Computational BIM for Building Envelope Sustainability Optimization

Building envelope plays an important role to protect a building from external climatic factors while providing a comfortable indoor environment. However, the choices of construction materials, opening sizes, and glazing types for optimized sustainability performance require discrete analyses and decision-making processes. Thereby this study explores the use of computational building information modelling (BIM) to automate the process of design decision-making for building envelope sustainability optimization. A BIM tool (Revit), a visual programming tool (Dynamo) and multi objective optimization algorithm were integrated to create a computational BIM-based optimization model for building envelope overall thermal transfer value (OTTV) and construction cost. The proposed model was validated through a test case; the results showed that the optimized design achieved 44.78% reduction in OTTV but 19.64% increment in construction cost compared to the original design. The newly developed computational BIM optimization model can improve the level of automation in design process for sustainability.