Implementing ‘BEAM Plus’ for BIM-based sustainability analysis

Escalating energy costs and the need to improve energy efficiency have increased public awareness of the need to reduce energy consumption over a building's entire lifecycle, and have prompted efforts to integrate green and sustainable building initiatives into the conventional building design, construction and operation processes. Sustainable building rating systems are being increasingly adopted to assess the sustainability performance of building design and construction. Building information modelling (BIM)-based technologies are regarded as a potentially useful vehicle for helping project stakeholders to capture complete design and project information, and to make the best use of the available design data for sustainable design and sustainability rating analysis. While experience from the Leadership in Environmental Energy and Design (LEED) programme in the US has demonstrated the great potential of integrating BIM with building assessments, it is anticipated that BIM can also be effectively integrated with the Hong Kong ‘BEAM Plus’ sustainable building rating system. This study uses a two-stage method (i.e. a Delphi study and a case study) to explore the potential use of BIM in the case of a residential building project seeking BEAM Plus sustainable building certification in Hong Kong. The Delphi study indicated that 26 out of 80 credit points could potentially be achieved with the support of the documentation produced by BIM (i.e. Autodesk Revit). Detailed procedures for conducting and testing a BIM-based BEAM Plus sustainability analysis are described. The proposed BIM–BEAM Plus assessment framework is then verified using two sampled public housing modular flat models. The complexity of the BIM–BEAM Plus application depends on the project size, the extent of the model development detail and the nature of the project. •The Delphi method & modular flat models were used to develop a BIM–BEAM Plus model.•We estimate 26 credits that can be earned by the BIM simulation/scheduling function.•Material aspects and energy use credits are more difficult to earn using BIM.