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Cars are Good, Buildings are Bad — We Need Another National Lab

Travis Reinke — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 19:16:31 +0000

The title is not completely correct, cars are not really good, but they are less bad than buildings.

We hear constantly:

“Cars cause Global Warming” (more accurately contribute to Climate Change).
People are purchasing hybrids to do their part to help save the earth and lower our need for fuel.

We rarely hear:

Buildings are the main problem. (They are)

BIM, specifically the data component, holds great promise to dramatically improve the performance and operation of buildings, as well as insuring that ecologically superior building products are specified. BIM is dependent upon accurate and available data.

In November I attended the Greenbuild Conference and Exhibition in Phoenix. There were hundreds of presentations, 1,800 booths (mostly Building Product Manufacturers) and over 24,000 attendees — more attendees than either the AIA or CSI National Conferences and Exhibitions. Al Gore was the keynote speaker. What is remarkable about this conference is that it clearly demonstrates that the architects, engineers, contractors and owners (private and government) are aware of the importance of the “green” movement. While many people have known of the advantages of well designed buildings for both energy savings and people productivity increases for decades, it has only been in the last few years that their efforts have turned into a movement.

There are fundamentally two components that determine if you have a “green” building:

Design – Site selection, orientation, massing, shading, layout, mechanical and lighting conceptual approach, etc.
Materials and Equipment – Specific products, carpet, tile, paint and equipment, fans, chillers, light fixtures and lamps, etc.

If you have a great design concept but select poorly performing materials and equipment the results of your efforts will be minimized. At Greenbuild, manufacturers promoted their messages as “green” manufacturers. The challenge to those that select and specify manufacturer products is finding out specifics on the products “greenness”, how it quantitatively compares to other products and what approaches were used to make the claims. For example a product could perform extremely well within the building environment but have major negatives associated with its manufacturing process, component materials, or disposal at the end of the buildings life. You need much more information than you can easily find to make the best selection, and you need this information on hundreds of thousands of products and materials.

The selection process becomes even more difficult because the manufacturer’s products data is supplied based upon the products in a “stand alone” condition. Little data is available on how products and equipment combine to perform in the assemblies that are the building. How the window frame is attached to the building structure will greatly determine heat gain and heat loss. We have data on the building wall, and the frame and glass, but what about the performance of the connection of the two elements?

Today BIM is really BiM; we need to get the “i” to grow up to a big “I”. We need more information on products and assemblies. Where are we going to get that information?

Many manufacturers have tremendous testing facilities. US Gypsum has very sophisticated facilities. There are private labs like UL and the NAHB Research Center, there are Universities that have focused programs, the military has research programs such as those managed by the Corp of Engineers, and there are the National Labs like the Lawrence-Berkeley Lab that has a massive collection of data on glass performance.

There is no one Lab devoted to buildings; the materials, assemblies, and design influences on performance. The construction industry is the largest industry in the world, buildings account for almost 50% of all the energy consumed in the world (cars account for 12%). Building construction costs and operations are the largest expense, after employees, for most companies. Through proper design, material selections and operations these costs can be reduced 30%. Buildings are often one of the greatest assets of a company, but only if they have maintained their value and not fall into disrepair or become obsolete.

Automobile manufacturers know tremendous amounts of information on every part and piece that goes into their cars; they are tested, modified, and improved on a continual basis. Cars cost about the same per square foot as a new furnished building, and I have yet to have a sunroof on a car leak, yet I have not seen a building that did not have at least one roof leak. We also know how to make informed purchasing decisions on a car because we have massive amounts of data on performance, options, resale value, reliability and the prestige factor. Ask a car purchaser if they will spend $1,600 more for the sport suspension they can make a quick decision, ask if they want to spend $200 more for a more efficient light fixture and you may get a blank stare. There is simply no easy way to get the data to answer all the questions on the performance and impact of a more efficient light fixture, door, window, etc.

A couple of years ago a collection of architects were asked what contributed to greenhouse gas emissions, the list of options included cars and trucks as well as buildings, the group indicated that 40% was caused by cars and trucks and seven percent from buildings. The actual answer was 12% from cars and trucks and 42% from buildings. If you do not know what is causing a major problem there is a good chance you will not contribute to the solution, so step one to making buildings less bad is that the owners, architects and engineers need to know what is creating the problems, step two is to give them the detailed and scientific information they need to solve the problems through an interface that makes searching for and finding the information needed at the time it is needed.

The National Building Lab

There are several National Labs in the US (Lawrence Berkeley, Sandia, Oak Ridge, Brookhaven, Argonne, Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, Pacific Northwest), that focus primarily on defense, nuclear, weapons but also health issues, renewable energy, building component performance and other building related research. We need one more National Lab, one devoted entirely to buildings and the integration and performance of the standalone components as a building system. Because of the National Labs we know tremendous amounts of information, information that has led to making the county more prosperous and powerful. Buildings and their negative inefficiencies upon energy use, people performance and productivity are a major problem that needs to be given the attention that will come from a National Lab devoted to buildings.

Imagine if all the buildings constructed in the US in the last 20 years used 50% less energy than they do, what would that have meant for the need to import oil? What would it have meant for global climate change? There is absolutely no reason that all these buildings could not be using 50% less energy today, except they were not built to do so. What a tragedy if 20 years from now someone asks the same questions about the buildings constructed in the last 20 years. Today in Europe there are buildings that use 1/20 the energy of comparable US buildings.

We need a Lab where:

Entire buildings can be constructed, tested, modified, retested, perfected and then reported upon.
Assemblies can be tested and compared to other assemblies. (When is it better to have highly insulated walls, when is it better to have thermal mass)
Products and materials tested for reliability and performance. (When and why is the $200 more expensive light fixture the right fixture to be specified)
Products and materials studied for their total “green” value by investigating their complete lifecycle of all its parts and pieces, performance and maintenance requirements.
New products, concepts and processes can be discovered and invented.
The information collected is widely distributed to these responsible for our built environment.
Software tools can be created to bring the information needed at the moment in time that it is need and in easy to understand and apply detail.

We need to do research on the value of spaces, do patients get better faster in single rooms or two person rooms, do they get better if the window is large or small, or if it looks out to a wall or a park.

We can make our environment better but we need better data that is widely available.

The cost of such a Lab will be insignificant compared to the construction cost and environmental savings.

Please give me your thoughts, and contacts that can foster this idea further.

Source: http://www.reedconstructiondata.com/news/2009/12/cars-are-good-buildings-are-bad-we-need-another-national-lab/

UPDATE: GSA Nationwide BIM/Laser Scanning Services Contract Awards

Travis Reinke — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 15:16:59 +0000

The word on the street is that the General Services Administration (GSA)has notified firms selected for Nationwide BIM and Laser Scanning Services contracts this morning. The selected firms will begin contract negotiations this week. No details have been given as to which firms were selected just yet, but follow us on Twitter or check back here for updates as we get more information.

UPDATE: August 25, 2009 – Contracts were awarded on both a regional and national basis. More to come…

Virtual meets Reality – Real-World Visualization of Building Information Models

Travis Reinke — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 21:50:16 +0000

Mixed reality and visualization

Competence

Mixed Reality denotes generally different visualisation means between Reality and Virtuality, enabled by 3D computer graphics. On one hand, Virtual Reality (VR) means completely 3D modelled representation of real world, while Augmented Reality (AR) stands for superimposing virtual objects in the user’s view of the real world.

The work by VTT’s Virtual Reality research dates back to the year 1995 when a virtual training simulator was developed for printing industries. After that various VR solutions have been developed for building and construction applications, space applications, and terrain visualisation. VTT’s special assets in VR include e.g. scalable Open Scene Graph (OSG) based viewer implementation, up to immersive CAVE type environments. We also develop application software and browser based solutions for the management and visualisation of various types of contents (text, graphics, images, video, 3D models, etc.). We are specialised in interactive management and visualisation of complex datasets.

VTT’s Augmented Reality team started developing virtual advertisements for live TV broadcast in year 2000 and, a little later, AR games and entertainment applications. Currently, our research focus is on architecture/construction and interior design, as well as industrial applications at production sites. Furthermore, we are proud of being able to adopt many complex video processing and AR ideas for low-level mobile platforms, e.g. camera phones, in which the processing power and transmission bandwidths are scarce resources. Today, Augmented Reality is applied more generally as part of Mixed Reality technology, bridging the digital and physical worlds with two-way interaction. Different kinds of Virtual Worlds, and Mirror Worlds as counterparts to real environments, provide natural means to implement such interactions.

Challenges

Marker tracking – accuracy, distance, lighting, etc.
Markerless tracking – feature / template / model based
Sensors – accelerometer, compass, GPS, other positioning, sensor fusion
Content creation – easily and economically, from industrial systems and by users
3D/VR model formats – in industry, construction, entertainment, art and digital media
Mobile processing – memory, speed, 3D graphics on UMPCs and camera phones
Visualisation – HMDs, PCs, projector screens, large displays, VEs
Processing power – memory, speed, 3D graphics

Solutions

AR applications

ALVAR – A Library for Virtual and Augmented Reality
AROnSite – outdoors visualization based on GPS and Google Earth
ARMobile – multi-marker based augmented large scale visualization
ARScaleModel – interaction with virtual 3D model on conference table
ARInteriors – digital photo based augmented furniture and interior design
ARCatalogue – printed media in augmented 3D format
ARPhone – augmented reality on Symbian camera phones
CamBall – augmented table tennis game over the Internet
SymBall – camera driven table tennis game on mobile phones

VR visualisation solutions

Katve – advanced virtual room with 4 rear projection stereo walls
MobiTrix – mobile stereoscopic rear projection system
PC based active and passive stereo visualisation systems
Interaction devices, including tracking devices and data gloves
Semi automatic 3D terrain visualisation
IFC visualisation and collaboration technologies
4D visualisation of IFC models in building projects

See further information in Publications, Projects and Videos on VTT’s website at http://www.vtt.fi/?lang=en.

References and merits

Part of VTT’s global G+ competence Virtual Products and Production Processes

Texas Adopts Building Information Modeling (BIM) capability for State Design and Construction Projects

Travis Reinke — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 21:04:18 +0000

Austin – The Texas Facilities Commission (TFC), the agency within the State of Texas that oversees the state’s real estate development as owners and operators of state facilities, today announces its adoption of Building Information Modeling (BIM) for state design and construction projects. For over a year, the Facilities Design and Construction (FDC) division within TFC has diligently worked to standardize the use of BIM for its future projects. FDC is responsible for overseeing the design and construction of state facilities throughout Texas. Currently, FDC manages 125 projects valued over $500 million, in addition to maintaining the Facilities Master Plan. In an effort to promote workflow efficiency, streamline productivity and increase the return on investment for the State of Texas, FDC has adopted and encourages the use of BIM’s digital design technology.

This digital design technology, in the form of coordinated, data-rich BIM models, gives TFC and its architectural and engineering design professionals the ability to explore early design concepts in 3D, visually analyze and simulate projects before construction begins, help identify and reduce costly design conflicts, and work in a more collaborative way to produce a better, faster, and more cost-effective state building. After construction, the BIM model becomes an evolving, digital representation of the actual building that can be used throughout a building’s life to facilitate the sharing of coordinated, consistent data among TFC’s design and construction partners; as well as TFC divisions tasked to maintain energy efficiency and maintenance services.

“Modernization has always been a central theme of my administration at the Texas Facilities Commission, and the BIM implementation is another part of that effort,” said TFC Executive Director Edward L. Johnson. “Modernization of our business practices, modernization of our real estate strategy, modernizing building design and construction . . . a part of everything we do is making use of the most innovative, state-of-the-art developments in both the public and private sector. Three years ago we embarked on making the Texas Facilities Commission the most sophisticated and professional real estate management and building design and construction organization that exists in the public sector. Becoming a leader in Building Information Modeling is an important step in that direction.”

The BIM model and process is a powerful tool for an owner of any size; but due to the number and scale of the TFC’s building and renovation ventures and the varied nature of construction types, ranging from office buildings and hospitals/labs to deferred maintenance projects, the integrated process allows for better informed decision making for all involved. The BIM process helps architects, engineers, constructors, sub-contractors and vendors collaborate with an intelligent model, allowing them to visualize and simulate using precise data before any building material is purchased, brought to the site or erected. Further, by making BIM the standard for all new buildings, TFC can begin to gauge energy usage, as well as forecast energy consumption based on model simulations; model multiple high-performance building scenarios based on minimal design time, simulate or identify security issues related to building type, and connect the model to existing databases or control systems for bi-directional, real-time data exchange.

“The BIM process allows the TFC and our private sector partners to collaborate from the start, share important data accurately and make better informed decisions earlier in the design process,” said Chris Tisdel, TFC’s Director of Building Information Modeling. “The added visibility and workflow efficiency reduces unexpected delays, unforeseen costs and overall construction time, which is of great value for our large operations across the State of Texas.”

As a part of the adoption of BIM, TFC recognizes that the private sector will be looking to it for guidance and a clear definition of what BIM means to the state. To that end, the FDC has developed a clear set of standards and guidelines that all private sector partners will have access to prior to any involvement in a state project. Along with the guidelines, FDC has created an interoperable BIM template that all private sector partners will have made available to them for any State project. The combination of the guidelines and template will enable any private sector partner just getting into BIM to save time and effort and provides them with a framework to build their own workflow and standards around. TFC is committed to educating and working with those who design and build projects for the State, in a collaborative manner with the clear goal of making the BIM approach a positive one for all involved. A video describing TFC’s adoption of BIM can be found on their website at: http://www.tfc.state.tx.us/communities/facilities/prog/construct/bim.wmv.

The State of Texas leads the way in BIM adoption and implementation, providing support, education and best practice standards to other state and local agencies that are also in varying stages of BIM adoption. The pool of owner-entities adopting BIM within Texas is growing at a quickening pace as the state leads the way in encouraging a better way to design and build. Industry and trade association leaders acknowledge that Texas has taken an innovative leadership role in adopting BIM. By doing so, Texas closes the gap between it and the General Services Administration, the first major governmental agency to adopt BIM for new construction and leads all other States in the way it leverages BIM to support construction, energy, maintenance, and facilities operations within Texas.

Finally, BIM provides a coordinated, informed understanding of the design and building process for owners, designers and constructors. As new construction grows at the state level, project expectations that include increasing complexity, a high level of transparency for decision makers, and accountability to taxpayers requires a new, but tested equally innovative approach to the traditional understanding of concept, design, scheduling, cost and implementation. TFC has adopted that innovative approach in BIM and by doing so is leading the way on a national stage into the future of digital design and construction.

Source:http://www.tfc.state.tx.us/newsevents/texas-adopts-building-information-modeling-bim-capability
Contact: Mike Blackwell, TFC Marketing and Communications Specialist (512) 463-4237/(512) 791-9189 Michael.blackwell@tfc.state.tx.us

EVENT:: AIA Houston BIM Association Presents: BIM Content – What Is It & Where Can I Find It?

Travis Reinke — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 19:24:17 +0000

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) Houston Building Information Modeling (BIM) Association’s fall event titled “BIM Content – What Is It & Where Can I Find It?” will be held on September 22, 2009, 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM at the ArCH Headquarters located at 315 Capitol, Suite 120, Houston, TX 77002. For a map click here.

Topics for this event will include:

What is BIM Content?
Where do I find content?
3D Content vs. 2D content and how much detail should be included.

Presenters: Jim Jacobi and Jeff Chittenden.

Invitations and more information about this event will be sent out via email within the next few weeks. You can also check back with this site for updates.