By Steve Rizer
“Doing sustainable design and doing it out of BIM [building information modeling] is an evolutionary process and not a revolutionary one,” Eddy Krygiel, an architect with HNTB Architects, emphasized during “Improved Green Building Design & Construction through BIM,” a WPL Publishing webinar for which a recording recently was added to the ConstructionPro Network (ConstructionProNet.com) Download Library -- free of charge for members. This was the third webinar in a four-part series entitled “Green Building Best Practices.”
“You won’t step into sustainable design -- or into BIM -- and all of a sudden know how to do everything on the first project,” Krygiel told webinar attendees. “I’ve never had a project that’s ever capitalized on every feature available out there in [BIM] or in sustainability. It’s a process of continual improvement and of replication and of innovation.”
Krygiel then reported that his firm, “after several years” of using BIM, sought to measure the degree to which its use of the technology was contributing toward company objectives. “We decided that we needed to vet [the technology] and [ask], ‘Has this improved our process?’” Krygiel told the webinar audience. “Our buildings were doing better sustainable design. We’re doing them faster. We’re generating more pretty pictures, but is [the use of this technology] applicable to our business model?”
To answer this question, the firm compared the performance of a Revit-based team against that of a team “fully trained” in the use of computer-aided-design (CAD) technology, Krygiel said, noting that the BIM team possessed expertise in project process but was “untrained” in Revit. “These [were] all architects who knew how to document and design a project.”
Krygiel revealed that the untrained Revit team “could produce a set of documents in the same amount of time” that a trained CAD team could.
Later in his presentation, Krygiel informed webinar attendees about various types of programs for analysis, communication, and documentation that are available for achieving green building goals. In addition to Revit, analysis tools include GreenBuildingStudio, IES, DaySIM, and 3Ds Max. Communication tools include PowerPoint, Revit, NavisWorks, and 3Ds Max. Documentation tools include Revit, NavisWorks, AutoCAD, and DesignReview.
During the webinar, Krygiel and fellow panelists Vaibhav Potnis, Green Building Services’ technical service manager, and Dennis Shelden, Gehry Technologies’ founder and chief executive officer, demonstrated the case for using BIM to drive the green design and construction process. Toward this end, the panelists collectively focused their presentations on siting, energy analysis, value engineering, estimating, use of 4D technology to compare the schedule impact of various green alternatives, means and methods analysis, green field decisions, the tracking of green activities in a model, and performance measurement and follow-through.
For immediate access to the complete webinar (full audio and visual) -- as well as more than two dozen other construction-related webinars that are available for download -- sign up to become a member of WPL Publishing’s ConstructionPro Network, a complete training, education, and development resource for the construction industry, at http://constructionpronet.com/info/Charter2012.aspx.
