Green-bim template (GBIMT) for sustainable building massing and planning in tropical climate

Abstract

Sustainability has become one of the greatest concerns in the built environment. Sustainable building design process requires complex decision-making (DM) by the architects and designers with multiple design variables and objective functions due to various environmental factors and performance requirements. With the development of Building Information Modelling (BIM) technology, complicated building can be digitally constructed with precise geometry and accurate information to support varied design DM. Therefore, the integration of BIM functionalities with design DM for sustainable building massing and planning in tropical climate was studied. Since important design DM was made in the early design stage, this study focuses on conceptual design and schematic design stages with BIM Level of Development (LOD) 100 and 200. Multiple design variables including building orientation, form and layout were considered for sustainable building massing and planning. Several sustainable building design strategies and indicators for tropical climate were considered to determine the multiple objectives functions for solar shading, natural ventilation, daylighting and other sustainability performances. BIM functionalities of 3D modelling, 2D drawing, dataset and scheduling were employed to support the DM process. Finally, a Green-BIM Template (GBIMT) was developed using Autodesk Revit to support BIM-based DM for sustainable building massing and planning (MP) in tropical climate. The GBIMT-MP addresses the difficulties of DM in the early design process for sustainable building massing and planning in the tropics.