Sustainability-led design: Feasibility of incorporating whole-life cycle energy assessment into BIM for refurbishment projects

doi:10.1016/j.jobe.2019.01.027

Journal of Building Engineering

Volume 24, July 2019, 100697

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jobe.2019.01.027 Get rights and content

Highlights

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Management and co-ordination of sustainability-led design through BIM.
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BIM for refurbishment projects for achieving sustainability requirements.
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Implications of the sustainability decision-support tools in BIM.
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Sustainability decision tools to assist in achieving environmental scheme certifications.

Abstract

Growing climate change challenges and increasingly strict sustainability standards have led to a significant growth in the need for building refurbishment projects which are essentially focused on retrofitting in order to make them low carbon, energy efficient and environmentally friendly. The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) suggested that Building Information Modelling (BIM) should be used to achieve sustainability requirements during refurbishment projects as a correspondence to the National Audit Office (NAO) sustainability report. BIM is now widely advocated as the preferred tool for the management and co-ordination of design and construction data using object- oriented principles. The successful integration of environmental assessment into BIM for the whole of the construction lifecycle has not yet been achieved. The potential for using BIM in refurbishment projects specifically for achieving and managing sustainability requirements has not been yet critically reviewed or put into practice. This paper focuses on the use of BIM sustainability design tools in refurbishment projects, to achieve energy efficient buildings and achieve sustainability criteria for refurbishing non-domestic buildings. A critical lens is cast on the current literature in the domains of sustainable designs and the associated implications of the sustainability decision-support tools in BIM. The research also reviews the practicality of the existing sustainability decision-support tools that are currently used to assist with achieving environmental scheme certifications such as BREEAM and LEED for refurbishment projects.

Introduction

Worldwide, the buildings sector is responsible for significant resource consumption during construction, operation and demolition. There is great interest in achieving significant reductions in the quantities consumed as part of an overall move to greater sustainability: for example, energy has been the subject of particular interest because of its association with carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions, which are central to climate change mitigation. Several environmental impact assessment tools, for example BREEAM and LEED, are now established and used within the design process (Kamaruzzaman et al., 2016; [35]). However, the promulgation of good practice is easier to achieve in the context of new construction. Tools for use during the planning of refurbishment are by comparison not as developed.

A further problem with refurbishment is that its success is heavily dependent upon having access to an appropriate amount of information which facilitates reliable characterising of the existing building, for example in terms of dimensions and materials of construction. For a number of reasons, drawings can be lost or damaged. What was designed is quite often not what was actually built and such changes are very often undocumented. Therefore, it may be necessary to recharacterise the existing building. Modern surveying method of laser scanning offers a fast and accurate means of capture building dimensions, whilst some technologies such as hyperspectral imaging show promise in the identification of materials present in an existing building.

The construction industry is in the early stages of a major technological advance in the shape of Building Information Modelling (BIM), which seeks to integrate all flows of information associated with a construction project and improve their accessibility by all project stakeholders [42]. Sustainability information and building recharacterisation data would be logical and valuable additions to the data available via BIM [14]. This paper surveys the existing state of knowledge with respect to environmental assessment in refurbishment projects and its integration into BIM.

Section snippets

Research methodology

The sources that were searched for purposes of the literature review were firstly and most importantly the Library Catalogue of the University of Manchester and secondly the Internet via the Google search engine. The former is a portal to a digital collection of relevant information sources, for example the subscription journals available from all leading international publishers, e-books and reports. Sustainability and BIM are two topics whose main development has very much taken place in the

Sustainability issues in construction

There are more than 30 million buildings in the UK and according to recent estimates, 75% of the residential building stock that currently exists will still be in use in 2050 [17]. According to the Department for Communities and Local Government, these buildings are major energy consumers and CO₂ emitters currently account for about 43% of overall carbon emissions in the UK. Encouraging energy efficient building refurbishment projects and raising the sustainability standards for new buildings

Sustainable design in refurbishment projects

According to Bruntland [12], the aim of sustainable designs is to develop a building that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs through the evolvement of sustainability led decisions during planning, designing, construction and operation of buildings. Historically, the use of the term “sustainable” developed among those with environmental concerns only, and most of the literature reflects this emphasis. However,

Whole-life cycle energy

The term whole-life cycle energy of materials is important in determining whether building materials are environmentally friendly or not. Generally, building materials consume energy throughout their life cycle starting from the manufacturing stage, passing through the use, and finishing by the deconstruction phase. These stages include raw material extraction, transport, manufacture, assembly, installation as well as disassembly, deconstruction, and decomposition [40]. The whole-life cycle

BIM for sustainable design

Design technology using Building Information Modelling (BIM) is maturing for new buildings, but uncommon for refurbishment projects. BIM provides a platform to incorporate existing building plans into a common digital platform for all to share – a revelation for the industry [15]. This will foster design innovation and creativity, not only for the built environment industry but also through the supply chain and across other sectors. BIM design tools open up potentials for innovation allowing

BIM sustainability decision-support tools

Traditionally, specialist consultants carry out environmental analysis of a design only after the design is complete. However, BIM tools aim to enable the construction of a digital virtual 3D building model at early design stages, which can provide designers the ability to explore and analyse different options for sustainable designs. BIM analysis tools provide building thermal simulation, including dynamic analysis of energy performance calculating thermal loads and thermal consumption of a

Discussion

The construction sector has a have a major impact on the environment - during the construction of new buildings or the refurbishment of existing buildings, affecting the global climate by using a considerable number of resources, materials and energy and contributing to a large amount of carbon and energy emissions. Buildings should be designed and materials selected to balance the whole life cycle of energy with factors such as climate, availability of materials and transport costs.

Conclusions

This paper concludes that while BIM is widely recognised as a suitable digitised representation of the physical building, it is not yet all encompassing and as such it is a long way from having its full potential realised. Much of the current usage of BIM only focuses on the traditional project management triumvirate of time-cost-quality and generally neglects aspects of sustainability-design-process. The inclusion and accessibility of essential sustainability information such as the life cycle

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Newton-Ungku Omar Fund Institutional Links with Malaysia supported by British Council and the Malaysian Industry Government Group for High Technology (MIGHT) (Grant ID 172726659).

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Sustainability-led design: Feasibility of incorporating whole-life cycle energy assessment into BIM for refurbishment projects

Highlights

Abstract

Introduction

Section snippets

Research methodology

Sustainability issues in construction

Sustainable design in refurbishment projects

Whole-life cycle energy

BIM for sustainable design

BIM sustainability decision-support tools

Discussion

Conclusions

Acknowledgements

J. Build. Eng.

J. Clean. Prod.

J. Build. Eng.

Autom. Constr.

Build. Environ.

Autom. Constr.

Build. Environ.

J. Build. Eng.

Energy Build.

J. Build. Eng.

Energy Build.

Integration of point cloud data and hyperspectral imaging as a data gathering methodology for refurbishment projects using building information modelling (BIM)

J. Facil. Manag.

The Green Guide to Specification: an Environmental Profiling System for Building Materials and Components

A Guide to BREEAM

BREEAM & LEED: A Study of Materials and Their Life Cycle Impacts. Use and Operation of Zero Emission Buildings

Classification of sensor independent point cloud data of building objects using random forests

J. Build. Eng.

BREEAM UK Refurbishment and Fit-out 2014 manual

Green Guide to Specification

Life cycle assessment of building materials: comparative analysis of energy and environmental impacts and evaluation of the eco-efficiency improvement potential

Build. Environ.

The Bruntland Report

Comprehensive Assessment System for Built Environment Efficiency