Upon the successful completion of the course, students will be able to:
- Present a definition of BIM and elaborate the impetuses behind its emergence;
- Develop a simple action plan for a BIM-based collaboration in a design project;
- Use BIM to support integrated project control and planning;
- Apply various advanced technologies to visualize, simulate and optimize the construction plan within a BIM context;
- Elaborate the notion of 4D, 5D, and nD planning for enhanced constructability analysis;
- Discuss how the application of BIM can be extended beyond the design and planning phase to the management of a project throughout its lifecycle;
- Describe how BIM concept can be extended to support management of various types of civil infrastructures;
- Critically review scientific papers and summarize the major findings;
|
|
The main objective of the course is to familiarize students with the notion of Building Information Modeling (BIM) and its application in Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry. In recent years, BIM is gaining a significant popularity in the construction industry and the market strives for BIM professionals and experts to lead the transition from conventional practices to BIM-centered processes. This course will explore the raison d'etre of the paradigm shift from the conventional fragmented building lifecycle management process to a model-driven, centralized, and collaborative management philosophy. On this premise, this course will try to dispel the myth of BIM being a merely technological tool that streamlines the design practices.
Instead, BIM will be introduced as a combination of (1) technological advancements in visualization, information systems, and simulation and (2) process enhancement in how different stakeholders collaborate and communicate throughout the project lifecycle. By introducing these technologies and allowing the students to have hands-on experience with them, the course will provide the opportunity for students to explore how information modelling tools can enhance construction management tasks.
The main topics covered in this course are:
- Object-oriented design paradigm and the concept of Building Information Modeling;
- Industry Foundation Class (IFC) as a way to address interoperability issue between myriad of design platforms;
- Construction scheduling and planning, level of details in design, cash flow analysis, and process modeling;
- The application of simulation for/in BIM and how simulation techniques can be used to enhance and optimize the management of a project as well as design decisions;
- The broader application of information modeling for enhanced infrastructure managements and the extension of BIM concepts to road, bridge, and utility information modeling;
- The concept of constructability and integration of 3D models with various time-dependent inputs (e.g., cost, schedule, etc.) to generate nD models;
- Practical and organizational aspects of using BIM as a method to streamline collaboration and communication among various stakeholder.
- The industry’s view on BIM and its benefits, shortcoming, challenges, and opportunities.
This course tries to familiarize students with semantic modeling and object-oriented design where building elements are represented not as symbols but rather as data-rich objects in a design platform. This model can help reduce design mistake, redundancies and rework.
By discussing the interoperability issues, we show students how BIM concept can help various stakeholders better communicate and share data about projects using central models and a data format that can work across many platforms (i.e., IFC). Additionally, students will learn about how this new paradigm changes the conventional project management practices by (1) seamlessly integrating the design model, project schedule and cost estimation (i.e., 4D and 5D modeling), (2) allowing different types of spatio-temporal simulation and analysis (e.g., clash detection and constructability analysis), and (3) providing a strong linkage between practices in design, construction and operation phases.
The course is assessed by means of:
- Group project assignment on use of BIM for design and project management (70%): This project requires different group members to play a role in a construction project. Through this role-playing, all members use BIM models for the communication and management of the design. The project consists of several interim deliverables that need to be submitted during the quartile. At the end of the course, all the deliverables are integrated into a single final report and presentation.
- Individual oral exam (30%).
|
 |
|