BIM, a new concept in Building Design

Part 1 : Building Information Modelling : BIM – a new concept in Building Design

I recently spent one week in the US and I had the opportunity to meet several design engineers dealing with large governmental buildings. It seems that they invest a lot in new design software based on the BIM concept…


Indeed, in the US, this BIM approach is strongly pushed by the GSA (US General Services Administration) which requires BIM design for all of their important projects, by building sciences organizations (National Institute of Building Sciences, US Green Building Council), by advanced building owners and engineering who want to optimize building design, construction and management.
BIM (Building Information Modelling) ultimate goal is to assemble in a single data base fully integrated and interoperable information that can be used by all members of the design and construction team and ultimately by owners/operators throughout a facility’s life cycle. The aim is to share information from different project disciplines and building trades in order to facilitate the design, construction, and building management process.
There are several levels of usage of this approach:
– 3D: It consists in 3 dimensions design, visualization, simulation and validation. At this stage it allows the architecture to visualize the building (allowing the owner to do virtual visit of the building), do simulation (for example try several kinds of light appliance and select with the owner…) and it also allows the designers to do clash detection.
– 4D: It consists in adding schedule consideration (time dimension)
– 5D: It consists in adding cost/price consideration

– xD: It consists in adding Acoustical, Thermal, Sustainable Data, Energy modeling, Green building considerations as you can see in this nice video presenting LEED Platinium city hall for the community of Greensburg, Kansas from autodesk site