offer, a new channel to green building with successive and immediate availability of internally coherent and trustworthy project information.

Conceptual modelling (for conceptual energy analysis)

Conceptual energy analysis allows designers and BIM service providers to transfer conceptual modelling into analytical energy models through exporting mass to gbXML. Possible information that could be transferred includes web basic climate data, graphical energy analysis results, and design contrast options.

Topographic modelling (for solar and shadow analysis)

Software tools can aid designers and BIM service providers in envisaging or quantifying solar and shadow effects.

BIM tools and sustainability analysis

The BIM tools and workflow have two phases; inherent BIM features and BIM-based analysis tools.

Inherent BIM includes functions such as 3D Model, visualization clash, and detection, which help integrated project delivery and design optimization.

BIM-based analysis tools are used to analyze energy, solar, thermal, and etc. The benefits of these tools are better communication and cooperation, as well as higher accuracy and efficiency.

The following tabulation assembles different BIM-based software used for green analyses.

BIM-based software used for green analyses

BIM software	Green analyses E CE NV SD A W						Users	Users
Autodesk Green Building Studio	v	v	v	v		v	A/D	De/OM
Integrated Environmental Solutions Virtual Environment	v	v	v	v		v	A/D/E/O	De
Bentley Hevacomp	v	v	v				D/E/C	De
AECOsim	v	v		v			E/C/D	De
EnergyPlus	v	v		v		v	E/A	De
HEED	v	v					O/A/D/C	De
DesignBuilder Simulation	v	v	v	v			C/E/A	De
eQUEST	v		v	v			A/E/C	De/C/OM
DOE2	v		v	v			A/E/C/U/G	De
FloVENT			v				E	De
ODEON Room Acoustics Software					v		A/E	De
TRNSYS	v		v	v			A/E	De
E for energy, CE for carbon emissions, NV for natural ventilation, SD for solar and daylight, A for acoustic, W for water A for architects, D for designer, E for engineers, O for consultants, U for utility companies, G for government. D for design, C for construction, OM for operation and maintenance.

Industry Foundation Classes data model

Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) or COBie is a standard exchange protocol to be used in data exchange between BIM software and rating systems.

Application of BIM in green construction

BIM could be used in four main categories— land saving, water saving, energy saving, and material saving.

Land saving

BIM and GIS are integrated to plan the site conditions inland saving design of green building project. By using BIM simulation, it is accurate to estimate the progress of construction for every stage, and it allows to regulate the site process. It helps simplified process, maximal utilization of site, and brief construction period.

Water saving

BIM allows being utilized in a large scale scheme as well as the whole industry. In water saving aspect, BIM can help decrease unnecessary loss and effectively saves water. It improves the design process of building water supply and drainage, promotes the building water planning, abound the design method and develop the water design level and building quality.

Energy saving

BIM can be used to simulate energy consumption accurately and fast. It can also help eliminate energy waste. In addition, it integrates and analyzes information at the construction stage to calculate the thermal environment which could save construction period effectively and realize energy saving. Then designers could figure out an efficiency improvement of buildings.

Material saving

BIM tracks material consumption and calculates material requirement. Also, it manages material information uniformly.

Integrating BIM with sustainable rating systems

There are several different sustainable rating systems being used to evaluate the environmental performance of buildings all over the world. These systems all have common criteria and are similar in their evaluation of energy consumption, indoor environmental quality, water efficiency, and material. Three rating systems which can integrate with BIM are LEED, BREEAM, and GREEN STAR.

The framework of integrating BIM-based with sustainable rating systems includes two modules: "design assistance" and "certification management". The design assistance module assists designers with an efficient sustainable knowledge which is built into the BIM tool to ensure the design-oriented through BIM tool's Application Programming Interface (API). The certification management module is a web-based application which is used on managing the project information, sustainable documentation and submissions for certification purpose.