OPTIMIZING ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND INDOOR ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY IN ADMINISTRATIVE BUILDINGS THROUGH INTRODUCING BIM AT DESIGN STAGES

Abstract

The sun plays an important role to humankind on Earth as it provides many useful things such as light and warmth to all living organisms. However, the solar radiation that strikes buildings’ envelope is considered as one of the main challenges that faces the designers of administrative buildings’ projects. This research discusses the problems that are resulted from the negative effects of solar radiation on existed administrative buildings when not considered in the design. In addition, it introduces a solution by involving Building Information Modelling (BIM) in the design stage, which helps designers to model their design, simulate its performance using BIM predictive software, and then accordingly modify the design to reach to the best performance. A case study of an existing office building is introduced to monitor the building actual performance in terms of energy and thermal comfort as a baseline, then using its data in a BIM model to improve its performance. At the end, the research concludes that using BIM process in design not only solves problem of negative effects of the heat gain coming into building and high-energy consumption for air condition system, but also enhances building performance and users’ thermal comfort as well, which is part of indoor environmental quality.