Tag Archives: BIM

Tesla’s Powerwall: a game changer for BIM and Built Environment Sustainability?

RegenerativeBIM … moving the GreenBIM debate

Building Information Management offers huge benefits to Sustainability and to GreenBuild, but needs to move from GreenBIM to RestorativeBIM

Bringing together the two most important themes of todays built environment, Sustainability and BIM, the ThinkBIM and Green Vision programmes at Leeds Beckett are setting the agenda for GreenBIM.

However we need to guard against GreenBIM falling into a trap of being Sustainability and BIM as usual, but to move GreenBIM into the visionary, Regenerative Sustainability arena, as adopted by Green Vision through their association with the Living Building Challenge.

Rethinking BIM for the Ecological Age

It does seems a waste that all the creative and innovative thinking and energy being put into BIM should only incrementally improve built environment sustainability, and that we will be a little less bad next year, a bit more less bad by 2018

Aligning the innovation of BIM and the forward thinking of Regenerative Sustainability provides an immense opportunity that could and should powerfully push the overall built environment agenda forward. And, through the intelligence of a RegenerativeBIM, ensure that each element, not just the building, contributes in a net-positive manner, doing more good, not just doing incrementally less bad.

Where GreenBIM is today and where Green BIM needs to be, RegenerativeBIM.

Imagine then if every building, indeed every ‘facility’ was designed, constructed and operated through a RegenerativeBIM, that;

> is designed and constructed specifically in relation to its ‘place’, positively impacting and benefiting its immediate environment.

> becomes a provider of water, cleaning all that falls on the building and providing clean water to adjacent facilities.

> generates more energy than required and contributes the net positive difference to nearby homes, community buildings.

> contains no harmful materials. There should be no place in a GreenBIM for materials on Red Lists. An intelligent RestorativeBIM could not allow materials or products such as PVC, formaldehyde, or SPF’s. Every Product Data Sheet would include the elements of the Living Product Challenge, with every product having a net-positive Handprint

> are based on biophilic and biomimic principles. RegenerativeBIM would constantly ask the question, How would nature approach this?

> focus on a positive, salutogenetic health principle – on making people healthy, not as present on the negative stopping people getting less ill. (Big difference!)

> cleans the air, emitting better quality than intaking.

> delights and encourages creativity …

> intelligently and digitally inspires and educate the next …. BIM.

Such an approach is not only possible but arguably the responsible approach we must take. An approach that in a short time could be the accepted way of designing, constructing and maintaining buildings.

These ideas will be explored further in upcoming ‘GreenBIM’ events hosted through Green Vision, ThinkBIM and CE Yorkshire.

Watch this space.

Green BIM – a thinkBIM round table summary

Green BIM is healthy, yet only just coming of age with a long way to go. Here is the outline and summary and the Green BIM round table I chaired at the brilliant ThinkBIM/Green Vision event in Leeds on 3rd Dec. More information, reports, blogs and videos from the event can be found through the ThinkBIM blog

Introduction:

The world of sustainability and green building is moving rapidly into the circular economy and health & wellness arena, not only for healthy buildings but also for healthy, ethical and just material inclusion. This round table explored how BIM relates to Restorative Sustainability, Red List and Healthy Materials and the Circular Economy:

Can BIM assist in ‘restorative sustainability’ ie not just doing less bad, but doing more good.

What safeguards do we have to prevent unsustainable, unhealthy or toxic materials from inclusion into BIM Models.

How is BIM addressing increasing influence of bio-sustainability – biomimicry, biophilia, bio-urbanism.

What is the role for new thinking illustrated by the Well Building Standard and Living Building Challenge in BIM development? (and of course BREEAM, LEED, PH developments etc)

What data do we have, do we need relating to the impact of healthy / toxic materials on occupant health – or should we just follow the precautionary principle?

Deconstruction of buildings is increasingly a design consideration – how can BIM assist circular economy thinking as buildings as material banks

Summary

Green BIM is coming of age, but has a lot of maturing to do to address the emerging wider sustainability thinking and agenda.

Material Passports can provide a good tracker for materials on source, ethics, health and more. With a Level 3 BIM thinking of linking databases, material passport datasets can link to / interigate health databases. Waiting for legislation may not be acceptable – we need to adopt the precautionary principle and act on known / identified risks to prevent or pre-empt another asbestos/lead paint scenario

Currently GreenBIM focus is on energy reduction issues, yet for many large organisations the well being of staff to minimise staff costs is a bigger driver. There is a space for BIM to incorporate wellness of building occupants in modelling. POE experiences and stories need to be channelled back into BIM development thinking. Is there a need for social / well bing knowledge or expertise within the early BIM development stages – identified within the BIM documentation for example?

BIM presents opportunities and options we haven’t seen before to really add value to the life cycle of buildings, including dis-assemble and re-use in the cradle to cradle sense, but also to add value to the well being of occupants. The 1:5:200 model can shape this thinking but there needs to be long term commitment of the project members to the whole life value ( the 200!) of the facility (and beyond)

There is exciting development within the worlds of BIM (digital tools) and sustainability (restorative) for example Google Flux, and the notion of the BIM being a seed that can be ‘planted’ to grow buildings which are respondent to the local conditions and local environment whilst being respondant to occupant and client requirements

A BIM could be seen as a operating system which comprises of a number of apps that can be chosen and incorpated into the facilities, building or client portfolio, such apps could be cost, environmental, sustainability or all the way to restorative sustainability with net positive waste, energy and water.

Exciting times ….

The round table ran twice with excellent participation from all attending, thank you.

During the Green BIM round table we mentioned a good number of references:

Living Building Challenge and UK Living Building Challenge Collaborative

Well Build Standard

World Green Build Council – Health, Wellbeing and Productivity in Offices: The Next Chapter for Green Building

Delta Developments, in particular Cradle to Cradle biz park 2020

Google Flux see Randy Deutsch Blog

Material Passports Cradle to Cradle application in Ship Building

EPD

Lean BIM: Six reasons why construction needs to embrace BIM alongside Lean Thinking

Combining Lean Construction thinking (in the shape of Last Planner approaches) and BIM (Building Information Management) on construction projects can enable big reductions on time, cost, waste and stress, and in doing so improve profits, capability, staff wellbeing and reputation.

My recent ‘Lean BIM’ lecture at Leeds Beckett, explored and discussed with case studies, how achieving the 30% construction strategy cost saving target is within reach.

Lean thinking and last planner approaches should be seen as collaborative working preparation for BIM. Both share similar aims – ‘producing the right product at the right time in the right quantity for the customer and to produce exactly what you need and nothing more’.

Here are 6 of the many compelling reasons for adopting ‘Lean BIM’ …

BIM in conjunction with lean construction (ie Last Planner approaches) can get construction activity closer to the Honda expression of “everything we do … goes into everything we do” (Currently only 40-60% of what we do in construction goes into what we do, ie what we get paid for or hand over to our customers).
BIM, like lean construction thinking forces us to focus on the end game first, understanding client value and pulling that value through design and construction.
BIM, like Last Planner will reduce firefighting and stress on project management team.
BIM will drive lean and predictable programming and material sequencing.
BIM will streamline the supply value stream for materials, enabling just in time supply, adding value and reducing unnecessary costs.
BIM will greatly assist in improving information flow and communications, between project partners and supply chain. Techniques such as the TQM / Toyota ‘5 whys‘ repeatedly shows communication as the root cause of many if not all costly problem

However, embracing both BIM and Lean has a number of essential pre-requisites, for example

BIM and Lean construction both need construction leadership at organisation and at project level.
Contractor core processes (eg design and construction) need to be shaped around Lean Thinking and BIM requirements.
BIM Is a people collaboration mindset. Even on BIM projects, approaches such as last planner are essential to ensure people (the last planner) involvement in project short-term planning and improvement, and
Early contractor and supply chain involvement with strong collaborative culture must be in place.

“The construction aspects of projects is the easy bit – “a doddle” … The harder, more complex bit is the collaborative working ‘glue’ that surrounds the design, build and operation of the facility, whether BIM is used or not” John Lorimer (In PPP Publication)

2050: A built environment digital future within a climate hell?

Can a digital future help the built environment adapt to or mitigate a climate hell? Two reports issued recently (01 Sept) caught my interest, both based on 2050 timelines:

Built Environment 2050: (BE2050) A report on our digital future by the influential group of young construction professionals. BIM2050, illustrating the need for organisations to consider new skills, new processes and strategies around emerging digital technologies, with a focus around a BIM future The report comprises essays focusing on three key areas; education and skill; technology and process; and the culture of integration, highlighting risks, challenges, opportunities and benefits that come with large scale innovation and game-changing new technologies. Graham Watts, CIB comments in the intro “It is an important discussion document of ideas and concepts that will, I hope, spark debate in the wider construction community.”

and, the other report issued on 01 Sept?

Reports form the Future, United Nations report, based on 2050 weather forecasts and reports warning of floods storms and searing heat in what it describes as a climate hell. (A Bulgarian weather forecaster in 2050 shows a red map with temps of 50deg) The blatant doomsday, disaster movie (think day after tomorrow) nature of the report is intentional, raising awareness in advance of the upcoming UN Climate change summit in New York, encouraging a faster response to climate issues.

So how can the built environment, itself responsible for a whooping negative 40% impact on climate change, adapt, mitigate and address climate change and how will a digital future contribute?

The future of our industry is facing a high degree of complexity, extreme competition and uncertainty with respect to the outcomes of climate change, availability of resources and the disruptive nature of innovation.

Regardless of their origin, (climate change) factors will indirectly stimulate a rate of change in our sector, which will have a direct impact on every aspect of the built environment as we know it.( BE2050)

The emerging, regenerative sustainability, (eg Living Building Challenge) thinking considers:

– The need to start doing more good, not just continue being less bad, flip from ‘nearly zero’, or ‘zero’ to net positive and heal the future. Not only in water and energy, but also in waste and addressing circular economy thinking.

– Addressing the wider health impact of buildings and facilities – removing harmful and toxic materials from the built environment in production, construction, in use and in disposal (or recycling)

– Working together in what may seem unconventional collaborations

– Create a new responsible industry! Turning the traditional social image of construction on its head

Given this, how will a digital future contribute?

When reflecting upon Building Information Modelling in its context to a sustainability race, one realises that BIM is not just about modelling or intelligent design, but ultimately represents our emerging digital capabilities as an industry, and our future potential to meet these demands. (BE 2050)

After all it is big data, driven from BIM applications that is driving innovative approaches such as seeing buildings as material banks, not waste generators. The BE2050 report invites an ongoing debate, one absolutely essential to keep BIM and Digital approaches from falling into a bubble, (BIM for BIM’s sake?) and start debating the wider contribution for eg :

– Product data libraries that carriers health and material recipe composition to enable informed decisions through digital value engineering

– BIM approaches that address functional and financial reuse and reincorporation of buildings and products from end of one building’s life into the next.

– BIM education that removes discipline silo’s and places BIM as a powerful tool to progress restorative sustainability approaches

Both reports are to be welcomed in the ongoing debate to correct the built environments sustainability failings of the past and face up to responsibilities for the future…

Greening the Building Supply Chain

UNEP’s Sustainable Buildings and Climate Initiative (UNEP-SBCI) has, together with Skanska and other partners, assessed ways and means for ‘Greening the Building Supply Chain’, which constitutes the purpose of this new report. While there is increasing awareness and efforts to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from buildings, the work to realise reduced material use, water consumption and waste generation in the overall delivery of buildings and throughout the construction system have been less advanced. Source: Construction21

The report makes good background reading and guidance as we start to address the Sustainable Procurement requirements within the new ISO 14001:2015 Environmental Management Standard

And, not surprisingly the report cites BIM as a key intervention for greening the supply chain, to ‘facilitate green life cycle decision making and supply chain collaboration early in the design process, improve construction and procurement processes, but also facility management, to maximize resource efficiency potential over the building life cycle’

Download the report here

Download the Action Framework here

(Enabling) Sharership is the new Leadership

“Sharership is the new Leadership” Sylvie Sasaki Property Plan A project manager at Marks and Spencer blogging today in Building reminded me this great comment from Jim McLelland @SustMeme), illustrating how social media has progressed to a powerful medium for sharing valuable information Something not fully recognised or acknowledge by many construction organisation leaders.

Indeed what is key for leadership is to ‘enable‘ sharing through social media, yet many leaders don’t encourage, even actively discourage the use of social media, presenting a negative rather than positive role model. And this presents problems for a digital construction future. I still hold by comments I made in the Guardian Sustainable Business pages back in 2012:

The biggest barrier to social media take up lies at board and director levels. Most staff within construction organisations will use social media in some personal capacity, a skill and resource to be harnessed for organisational good.

The first and perhaps the most dynamic step an organisation can therefore take in embracing social media and in preparing for Building Information Management, is to ensure that construction directors and boards understand the benefits that managed social media strategies can bring, and enable real open sharing and collaboration.

Sylvie Sasaki Property is right to warn against online networks becoming silos. Yet we can see an emergence of a new connected construction generation, connected in real-time across organisations, sectors and countries, indeed across existing silos, often under the umbrella of hashtags, forming digital communities of practice.

These groupings of sharing conversations, with focus on sustainability, building information management and collaborative working, with participants that are both generous and expert. Helping others long before and after help is needed and in one or more areas that others value and acknowledge. A prime example is the #UKBIMCrew digital community

And all this represents additional pressure on leaders, and on the importance of having robust social media strategies and protocols in place for staff. Indeed the rise of social media has led to a communications shift in the way construction shares information and participates in conversations. Now based on engagement, relationships and trust, replacing the historical construction approaches of competitiveness, and fear of sharing.

…

Please do get in touch: Knowing where to start with social media as a construction director or leader can be confusing, but we can provide a no nonsense introduction and strategic approach. This topic is explored further in my article to be published in Construction Innovation: Information, Process, Management later this year.

Embedding BIM into the fabric of sustainability.

calgary trees BIM has a far deeper application than just a design modelling, construction or facilities management tool. This fact has been highlighted recently through a number of events and conversations, for example;

A couple of weeks back, I interviewed Denis Hayes as part of our Sustainability Leadership Conversation (#sustldrconv) series. Denis was founder of earth day way back in 1974, and is now CEO of the Bullitt Centre in Seattle, obviously no newcomer to environmental issues or deep green sustainability, but I was interested in Denis’ views on the role of BIM and ‘Big Data’ in todays sustainability agenda. here is an extract from a soon to be published article based on that interview

MB Denis, how do you see the role of BIM and Big Data in deep green sustainability?

DH Analysis of big data is key, living buildings need cerebral cortex and Central Nervous System to function, big data helps see patterns, offers vast potential, but right now there is too much noise and not enough signal and analysis.

Also in May, during the Construction21 Virtual Expo, I was inspired by the conversation with Delta Development CEO Coert Zachariasse. Delta have applied Cradle to Cradle thinking to their business and projects, For example, they don’t own the materials in their buildings in the traditional sense, but view buildings as material banks, with every building having a residual value at the end of its life through the value of its materials. (A value that is recognised, included on the budget sheet and reduces the project costs, the alternative, more common thinking is that demolition and waste adds costs to the project)

Whilst this is inspiring, the fact that BIM provides the engine behind this approach is very interesting – using BIM to track and maximise residual value, providing the data to create material passports and undertake the value decisions.

As I tweeted from that conversation:

“BIM meets #CradletoCradle – Delta Development use #BIM to develop Material Passports thru supply chain, Coert Zachariasse CEO at #EXPOC21”

Later in the day at EXPOC21, during the panel debate on the need for a European Building Performance Directive, Frank Hovorka – President- Sustainable Building Alliance commented that BIM is the essential core for any Building Performance Directive

But of course built environment sustainability is ‘just’ not about energy or building performance, it is also, or more so about health and social dimensions as well. The data needed to make informed decisions for sustainability needs to encompass stories, context and knowledge. However with knowledge reduced to a status of information in todays digital universe, we need the skills to unpack information from BIM and Big data

Embedding BIM data into the fabric of sustainability is key, and to borrow the brilliant expression from Casey Rutland and Vicky Lockhart at ARUP – its all about SustainaBIMity.

Regarding BIM through this lens, we in the built environment need to move quickly, to clean the data we have from noise, provide better analysis, and make informed regenerative sustainable decisions. In an age of disrupt or be disrupted – if we don’t do so from within the sector, someone from outside will.

Sustainability made Cool? Day one at #EXPOC21

Well, day one of the Virtual Green Build EXPO was fun – and a success. From chats within the show, comments across twitter and elsewhere the comments from visitors have been very positive indeed.

And importantly I sensed green build and sustainable construction had been made cool.

The EXPO hosted by Construction21 on the HyperFair platform has attracted just under 200 exhibitors from all corners of Europe and hopes to attract up to 20,000 visits to the show. Steve Borncamp, driving force behind the show commented “it was exciting to see people interact in this new medium from so many countries & construction disciplines”

As soon as the doors opened at 7.30 this morning, visitors were taking snaps of their avatars and booths and sharing on twitter, claiming firsts and the virtual-selfie was born. (There is a photo comp with prizes being coordinated by our friends at Green Vision)

Observing the avatar arrivals to the EXPO, there was a period where they customised appearance, read any notices and instruction notes and then zipped off into the Reception area, or vanished, teleporting to the stands or auditorium.

Visiting the stands was actually easier and more enjoyable than a real show, being able to chat and pick up brochures, watch videos and read posters with ease. I had numerous business card exchanges and agreements to get in touch after the show to discuss possible collaboration on Living Building Challenge, sustainability, green schools and social media, including a future discussion to be had on possible funding. I would have considered it a very good day at any real life show.

Aside from the stands there was a brilliant programme of debates and expert videos running throughout the day. I watched a couple, impressed with the “Time for a sustainable buildings performance directive?” panel debate and learnt from Coert Zachariasse CEO at Delta Developments who combined Cradle to Cradle with BIM and commented that “Buildings are just material banks” Brilliant Stuff! WorldGBCEurope who coordinated the panel debate series observed “We had some great debates as part of the first day. Speakers from industry, policy-makers and NGOs. Now looking forward to day two”

During the day I held a few in-show twitter chats which illustrated the enthusiasm of those attending “This kind of event is definitely the future! Exhibitions are tiring & have not questioned their concept for ages” commented Philippa Rogers at InterfaceUK, adding ” I’ve immediately adopted this virtual concept as I have to admit I’m not a big fan of traditional exhibitions”

And that experience was shared by others as Elrond Burrell explains “Attending the virtual expo was a novel experience. I visited virtual stands, browsed exhibitors brochures & exchanged virtual business cards & chatted with other attendees via the web interface. It’s a bit clunky to navigate but also kind of fun. I quickly resorted to teleporting rather than virtually walking around though! I think it is an interesting step to have a virtual expo but is still aiming to be a virtual representation of a real expo, rather than completely embracing web tech and rethinking what an expo actually is, if it takes place virtually”

And the show has a nice innovative sustainability touch beyond the virtual – Steve Borncamp again “we want our virtual event to have a physical legacy in the form of a building project that will offset the c02 of this event and inspire a much higher level of ambition for our buildings and communities in Europe and for the world” (exhibitors have been able to offset the carbons they would have emitted in travelling to real shows).

Day Two opens at 7:30am UK time with sign up and log in here. And who knows, could a post event virtual tweet up be on the cards?

Be2Camp at Green Build Expo

Social Media meets Sustainability – From Mindfulness to Oculus Rift

Be2camp returns to Green Build Expo in Manchester this May – this time on the main arena stage with probably the best yet line up of social media meets sustainability shorts. Below is our exciting agenda for the afternoon, but as with all things be2camp a degree of flexibility and ‘unconference’ is to be expected!

Join us from 13.30 on the 7th May and be sure to Register with Green Build Expo here

13.30 Welcome, Introduction and Be2Camp Sustainability Manifesto. Martin Brown, Fairsnape @fairsnape

13.40 Your brain as your best renewable building material. Anne Parker @BrainyToolBox

13.50 Social Sharing in a Circular Economy Alex Whitcroft, &Share @alexwhitcroft

5 Min Break

14.05 Sustainability Event sharing across social media, Claire Bowles, Green Vision @lsigreenvision

14:15 Construction Carbons Vassos Chrysostomou, ConstructCO2 @constructco2

14:25 Social Studio, Collaborative Learning for Sustainable Futures, Jenni Barrett UCLAN @cloud_meme

14.35 Scissors, Tweets, Stone: social media the new paper? Claire Thirlwall, Thirwall Associates @thirlwallassoc

5 min Break

14:50 A census of sensors – Internet of things, Mike King Innovys

15:00 Immersive Environments – The Social Building Model, David Burden, DADEN @davidburden

15:10 Immersive BIM – Through the Looking Glass, Vin Sumner Clicks & Links @vinsumner

15:20 BE2 and the Be2Awards 2014 Martin Brown, Be2Camp @be2camp

You can follow and engage with us during the session on twitter using the #be2campgbe hashtag. And as usual a live stream feed live on the be2camp pages.

10.45 I will be Introducing the Living Building Challenge with Claire Bowles at Green Vision in the Yellow Seminar.

13.00 Claire is in the Blue Seminar Room talking Healthy Buildings with Skanska.

Its going to be a great day, so do join us.

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Social Media meets Sustainability – From Mindfulness to Oculus Rift

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