BIM and integrated design - Interoperability and environmental performance optimization

The development of digital building models is a response to the building industry's need for digitization. Data structuring has been accompanied by a standardization approach developed since the mid-1990s, culminating in a standardized data format based on a 3D building model.

This article looks at the emergence and prospects of these technologies, in particular for new design methods in a context of increasingly stringent environmental and energy performance requirements for buildings.

For example, future regulations on the environmental performance of new buildings will introduce the associated carbon impact. The E+C experiment–, since 2016, prefigures this standard for positive-energy buildings with low environmental impact.

The definition of complex object classes and associated ontologies encourages the development of software interoperability and, ultimately, the automation and reliability of data input into building industry software. This automation around the digital model, or BIM (Building Information Modeling) process, also opens up longer-term prospects for parametric analysis or multi-criteria, multi-business optimization (e.g.: overall cost, energy, environmental impact).

During the design phase, automated procedures can be used to test and anticipate construction constraints, interactions between work packages and higher levels of detail than in the traditional approach. Added to the capitalization and reliability of data entry, these methods being developed around BIM should make it possible to design energy-efficient buildings with the best possible cost compromises.

The centralized exchange of data is gradually changing the organization of phases, from the sketch to the finalized project, then from the construction site to acceptance and operation of the structure.