Between the Poles

Large public project in U.S. mandates BIM for full-life-cycle construction

One of the largest municipal bond-financed construction projects in the United States has mandated building information modeling (BIM), targetting not only design and construction, but as a permanent record of college assets for use during operations and maintenance.  The Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) is the largest community college district in the United States and serves more than 250,000 students annually at nine colleges, spread throughout the greater Los Angeles area. More than 70% of LACCD students are underserved minorities and over 40% of students are over the age of 25.

LACCD has received funding through taxpayer-approved bonds and the State of California to launch its BuildLACCD sustainable building project. BuildLACCD is a $9.5 billion building program is funded mainly by bonds approved by Los Angeles voters in 2001-2016.  The objectives of the project is modernizing and improving campus facilities to enhance opportunities for students from lower-income communities and involved designing and constructing more than 65 new buildings, as well as remodeling many others.  The LACCD consuders itself a leader in environmentally responsible construction. The BuildLACCD Sustainable Building Program is enabling LACCD to not only modernize its colleges but to build more than 40 new structures that will meet Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards.  LACCD is generating solar power on its campuses and taking other steps to reduce the colleges' carbon footprint. The final phase of the project has mandated a building information modeling (BIM) approach, requiring that each building be modeled in 3D and managed using BIM processes.

I have blogged about the innovative BIM program at LACCD.   About twelve years ago it was decided to capture 3D BIM models of all the buildings on the LACCD  campuses. One of the most important motivations for creating these models was that BIM models would facilitate energy performance analyses of LACCD buildings - which supports the current building program, which targets zero energy usage.  The models include interior power, water, mechanical, and lighting systems together with 2D models of underground infrastructure on the nine LACCD campuses.

There are interesting and unique aspects of how these models were captured.  Perhaps most importantly, the models were created entirely by LACCD students.  Existing structures were laser scanned and BIM models were developed from the point clouds by students. In addition to creating the models themselves this has created a large BIM skilled labour pool in Los Angeles.

The second important aspect of capturing BIM models of college buildings is that to ensure a uniform representation of all the buildings across all of the campuses and interoperability with various applications,  standards should be used wherever possible.  The initial standards adopted include Industry Foundation Classes (IFC), Spatial Data Standards for Facilities, Infrastructure, and (SDSFIE), OMNIClass, and COBIE.  The BIM models were stored in a spatially-enabled relational database using real world coordinates.  Real world coordinates and spatial SQL enabled the models to be easily integrated with geospatial data from a variety of sources. The models could then be used for a variety of purposes including visualization, energy performance modeling, predictive maintenance,  and safety and security simulations.

The final phase of the BuildLACCD project involves more than 500 participants representing nearly a thousand different trades. The plan targets capturing data associated with assets in the planning and design phase so this information can later be utilized by facility directors and campus project directors for maintenance and operations. For the widespread community college with nine campuses this requires a common geospatial coordinate system so that all facilities can be viewed on a map and users can see each building spatially in reference to other facilities including utilities and roads and vegetation. The LACCD database buildings currently houses more than 3 million files totaling five terabytes of data.  The data is stored in Bentley Projectwise which provides a common interface and foundation for a standardized, collaborative BIM approach. ProjectWise is the central repository for all information, including models, drawings, specifications, photographs, and all other project data.

Automating sustainable building design using BIM and energy performance modeling

At the CanBIM Regional Session in Vancouver, Mark Cichy, Associate, Director of Computational Design and Research, at DIALOG, gave a fascinating talk about automating the process of designing sustainable buildings.  Specifically the talk focussed on applying computational design based on BIM and building energy modeling to optimizing building energy performance in the context of sustainable baseline standards such as LEED, AIA 2030, Living Building, and others.  This is important for DIALOG which has just committed to AIA 2030.

The primary motivation for energy performance modeling is currently aggressive building codes that push energy efficiency, for example, customer driven certification such as LEED and other "green" certification, and financial incentives from local governments and power utilities to reduce energy consumption, peak load or both. The EU, US and Japanese governments have already mandated net zero energy, near zero energy and zero emissions for public and other buildings starting as early as 2018.

Computational energy modeling is about optimizing energy usage over the entire lifecycle of the building for multiple objectives.  Currently energy performance modeling typically follows a fairly lengthy process starting with a BIM model of a design.

1. Use Revit to create a BIM model of the building.  The model can be either conceptual or detailed, but there are specific requirements it must satisfy to be useful for energy performance modeling. 
2. Create custom schedules in Revit to provide an information framework for the data that is required as input for the energy performance analysis and for storing the results of the analysis.
3. Generate a gbXML model from Revit.
4. Import the gbXML model into an energy performance modeling software such as IES.
5. Clean-up the model and add external features such as nearby buildings.
6. Run the energy performance analysis.

Mark discussed automating this process using generative design based on parameterized BIM models to optimize energy performance in the context of LEED or AIA 2030 or another sustainability standard.  There are a number of BIM algorithmic design and energy performance tools that can be used to help do this.  Mark mentioned Revit, Dynamo, Grasshopper, Ladybug, and IES. Dynamo extends BIM modeling to include algorithmic design. Grasshopper is an algorithmic design application for Rhino.  Ladybug is a free and open source environmental plugin for Grasshopper to help designers create an environmentally-conscious architectural design.  IES is the industry standard tool for detailed energy performance modeling for compliance purposes.  It is a standalone application that takes input from 3D design tools and assesses the design from the perspective of energy performance.

One of the key challenges that is required to enable automating the sustainable building design process is integrating IES with Revit so that every change in Revit is modeled at the same time in IES.  This requires a tight integration of IES into Revit, something that cannot currently be done with IES, but Mark is optimistic that this will be possible in the future.  The other part is generative design based on a parametric BIM model. 

Mark gave a real world example of optimizing a building with respect to different facade designs, lighting performance, and heating performance.  Pretty amazing - this represents significant progress toward integrating generative design and energy performance modeling that will make it much easier to design sustainable buildings compliant with a standard such as LEED and AIA 2030.

Vancouver's strategy for zero emissions buildings by 2030

New buildings in Vancouver will be zero-emissions or zero-emissions ready by 2030 or earlier. Vancouver will achieve this by a combination of energy usage reporting, incentives to the private sector, regulation including rezoning and building code changes,and increasing public awareness about low carbon building construction and operation.

At a Canadian BIM Council (CanBIM) conference in Vancouver, Brad Badelt, Assistant Director of Sustainability at the City of Vancouver, outlined how Vancouver intends to meet the goals defined in its 2015 renewable city strategy; 100% renewable energy by 2050 and a reduction of 80% in emissions compared to 2007.

Vancouver is already 31% renewable because the electric power used by buildings is almost entirely renewable. Currently building heating relies almost entirely on natural gas. Vancouver has had electric buses for years and municipal rail (Skytrain) is electric. 57% of CO₂ emissions come from heating buildings. Currently almost half of new building floorspace in Vancouver is single family residential.

In 2050 Vancouver's building stock is projected be 30‎% built prior to 2010, 30% current or upcoming, and 40% zero emissions buildings. The more that can be done right now to move toward zero-energy-ready buildings, the less retrofitting will be required to achieve Vancouver's emissions goals.

Vancouver's strategy for achieving all new buildings being zero-emissions-ready by 2030 is multi-faceted.  It includes regulation: to gradually restrict greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, reduce heat loss, and limiting total energy use; city leadership: all new city-owned buildings will be zero emissions; incentives: incentivizing the private sector to move toward zero-emissions building; and capacity building: investing in tools to develop and share knowledge and to remove barriers.  One of the things that Vancouver is doing right now is creating a Zero Emissions Building Centre of Excellence, scheduled to open in May, which is the first in Canada.  BIM and energy performance modeling will have a key role in the drive toward reduced buildings emissions.

In Vancouver's zero emissions strategy the next frontier is embodied carbon - emissions sourced to the materials and energy used in the construction of buildings. Vancouver plans to first require embodied emissions reporting followed eventually by regulation. One thing that is definitely in the works is encouraging the use of a lot more wood in construction. This is partly due to the intention to reduce embodied carbon and partly due to using the excess capacity resulting from U.S. duties on softwood imports.

Spar 3D: 3D mapping the inside of multi-story buildings with a backpack

At the Spar 3D Expo and Conference in Houston The Woodlands, Texas, Avideh Zakhor from the University of California Berkeley was onsite with some remarkable products from her new startup Indoor Reality.  I blogged previously about the technology when it was still under development.  The "man portable system" she has developed is a 32 pound backback with a collection of sensors.  The most important feature of the technology are sensors and algorithms for accurately tracking the six degrees of spatial freedom which determine the location and orientation of the backpack in the building.  In addition there are sensors for recording optical and thermal point clouds. She has also developed a handheld device that supplements  the capabilities of the backpack.

The technology can track accurately the location and orientation of the backpack as the operator walks through the building going into all rooms, halls, up and down stairs and into other human accessible spaces.  Software tools then generate different 3D data products including optical and thermal 3D point clouds, a colourized 3D point cloud, surface texture map,  and triangulated mesh surfaces.  The package includes analytical software tools for automatically generating floor plans, distinguishing rooms, identifying staircases, identifying windows, finding heat sources such as computers and human occupants, and identifying lights. Surface textures can be added to create a 3D photo-realtistic rendering.  The sensors and software can capture and generate all required input for the Department of Energy's EnergyPlus energy performance analysis program.  It has GPS and can generate real world coordinates.  Indoor Reality is an ESRI Emerging Business Partner.

I had a chance to sit down with Avideh to talk about her new company and the remarkable products she was demonstrating at SPAR2016.

Avideh, what are the key features of the products you are demonstrating here that distinguish them from some of the other devices vendors are showing here at SPAR ?

We have developed a unique way to track where the operator is in a building and the orientation of the backpack.  We have a lot of sensors. That is the key to all of our intellectual property (IP). It's called sensor fusion and most of our IP is in that area. It does not suffer from drift. It tracks accurately where you are in the building even if you go upstairs. You can even go up in an elevator because it has a barometer.  In addition we detect wifi.  It can tell you what the wifi strength is in different parts of the building. We have an infrared sensor and we have developed an app that will give you real-time occupancy of the building, for example, we can tell you there are four people in this room, two people in that room. We have patents on that.

Based on the data collected by the operator's walk through the building, we allow users to virtually navigate through the space and spatially collaborate with each other through our web based visualization tool. During virtual navigation, you can look around in 3D as if you were there.  That's our second data product. We don't just record dumb point clouds.  We generate intelligent meshes.  Not only can I can pan around, look up and down at each location, but the shape of the cursor shows you the orientation of the surface - for a horizontal surface it's a circle, for vertical surfaces it's a square.  The cursor gets bigger as it gets nearer, smaller as it goes farther away.  We know the normals of all the surfaces because of the 3D mesh behind what you see.  We recognize doors and windows.  Of course, we can measure distances and we allow users to annotate objects and locations.   So this mesh is very intelligent, so intelligent that we can automatically generate a Revit model with a floor plan, rooms, ceilings, doors and windows. That is our third data product.

How do you foresee people will use the tool ?

We went to the University of Illinois just a month ago and we did an energy model for a 14 story bldg. We can do 3d geometry, we can detect lights automatically, we can detect windows automatically, and we can detect AC plugs automatically.   This gets fed into an energy simulation model which is a complete model for an Energy Plus performance audit.  Typically when people do an energy audit they are only interested in the lowest hanging fruit, for example, replacing incandescent light bulbs with LEDs.   This is because collecting the data for a full Energy Plus model has been time consuming.  With the Indoor Reality backpack you can collect whatever you need for a complete Energy Plus audit very simply. For example, we can superimpose the infrared record on a ceiling to show a hot area which is very likely a hot water pipe behind the dry wall.

We have just come out with a visual building documentation tool for stakeholders to collaborate  with each other throughout the lifecycle of a building - during design, construction and operations and maintenance.  If I want to remodel a building using an architect, designer and contractor they can communicate with each other by leaving notes for each other in the virtual building.  For example, I can put a tag on a door for John the contractor. "Please fix this door."  John can come along in the virtual building and edit that note "Avideh, I can do this Tuesday."  So this makes it possible to collaborate virtually on a building project in 3D,  in much the same way that we can collaborate on a Word document.

There is another dimension to this.  Let's say we want to remodel a space in a building. The first thing the architect will want to see is the existing floor plan and the other professionals will also want to see other aspects of the space.  Normally at this point the building owner will ask everyone involved in the planning to come over for a  walk-through the building.   That requires a lot of valuable time from very busy people.  With the virtual model that we can generate, most of this won't be necessary any more. The owner can ask a relatively junior person equipped with the backpack to walk the building to collect the data.  Then the resulting model can be put online and everyone can virtually walk through it.  For bidding on a big renovation project, a relatively junior operator does the walk through and puts it on the cloud and the construction companies who are interested in the project can virtually walk through it online for bidding purposes.

For a new building,  during the actual construction you can conduct a walk through every day and update visually what's going on.  Then if there are lawsuits in the future, you will have a permanent record of who did what and when.   You can show the legal folks where a component was supposed to go and where it was actually installed. It is also useful for monitoring progress, so you know who did what when to determine who gets paid and how much.   If there is a lawsuit and insurance companies get involved, you can step through the record to see who did what.  Then when you want to sell the finished building, the real estate folks can do a virtual walk through of the building with prospective customers.  Property managers and facility managers can use the virtual model for maintaining the building. For example, we talked about the energy performance audit.  Facility managers can use it to identify lights that need to be replaced with more efficient bulbs. Then they can put a virtual tag on the lights for the maintenance folks.  With a virtual model like this, owners, contractors, designers, and facility managers can all collaborate throughout the lifecycle of the building.

There seems to be a lot of areas where the technology you have developed could be used ?

There are quite a number of other application areas for the technology we have identified including historical building and monument recording, scan-to-BIM,  variance detection and virtual inspection, real estate valuations, building plans for first responders, change management and dispute resolution, and detecting thermal anomalies including water leaks and insulation deficiencies to name just a few.

SPAR 3D: Virtual reality, scan to BIM, infrastructure models, and mapping indoor spaces

I have just experienced two remarkable days at the Spar 3D Expo and Conference in The Woodlands, Texas, in itself a remarkable location near Houston.  I will blog in more detail in the near future about the things and people I had the opportunity to experience over the past two days.

First of all, virtual reality.  Everyone is aware of the Oculus Rift (see the new review at CNET if you aren't).  There are other technologies that have come or are coming from Samsung, Sony and Google.  But at SPAR 3D the most remarkable VR technology I personally experienced was what David Smith, CTO of Wearaility, talked about and allowed me and others to try - a set of incredibly light-weight glasses with acrylic lenses designed to work with a smartphone that gives you a virtual experience comparable to IMAX without the IMAX theatre.  I tried it and found it an absolutely amazing surround experience.  And if you have wondered where Michael Jones, of Keyhole and Google Maps fame, has landed, he is now CEO of Wearality.

Secondly, my personal passion is the geolocation of underground utilities.  At SPAR 3D Mark Klusza, Founder & CTO, Real-time Metrology, Inc. described a major new advance in ground penetrating radar (GPR) technology he has developed that can detect a 3/4 inch rebar (among other things) four feet below the surface in clay.

For existing buildings creating a BIM model remains an art rather than science.  But at SPAR 3D a number of new technologies were presented that can help automate, improve the quality, and speed the process.  Foremost among them in my mind was presented by Nicolas Arnold, VP of Product Development, at SKUR.  With SKUR's technology, which runs in the cloud, you can compare the 3D model that you have developed with the point cloud you derived the model from and identify all the points of significant variance.  The same technology can also be used during a construction project to compare what has been built to what was designed - even when the building is only partially completed.

Ron Singh, Engineering Automation Manager/Chief of Surveys, Oregon Department of Transportation (DoT) described progress on his remarkable vision of how automation is upending how we design, build and monitor, operate and maintain U.S. highway systems.  Richard Arrowsmith, Asset Information Group Team Leader, Highways England described the digital model of the English highway system.  Stan Burns, President, Integrated Inventory, who has just retired from Utah DoT, described Utah DoT's comprehensive database of every piece of highway furniture and signage in the Utah highway system.  Together these represent the future of the digitalization of national highway systems.

A new company, Indoor Reality, is the third startup of Dr Avideh Zakhor, who is on leave from the University of California Berkeley.  Her new device is a backpack loaded with sensors including lasers and infrared that enables you to map the interior of buildings by simply walking through a multi-floor building, including up and down stairs.  The resulting data can be used to automatically generate floor plans and 3D models and captures everything you need for an Energy Plus analysis.

Mark Shell and Darrell Gadberry, both of the City of Fort Worth Water Department, described a very versatile device with laser and sonar and camera devices on board that can be used for sewer line inspections of small and large diameter sewer pipes.  Fundamentally this device enables condition-based maintenance of municipal sewer systems.  Mark and Darrell reported that it has saved the Fort Worth Water Department $42 million.

I was able to interview Dr Avideh Zakhor, Nicolas Arnold, Ron Singh, Larry Kleinkemper of Lanmar Services who specialize in creating BIM models for existing buildings, and Greg Bentley of Bentley who has a broad, forward-looking perspective on the "digitalization" of infrastructure.

Energy efficient building market to grow to $623.0 billion in 2023.

Energy performance modeling for buildings is a new field, but one that is getting a lot of interest under the impetus of government mandates and incentives.  It's so new that there is no set of standard best practices.  Energy modelers are having to make it up as they go.  But this area is growing rapidly, and as government mandates for zero-energy buildings kick in, it is expected to grow exponentially.  A Navigant Research study estimated that the energy efficient building market reached $307.3 billion in 2014 and that it will grow to $623.0 billion in 2023.

According to the 2014 scorecard released by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) Germany is #1 out of the 16 nations studied in the World for energy efficiency.  In Germany buildings currently account for 40 percent of power consumption and a third of CO₂ emissions. 

In September 2010 the German Government released a 40 year masterplan for revolutionizing the German energy supply that includes an aggressive plan for energy conservation focusing on reducing the energy demand from buildings.  According to the plan new insulation standards are to be introduced the government wants all buildings in Germany to be refurbished in line with new standards by 2050. It also wants to cut the national heating requirement by 20 percent by 2020 and by 80 percent by 2050.  Germany is part of the EU which is very aggressive in improving the energy efficiency of buildings. 

The EU Energy Saving Ordinance mandates a 25 percent reduction in energy use for all new residential and non-residential buildings built from January 1, 2016. And as of 2021, the EU’s nearly zero energy standard will apply to all new buildings.

The EIA has just released information on building energy efficiency programs in China.  Unlike many other countries, the Chinese government has focused a lot of regulatory attention on existing buildings. The overall objective of the Chinese government is to raise the level of existing buildings to satisfy regulations governing new construction. In 2011, the government implemented regulations that mandated a 10% reduction in energy consumption per square meter for commercial buildings by the end of 2015.  It also mandated a 15% reduction for commercial buildings with more than 20,000 square meters of floor area.

Energy certification of buildings is a key policy instrument for reducing the energy consumption and improving the energy performance of new and existing buildings.  In the U.K. since 2008 public buildings over 1,000 m² must display a Display Energy Certificate (DEC).  DECs document the actual energy usage of a building and look similar to the energy labels provided on new cars and electrical appliances.  In the U.S. six cities and two states have passed laws requiring energy benchmarking of existing buildings. It is estimated that these laws will affect 4 billion ft² of floor space in major real estate markets.  In Australia commercial buildings 2000 m² and over are required by the Building Energy Efficiency Disclosure Act 2010 to have a Building Energy Efficiency Certificate (BEEC).  In Jakarta a new green building code became mandatory for existing and new buildings in early 2013.  The code covers all large buildings in Jakarta including office buildings, shopping malls and apartment buildings larger than 50,000 square meters; hotels and healthcare facilities larger than 20,000 square meters; and educational facilities larger than 10,000 square meters.

The European Union's SUNSHINE program is intended as a step towards toward standards for measuring the energy performance of buildings and a way to  contribute to improving the energy efficiency of buildings.  SUNSHINE is based on open standards such as CityGML from the OGC. 

In the United States according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), buildings are responsible for 65 % of electricity consumption.  An important motivation for energy efficient buildings in many jurisdictions are aggressive building codes that push energy efficiency.   For example, the 2013 California Green Building Standards Code (Title 24) is one of the first “green” building codes.   Other motivations are customer driven certification such as LEED and other "green" certification - LEED v4 incorporates up to 18 credits for demand response -  and financial incentives from local governments and power utilities to reduce energy consumption, peak load or both.

Government mandates for zero energy buildings (ZEB) have been introduced in E.U., the U.S. and Japan.   According to Navigant Research, global ZEB revenue is expected to grow from $629.3 million in 2014 to $1.4 trillion by 2035.

Energy performance modeling is an essential tool for estimating the energy requirements of a new or existing building.  An energy performance analysis can determine how much energy a building will consume in a year, assess the most cost effective insulation and glazing, and assess other things that can be done as part of the building design to optimize energy usage.  An energy analysis requires data - geometry of the building, performance characteristics of materials, geolocation and orientation of the building, and so on.  Simulation applications include local environmental conditions and involve thermal modeling, daylight and airflow simulations.  Thermal modeling includes energy consumption, thermal comfort, CO₂ emissions, renewable energy integration, and electric power load. Natural lighting includes visual comfort (glare) and the reduction of energy use through natural lighting.  Airflow simulation includes external wind simulation, internal airflow simulation, clean room ventilation, and reduction in electrical load as a result of using natural ventilation.

There are many energy analysis tools available (lighting, thermal, emissions, water usage, etc) , many are very complex, and the volume of data that is required is increasing exponentially.  Many energy modelers follow a best-of-breed approach so interoperablity is a major challenge in improving productivity in energy performance analysis.

Increasingly for energy modelers the natural place to start is with a Building Information Model (BIM).  There are several reasons for this.  First of all it is what many of the energy performance analysis packages expect and it is supported by the gbXML standard.  Secondly it allows all the information required by the architect, engineers and construction contractors to be accessed in one place.  And thirdly it helps in communicating the results of the energy performance analysis to the people who need it including heating and cooling, lighting and other types of engineers, all  of whom may require the same  information but communicated in different ways.

Singapore's national 3D model wins Be Inspired Award at YII2015

At the the Year in Infrastructure conference in London the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) won the annual Be Inspired Award for Innovation in Government.  Comprising only 700 square kilometers for the entire nation, land is a valuable and critical national resource for Singapore and the Singapore Land Authority is responsible for making the most of the resource. 

Specifically SLA is responsible for the national land management system and for all geographical information (GIS) management.  At the Be Inspired Awards at the Year in Infrastructure 2015 conference in London, I had an opportunity to chat with Victor Khoo and Kean Huat Soon.  Victor Khoo is Deputy Director Land Survey at the SLA and Kean Huat Soon is a Senior Surveyor and the technical lead for the project.

Singapore intends to be the world's first "smart nation".  Part of this initiative involves developing a virtual Singapore that is intended to be the source of authoritative information about Singapore for use by government.  The current priority is a 3D model of buildings and below and above ground infrastructure.

The Mapping Singapore in 3D project is financed 50% by the Government of Singapore and 50% by agencies, primarily the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) and the Public Utilities Board (PUB).   Several government agencies including the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) and the Housing Development Board (HDB) are already using it.  CAAS finds it essential for maintaining aviation glide paths over the city as does the PUB for assessing the impact of flooding. HDB uses it for planning purposes. 

The project involves capturing large amounts of data using multiple rapid mapping technologies including oblique imagery, airborne laser scanning, mobile laser scanning, and terrestrial scanning.  The data is compiled into 3D city model in a single database repository. The database includes geometry, topology, semantics and appearance.  It relies on CityGML, a standard managed by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), for the database schema and for data exchange.  The project works at the Level of Detail (LOD) Level 1-3. The data is stored in a single geospatially-enabled relational database (Oracle Spatial).  The total volume of data is more than 50 terabytes.The most challenging part of the project has been the development of business processes and technologies for ensuring the data remains current. The database is open and accessible to all government agencies. 

3D Cadastre

Victor Khoo is also responsible for developing a 3D cadastre for Singapore which is a separate project at SLA.  A 3D cadastre is especially critical for Singapore for several reasons.  85 % of the population of Singapore lives in public high rise buildings. Underground space is heavily used and underground density is increasing.  Land developers are being very creative and packaging complex volumetric parcels that include both underground and above ground. 

A 3D cadastre has data, legal, system and process dimensions.  The legislation required for the legal aspect is already in place.  The system and processes are intended to be completed by the end of 2016.  With respect to data a 3D GIS is being populated at SLA starting with 2D land parcel data.

Land surveyors are an essential part of the 3D cadastre project.  As a first step surveyors are required to use electronic data exchange instead of paper (Singapore mandated electronic submissions for building permitting over a decade ago.)  Singapore has decided to support ePlan LandXML as an open standard for the exchange of survey data.  In 2013 Singapore joined the ePlan working group which is focussed on developing a digital protocol for the transfer of cadastral data between the surveying Industry and government.  The working group was originally made up of technical experts from the eight states and territories of Australia and New Zealand working in the management of cadastral data.

By way of background LandXML is a widely used standard used by the transportation and land development sectors.  A subset of the LandXML standard including alignment, road, rail, survey, terrain, land parcels, drainage, wastewater, and water distribution systems is being incorporated in a new standard called InfraGML which is supported by the OGC. Its focus is alignments/roads, survey, and land parcels and it synchronizes with the concurrent efforts by buildingSMART International in its development of infrastructure-based Industry Foundation Classes (IFCs), for example, for alignments, as well as with CityGML and TransXML. The first public draft of the OGC's proposed UML conceptual model for land parcels and the built environment was released for public comment at the beginning of the year.

BIM IFC and CityGML

An outstanding issue is the integration of BIM models into the Singapore city model.  A number of groups are working on a way of integrating CityGML and the BIM Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) standard.  An example is the Dutch 3D standard. 

Energy modeling for cities

The European SUNSHINE (Smart Urban Services for Higher Energy Efficiency) project has found a data model within the INSPIRE standard that is adequate for energy performance modeling for cities.  CityGML has strongly influenced the development of the INSPIRE BU model, both for 2D and for 3D profiles.  Many use cases that were considered for INSPIRE BU require a three-dimensional representation of buildings such as a building information model (BIM). Examples are noise emission simulation and mapping, solar radiation computation or the design of an infrastructure project. To allow for that, the building representation in Level of Detail (LoD1 - LoD4) of CityGML has been added to the INSPIRE BU model as a core 3D profile. For large scale energy performance at the urban level, the SUNSHINE team concluded that detailed interior elements of each building are not required.  It is possible to work at a simple Level of Detail 3 (LOD3) and just include elements like roofs, envelope walls, and windows.

Building optimization market expected to reach $6.6 billion by 2024

In November, 2012 Navigant Research released a report on building optimization and commissioning services in which it estimated that the global market for these services amounted to $2.2 billion annually in 2012.  Navigant predicted that the market would double to $4.4 billion by 2020.

I have blogged several times about the growing importance of energy performance modeling based on BIM for new buildings or from scan to BIM models for existing buildings.  Navigant Research has just released a new report, Building Optimization and Commissioning Services, that updates the previous estimates and suggests that the market for these services (which include energy performance analysis) is increasing more rapidly than the initial report from Navigant suggested.

Building commissioning services

Buildings are becoming more complicated to build, maintain and operate.  Navigant points out that the actual performance of the building is often poorer than was intended during design.  Building optimization and commissioning services, which were developed in the United States and United Kingdom in the 1960s and 1970s as a quality assurance measure for new buildings, are now being used as a tool to ensure operational and energy efficiency. According to Navigant commissioning has grown rapidly driven by the wide spread adoption of green building certification programs over the past decade as well as by government regulations and incentives. In addition owners are beginning to realize that "green building" practices can actually generate substantial savings during the operations and maintenance phase of a building.

The Navigant report focuses on three types of commissioning services;

• Initial commissioning - This happens as part of handover over a new building and focuses on the building's actual performance compared to what was intended in the design and constrcution phases.
• Retrocommissioning- This applies to existing buildings.  It targets optimization of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC), lighting, and other mechanical or electrical systems to identify areas of investment to improve the building's performance.
• Monitoring-based commissioning - This is a process that was developed by the Energy Systems Laboratory at Texas A&M University. It tracks the actual performance of an existing building to ensure that performance goals are being me and to identify new areas for investment to improve building performance.

Market drivers

The market driver for these building optimization and commissioning services is the fact that in many parts of the world 40% of energy is consumed by buildings.  In the U.S. 70 % of electric power demand is due to buildings.  Currently the primary motivation for energy performance modeling are aggressive building codes that push energy efficiency, for example, the 2013 California Green Building Standards Code (Title 24).   Other motivations are customer driven certification such as LEED and other "green" certification programs and financial incentives from local governments and power utilities to reduce energy consumption and peak load.

Measures aimed at improving the efficiency of buildings have been introduced in Europe, the U.S. and Japan. A major area of focus in the EU is “nearly zero energy” buildings.  For new buildings, the European Commission has mandated 2020/2021 as the deadline when all new buildings will have to be designed to be “nearly zero energy”.  For public buildings the deadline is even sooner, by 2018/2019.   The Government of Japan put forward its "zero emissions buildings" target in April, 2009. The announced objective mandates that all new public buildings will be “zero emissions” by 2030. The U.S. Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA 2007) requires that by 2030 all new Federal facilities must be "zero net energy" (ZNE) buildings.  In 2007, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) adopted aggressive targets for ZNE - all new residential construction in California to be zero net energy by 2020, all new commercial construction in California to be zero net energy by 2030, and 50% of existing commercial buildings will be retrofit to ZNE by 2030. According to a report from Navigant Research, global ZEB revenue is expected to grow from $629.3 million in 2014 to $1.4 trillion by 2035.

Technology drivers

Navigant says that increased use of monitoring-based commissioning, integration into building information
modeling (BIM), and cloud-based organization and distribution of commissioning documents have the potential to improve both the commissioning process and building efficiency. But according to Navigant the industry has not yet made adoption of these technologies a priority.  In contrast the lower costs of data loggers and control equipment has provided the most important technological impact on the market.

Market forecast

Navigant estimates that global revenue in 2014 amounted to about $2.7 billion, of which the majority of the revenue went to initial commissioning.  It projects that the market will grow to about $4.7 billion in 2020 (compared to an estimate of $4.4 billion in the earlier Navigant report), and about $6.6 billion in 2024.  It expects that revenue for building optimization and commissioning services will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.1% from 2014 to 2024.
 
Navigant predicts that retrocommissioning presents a large market potential over the forecast period because existing buildings are generally not very efficient and because the stock of existing buildings is so much larger than the new buildings that will be built in the next decade.  In addition there are new regulatory requirements.  Navigant mentions New York’s Local Law 87 and California’s CALGreen.

Currently monitoring-based commissioning is a smalll, niche market, because there are "few building owners with enough knowledge to demand it." Navigant expects that technological improvements in building automation systems and building energy management systems will drive more demand for this type of performance monitoring and improvement so that by 2024 revenue will exceed $1 billion.

First online course for BIM-integrated energy modeling for buildings

Energy performance modeling for buildings is a new field, but one that is getting a lot of interest under the impetus of government mandates and incentives.  It's so new that there is no set of standard best practices.  Energy modelers are having to make it up as they go.   But this is beginning to change.  Trailloop has just released an online course for BIM-Integrated Energy Modeling for buildings.  The course was created by Jean Carriere who is one of the early pioneers in applied energy performance modeling.  Jean has been working commercially in this very new field for about 5 years.  Jean also teaches BIM modeling at a local community college.

In the United States according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), buildings are responsible for 65 % of electricity consumption.  An important motivation for energy efficient buildings in many jurisdictions are aggressive building codes that push energy efficiency.   For example, the 2013 California Green Building Standards Code (Title 24) is one of the first “green” building codes.   Other motivations are customer driven certification such as LEED and other "green" certification - LEED v4 incorporates up to 18 credits for demand response -  and financial incentives from local governments and power utilities to reduce energy consumption, peak load or both. Government mandates for zero energy buildings (ZEB) have been introduced in E.U., the U.S. and Japan.   According to Navigant Research, global ZEB revenue is expected to grow from $629.3 million in 2014 to $1.4 trillion by 2035.

Energy performance modeling is an essential tool for estimating the energy requirements of a new or existing building.  An energy performance analysis allows you to determine how much energy your building will consume in a year, assess the most cost effective insulation and glazing, and assess other things that you can do as part of the building design to optimize energy usage.  An energy analysis requires a lot of data - geometry of the building, performance characteristics of materials, geolocation and orientation of the building, and so on.  Simulation applications allow you to include local environmental conditions and conduct thermal modeling, daylight and airflow simulations.  Thermal modeling includes energy consumption, thermal comfort, CO₂ emissions, renewable energy integration, and electric power load. Natural lighting includes visual comfort (glare) and the reduction of energy use through natural lighting.  Airflow simulation includes external wind simulation, internal airflow simulation, clean room ventilation, and reduction in electrical load as a result of using natural ventilation.

There are many energy analysis tools available (lighting, thermal, emissions, water usage, etc) , many are very complex, and the volume of data that are required is increasing exponentially.  Many energy modelers follow a best-of-breed approach so interoperablity is a major challenge in improving productivity in energy performance analysis.

Increasingly for energy modelers the natural place to start is with a Building Information Model (BIM).  There are several reasons for this.  First of all it is what many of the energy performance analysis packages expect and it is supported by the gbXML standard.  Secondly it allows all the information required by the architect, engineers and construction contractors to be accessed in one place.  And thirdly it helps in communicating the results of the energy performance analysis to the people who need it including heating and cooling, lighting and other types of engineers, all  of whom may require the same  information but communicated in different ways.

In most projects the energy modeler is brought in after the building has been designed.  If the building was designed using BIM,  the starting point is the architect's BIM model and an associated database containing information about elements of the building.  Otherwise it is necessary to start with paper drawings and generate the BIM model from scratch.  In addition the geolocation and orientation of the building and local environmental conditions are required.  The first thing the energy modeler does is to create a parallel BIM model, which is a simplified model derived from the architect's BIM model that contains the key elements that are required for the energy analysis such as simplified walls and floors, room bounding elements, complete volumes, and window frames and curtain walls.  The simplified model is exported as a gbXML file and imported into an energy analysis package.   The energy performance application is used to run a simulation or several simulations if the energy modeler is asked to consider alternative designs.  Finally, a visualization showing energy consumption using the BIM model is used to communicate the results of the analyses.

The Trailloop course covers the energy performance modeling workflow in detail including creating the BIM model, exporting it as a gbXML file,  importing the gbXML file into an energy performance package which performs the analysis, and then exporting the results back to the BIM model.  In the Trailloop course industry standard tools are used: Revit for BIM modeling (a free version is available for students) and IES VE for building energy modeling (a special low price is available for students).

In his commercial practice, Jean has focused on optimizing the energy modeling workflow so that starting from paper architectural drawings, he can develop the BIM model, compile energy performance parameters, generate a gbXML file, and conduct a complete energy analysis (daylighting, thermal analysis, etc) for the proposed building in as little as two weeks, and then provide weekly performance feedback from design changes​.

Course description

BIM-Integrated Energy Modeling

The BIM-Integrated Energy Modeling Online Course is the most competitive and time-efficient workflow because it avoids rework through integration during the design process, providing an early feedback of LEED credits.

Students learn about the foundations of Integrated Modeling for a seamless integration into the Virtual Environment’s energy modeling application by using a Revit model, and then gain practical experience in solving complex design integration problems. Model elements are precisely placed using a standard set of modeling rules to ensure a predictable quality. Input data is associated with spaces and zone for thermal template data integration through schedules. Techniques are given to troubleshoot and mitigate all errors from the building geometry in order to apply an accurate building envelope.

Once the building geometry is integrated, students learn how to perform early-stage energy simulations to generate preliminary results on energy performance for various systems. They will be able to edit the building geometry and add new forms to the energy model in order measure the impacts of the added building elements. After producing a building loads report, techniques are given to reduce the load to right-size mechanical equipment.

Learning objectives

1. Construct building geometries in Revit for a seamless integration into IES VE for energy modeling.
2. Update the building geometry from design changes and re-integrate it back into the energy model.
3. Select appropriate energy modeling input data for building constructions, space types and HVAC systems.
4. Describe the differences observed between a baseline run and an energy efficient case for peak heating and cooling load reductions.
5. Display the energy/load difference between the baseline run and the energy efficient case using charts, graphics and tabular data.

Singapore mandates BIM e-submissions for building projects greater than 5000 square meters

Transforming Singapore's construction industry: from paper drawings to smart cities

Singapore has a compelling vision of where it wants to be by 2030.  Since about 2003 when it first introduced e-submissions, it has moved rapidly on two fronts; automating the building permitting process and improving construction productivity by transforming the construction industry. 

Building permitting 

Singapore's goal is simple, to implement the fastest building permitting in the world.  The Building and Construction Authority (BCA) led a multi-agency effort in 2007/2008 to implement the world’s first BIM electronic submission (e-submission).  The BIM e-submission system streamlines the process for regulatory submission. Project teams only need to submit one building model, which contains all of the information needed to meet the requirements of a regulatory agency.  In 2010, nine regulatory agencies accepted architectural BIM 3D models for approval through e-submission. This was followed by the acceptance of mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) and structural BIM models in 2011.  In 2013 the Singapore government began mandating architectural BIM e-submissions for building projects greater than 20,000 square meters.  In 2015 BM e-submissions will be required for all projects greater than 5,000 square meters.

Improving construction productivity

A related, major initiative of the government is to improve the construction industry’s productivity through the use of BIM by 20-30%.  In 2010 the BCA implemented the BIM Roadmap with the aim that BIM would become widely used in the construction industry by 2015.  The government's long term goal is to create a highly integrated and technologically advanced construction sector led by progressive firms and supported by a skilled and competent workforce in 2020.

At the BIM Worldwide: Solutions for Canada conference in Toronto, Cheng Tai Fatt, Director, BCA and William Lau, of William Lau Architects and past-president of buildingSMART Singapore, gave a fascinating overview of this dynamic city's implementation of BIM and its BIM plans for the future.

In 2013 an industry adoption survey found that 76% of firms surveyed had begun BIM adoption.  It also estimated that 96% will have started BIM adoption by the end of 2015.  The survey also found that in 2013, 15% of the firms surveyed used BIM on more than 50% of their projects, a significant increase compared to 2012 when only 4% of firms did.

The primary applications of BIM in Singapore are

• Design visualization
• Clash detection
• Construction coordination modeling
• Construction phasing and scheduling
• Quantity take-off
• Documentation/specification management
• Design analysis including energy, solar and wind analyses

The government's BIM development strategy is based on the public sector leading the way.   But it is designed to encourage the private sector by  promoting industry success stories and removing impediments.  The latter includes developing a series of industry-wide BIM guides, defining a legal and contractual framework for BIM-based projects, and studying the BIM workflow including the interaction between consultants and contractors to identify alternative ways of collaborating such as early contractor involvement and integrated project development (IPD). 

The government has put a lot of effort into building BIM capability and capacity through outreach, handholding and mentoring, and training programs (the government subsidizes BIM training by up to 50%). Many of Singapore's universities and polytechnics are involved with BIM training and education in some way.

The government also encourages and supportes the development of BIM standards such as buildingSMART's Industry Foundation Classes (IFC).  For example, BCA and buildingSMART Singapore developed a library of building and design objects as well as project collaboration guidelines. 

Finally the government has implemented  programs for incentivizing BIM adopters. BCA
introduced a S$6-million BIM Fund under the Construction Productivity and Capability Fund in June 2010. The BIM Fund covers the costs of training, consultancy, software and hardware.

Singapore's Second BIM Roadmap

Singapore is working on developing a second BIM roadmap with a focus on process transformation, BIM research and development, BIM for contractors, and BIM for facilities management.  There are similarities in this roadmap to the UK Government's BIM Level 3 strategy.