Developing an Integrated Evaluation Technology for Energy- and Cost-Efficient Building Design Based on BIM in the Real-time Manner

Existing BIM(Building Information Modeling) based energy evaluation tools cannot be utilized enough for the potential performance of BIM because most of them have not provided the integrated model for energy evaluation, assessment of the material, cost of the construction, and so on. This research aims to propose and develop a new application, EcoBIM, to support an integrated evaluation of the energy and cost efficiencies of the design alternatives within the design process. The proposed application functions as a BIM-based evaluation system that calculates energy-savings performance as well as the construction cost of the alternatives at the design stage. This study mainly focuses on the possibilities of developing the proposed technology. We also suggest an advanced design process using the proposed system, corresponding to changes of national regulations in Korea. This study deduce that EcoBIM can allow architects to make suitable decisions regarding energy- and cost-efficient designs. The proposed design process will allow architects not only to check the eco-friendly performance of design alternatives but also predict the operation cost in a certain period in the future. EcoBIM can prevent large-scale design changes required to obtain environmental certification and enable the owner to make an informed decision about the initial investment of construction according to the result of the analysis of the energy requirement at the design stage.