urbanLab Magazin 2021 - Transformation

Schüco
Fig. 6: The digital building twin is a realistic image of a project in a virtual environment
BIM – A COLLABORATIVE ENVIRON-
MENT IN BUILDING INDUSTRY
Building information modeling (BIM), is
the digital representation of buildings
or other constructions that include data
associated with physical and functional
characteristics. Therefore, it covers
more than just geometry. It also covers
spatial relationships, geographic information,
costs, quantities and properties
of building components. BIM can
be viewed as a virtual process that encompasses
all aspects of the construction
project within a single model, allowing
the project teams to collaborate
and coordinate their work package with
other parties creating a more integrated
approach to project delivery.
Additionally, BIM considers not only
project phases from design to production
but also the full life span of the
building including operation and facilities
management, maintenance and
the end of life. As Birrel (2014) states,
“it is anticipated that BIM will enable all
of the project information to be stored
in one central location as opposed to
spread out over multiple servers, facilitating
easy access to project information
and data at each stage of the project
life-cycle”. This platform will enable the
building project to be built twice, once
in a virtual environment, the so called
digital twin, and once on the construction
site, this will allow a high level of
efficiency during the life-cycle of the
project (Figure 6).
FAÇADE ENGINEERING IN THE BIM
ENVIRONMENT
The digital building twin is a realistic
image of the project in a virtual environment.
It represents all information
provided by the supplying industries
in digital form. But how can this
information be generated and how
can digitalization improve these processes?
BIM has certain standards and
protocols for building construction.
The most developed until now is the US
National BIM standard which is published
in the BIM forum. There is as well
a standard called PAS 1192 developed
by the United Kingdom. Both protocols
set specifications that serve as a guidance
to developed BIM projects. The
problem with these standards is that
it does not provide enough guidance
or protocols for specialist contractors.
There are no guidelines for the facade
industry and their design workflow.
So far, the facade industry has made
efforts to incorporate its façade products
into BIM families so that architects
and other external partners can
use them for the development of the
building conceptual design. However,
the creation of these families is totally
disconnected from the facade design
workflow. The idea for the near future
is to create a BIM execution plan (BEP)
for the facade process that defines a
specific facade design workflow and
specific stages of the facade life-cycle.
The BIM process will take advantage of
120 DATA DRIVEN DESIGN