Green building information modelling for existing buildings : a facilities management perspective

Abstract

There is a manifest increase for the use of Building Information Modelling (BIM) techniques in the construction industry due to its evident benefits that facilitate the construction processes than traditional approaches. The need of incorporating BIM based techniques for building constructions has been increasingly acknowledged both at the academic research and industrial levels. Herein, Green BIM as one of BIM based technologies has been discussed in recent years in relation to sustainable and green concepts with its advanced technological features that help to accomplish sustainable goals. The fundamental advantage of Green BIM is the ability of generating advanced building performance analysis results that are important in optimizing energy consumption of buildings through improved decision making. The inherent benefits of Green BIM have been extensively discussed in literature especially considering its implementation during design and construction phases of building construction projects towards the energy optimization. Evidently, there are lack of research for the use of Green BIM for existing buildings even though there is a huge potential in optimizing energy during operation and maintenance phases of existing buildings. As discussed in literature, facilities managers are being faced numerous challenges in adopting Green BIM for existing buildings due to lack of necessary building data during the operation and maintenance phases of buildings discouraging the implementation of Green BIM for existing buildings. The aim of this research therefore, was to study the potential of adopting Green BIM for existing buildings from facilities management perspective. To achieve the aforementioned aim, a qualitative research approach was followed which included a multiple case study analysis. The case study was conducted with two cases through the practical implementation of Green BIM. The practical implementation was mainly included creating the basic BIM models and running Green BIM techniques to analyse the performances of selected buildings. The Green BIM techniques used for the selected cases were solar analysis and energy analysis respectively. The experiences gathered during the study were analysed and discussed as the findings of the research. The findings include the challenges faced during the study when implementing Green BIM for the selected cases and the actions taken during the study were discussed with further recommended solutions. Finally, a framework was developed as a guidance to overcome the challenges of Green BIM implementation for existing buildings. The findings of this research emphasized the challenges that can be faced from facilities management point of view, over the implementation of Green BIM for existing buildings during the operation and maintenance phases. Thus, the framework provided in this study may significantly helpful for facilities managers to implement Green BIM for existing buildings that maintain with lack of data, towards the energy optimization through improved decision making.