eeBIM LAB - Towards A Coherent Green Building Design Process

 

By By Romy Guruz, Peter Katranuschkov & Raimar Scherer (Technische Universität Dresden, Institute of construction informatics)
Winter 2016


EeEmbedded is an European FP7 industry-driven project established under Call “Optimised design methodologies for energy-efficient buildings integrated in the neighbourhood energy systems”. The project runs from 01.10.2013-30.09.2017, the consortium features 15 partners from 9 European countries. It develops an open BIM-based holistic collaborative design and simulation platform, a related holistic design methodology, an energy system information model and an integrated information management framework for designing energy-efficient buildings and their optimal energetic embedding in the neighbourhood of surrounding buildings and energy systems. A new design control and monitoring system will support the complex design collaboration process. Knowledge-based detailing templates will allow energy simulations as soon as in the early design phase and BIM-enabled interoperability will provide for a seamless design process with distributed experts. The main developed results after three years project running are:

KEY POINT DRIVEN MULTI-DISCIPLINARY DESIGN METHOD
Key Points guide the design process by providing building requirements and design criteria in form of target values, checked after all major design steps. They are categorized in Decision Values (DV), representing the preferences of decision makers related to the project goals, Key Performance Indicators (KPI), providing numeric metrics of the building energy performance, and Key Design Parameters (KDP) representing mandatory building properties in terms of allowed value ranges as explained in the results of the first period.

DECISION LEVEL SUPPORT
The developed method supports decision-making in four clearly structured decision levels corresponding to respective process and data views. The Setup view addresses the translation of requirements to Key Points and their use to setup individual design tasks. The Designer View comprises the tasks related to the evolution and evaluation of the design based on the set KDPs. The Analyst View regards the energy and cost analysis and evaluation of proposed design alternatives based on the computed KPIs and the Decision Maker View regards the evaluation of the design alternatives based on the weighted Decision Values.

INTEROPERABLE SERVICE ORIENTED ICT PLATFORM
The developed conceptual approach is technically enabled by a layered service-oriented platform. It comprises a User Layer including the actual value-add expert applications of the end users, a Virtual Lab Layer covering the functionalities on user side developed generically and configured specifically for each domain view, a Communication Layer providing a BCF-based Service Bus inter-connecting all the distributed component services and tools, a Service Layer providing services for all needed model, variant and simulation management functions, and a Repository Layer representing the common project-wide information storage.

MULTI-MODEL FRAMEWORK
The developed platform tools and services are supported by a coherent multi-model framework based on standard BIM/IFC4, a set of interoperable data access APIs and a novel Link Model approach enabling the flexible integration of distributed heterogeneous (non-BIM) information resources such as climate data etc. The relevant domain models encompass the Architectural Model and a new Energy System Information Model (ESIM), which provide the backbone of the framework , as well as BACS, HVAC, Energy Simulation, LCC, and LCA models. Data consistency is ensured by an overarching lean ontology, which provides for a uniform representation of the important multi-model interrelationships also enabling data exchange requirements, KDP and KPI checks thereby ensuring high model and data quality.

VIRTUAL EEBIM LAB TOOLS
The Virtual Lab comprises two tools common for all actors - the developed Multi-Model Navigator (MMNav) and the Key Point Analysis (KPA) tool. MMNav enables visualizing the 3D BIM model, linking its components with external data, and can also show the results of the analysis/simulation tools and the performed model checks. The KPA tool provides a decision maker perspective by summarizing and configuring KPI results from all analysed variants into easy to understand and decide upon diagrams. Each Lab is also configured to include local or cloud-enabled design, analysis and simulation tools as appropriate for the respective actor profile.

COLLABORATION AND RESOURCE MANAGEMENT SERVICES
The developed Scenario Manager coordinates a structured project setup (based on IDM), supports each design step and manages data validation and data sharing. Additional services like Job Matrix, Model Combiner etc. are developed as resource management services and support the idea of intelligent BIM processes.


Contact details:
More results and a download section containing all public materials issued so far can be found on the project’s Web Site: http://eeEmbedded.eu