Courtesy  : Hindawi.com

 Sustainable Infrastructure Design Framework through Integration of Rating Systems and Building Information Modeling

BIM (building information modeling) can be the basis for carrying out various performance analyses. Sustainable infrastructure rating systems are suitable tools for assessing an infrastructure’s environmental performance. It is necessary to integrate them in the design process. The research adopted a thorough literature review to follow the development trends, interviews with professionals from the academia and industry, and a critical analysis of technical requirements for integrating BIM tools and infrastructure sustainability rating systems in the design process. This study propagates a conceptual framework for integrating sustainability rating systems by introducing BIM with a sustainability metric plug-in. The adoption of the proposed solution allows for what-if scenarios to better support the incorporation of sustainability into design decisions and the assessment of sustainability at the design phase of the infrastructure project. The framework is used to refine designs and ensure that sustainable goals are met and to demonstrate compliance with regulatory requirements. This paper concludes that greater emphasis should be placed on supporting technical requirements to facilitate the integration of BIM and sustainability rating systems. It defines the possibility of BIM adoption to influence the sustainable project performance in the infrastructure. This framework could streamline the sustainable design process and lead to more integrated infrastructure delivery.

1. Introduction

Infrastructure sustainability has attracted great attention [1]. It is rife with propaganda but requires much greater practical solutions. As the largest sustainability opportunities lie in the planning phase, sustainable design can be a critical success factor. All of these goals lead to more sustainable solutions for the infrastructure and are possible to be achieved with BIM.

Building information modeling (BIM) has been used in buildings for many years [2] and now it is applied across the entire built environment [3]. Sustainable designs adopt BIM as a basis for carrying out the various performance analyses [4]. BIM can potentially support the early design sustainability analysis. The major problem appears to be that it is not defined what infrastructure performance knowledge should be in the BIM. In theory, BIM is well suited to sustainability due to the capacity of BIM to inventory beneficial data for measuring life cycle costs or performing energy analysis. But in practice, a lot of problems have been arising related to interoperability, regulation, and compliance issues.

The objective of this research is to propose a sustainable design approach for infrastructure, focusing on sustainability rating systems as decision-making criteria along with BIM data. This paper analyzes the possibility of integrating rating systems and BIM in sustainable infrastructure design from literature and industry and then presents a theoretical framework that integrates quantitative design data generated from BIM models interacting with performance evaluation in a systematic way. It will give a better insight into the sustainable design process in the context of integration of BIM data and standard performance evaluation in the design stage.

2. Literature Review and Analysis

2.1. Infrastructure Sustainability and Sustainable Design

Elkington considered sustainability as a concept involving the famous triple bottom line—people, planet, and profit [5]. Abidin and Pasquire considered sustainability as an objective including elements of the design, such as energy efficiency, waste minimization, and low maintenance costs [6].

Sustainability is an important criterion in the construction of the infrastructures. The definition of sustainability in the construction sector has been discussed by many authors [7, 8]. Meng et al. referred infrastructure sustainability to life cycle sustained and effective system functionality for urban social, economic, and ecological development [9]. George et al. developed a 4Es (Economic, Effectiveness, Efficiency, and Ethics) and 4 Poles (Economic, Social, Environmental, and Technology) model of sustainability [10]. Similar pillars were also given by Hill and Bowen as social, economic, biophysical (the atmosphere, land, ecological community, and the built environment), and technical (the performance and quality of a building structure) [11]. Aksorn and Charoenngam grouped sustainability factors affecting local infrastructure projects into 6 dimensions: management and administration, information and knowledge, policy and plan, environmental and natural resources, facility and infrastructure, and finance and budget [12]. Booth et al. [13] and Black [14] defined the sustainable transportation system as encouraging recycling in its construction and minimizes and the use of land, minimizing the use of nonrenewable resources and reducing emissions and waste, allowing the basic access needs of individuals to be met safely while ensuring the health of people and the ecosystem, supporting a strong economy and facilitating equality between and within generations. In this paper, the definition of infrastructure sustainability is focused on assured compliance with conventional infrastructure sustainability specification in sustainability rating systems rather than proactive improvement of all sustainability factors.

Many researchers have suggested methods to achieve infrastructure project sustainability. Choguill summarized the 10 principle approaches used and evaluated by a number of countries to facilitate local infrastructure in a cost-effective and environmentally friendly manner in the planning, decision-making, implementation, and management processes [15]. The term sustainable construction was originally proposed to describe the responsibility of the construction industry in attaining “sustainability” [11]. Sustainable design was also adopted by many researchers [11, 16, 17]. They are often used in sustainability concepts.