GREEN BUILDING AND BIODIVERSITY: FACILITATING BIRD FRIENDLY DESIGN WITH BUILDING INFORMATION MODELS

ABSTRACT Green buildings should respect nature and endeavor to mitigate harmful effects to the environment and occupants. This is often interpreted as creating sustainable sites, consuming less energy and water, reusing materials, and providing excellent indoor environmental quality. Environmentally friendly buildings should also consider literally the impact that they have on birds, millions of them. A major factor in bird collisions with buildings is the choice of building materials. These choices are usually made by the architect who may not be aware of the issue or may be looking for guidance from certification programs such as LEED. As a proof of concept for an educational tool, we developed a software-assisted approach to characterize whether a proposed building design would earn a point for the LEED Pilot Credit 55: Avoiding Bird Collisions. Using the visual programming language Dynamo with the common building information modeling software Revit, we automated the assessment of designs. The approach...

[1]  Lesley Evans Ogden.  Does Green Building Come up Short in Considering Biodiversity?: Focus on a growing concern. , 2014 .

[2]  Daniel Klem,et al.  Architectural and Landscape Risk Factors Associated with Bird–glass Collisions in an Urban Environment , 2009 .

[3]  Salman Azhar,et al.  Building information modeling for sustainable design and LEED® rating analysis , 2011 .

[4]  Albert M. Manville,et al.  Avian mortality at communication towers in the United States and Canada: which species, how many, and where? , 2013 .

[5]  Jessica Suzanne Wood.  Birds, Buildings and LEED Mitigation Design at the University of Calgary Campus , 2014 .

[6]  Robbie Lynn Hunsinger.  Chicago bird collision monitors: prospects for a Great Lakes network , 2005 .

[7]  Ramesh Krishnamurti,et al.  FROM DESIGN TO PRE-CERTIFICATION USING BUILDING INFORMATION MODELING , 2013 .

[8]  Yigal Gelb,et al.  AVIAN WINDOW STRIKE MORTALITY AT AN URBAN OFFICE BUILDING , 2006 .

[9]  W. Borden,et al.  Seasonal, Taxonomic, and Local Habitat Components of Bird-window Collisions on an Urban University Campus in Cleveland, OH , 2010 .

[10]  Erin M. Bayne,et al.  A First Estimate for Canada of the Number of Birds Killed by Colliding with Building Windows , 2013 .

[11]  Daniel Castro-Lacouture,et al.  BIM-enabled Integrated Optimization Tool for LEED Decisions , 2009 .

[12]  Peter P. Marra,et al.  Bird–building collisions in the United States: Estimates of annual mortality and species vulnerability , 2014 .

[13]  S. Hager,et al.  Bird density and mortality at windows , 2008 .

[14]  S. Hager,et al.  Window Area and Development Drive Spatial Variation in Bird-Window Collisions in an Urban Landscape , 2013, PloS one.

[15]  Jack A. Ellis,et al.  An Analysis of Migrating Birds Killed at a Television Tower in East-Central Illinois, September 1955-May 1957 , 1958 .

[16]  K. L. Parkins,et al.  Light, Glass, and Bird—Building Collisions in an Urban Park , 2015 .

[17]  Charles M. Eastman,et al.  BIM Handbook: A Guide to Building Information Modeling for Owners, Managers, Designers, Engineers and Contractors , 2008 .

[18]  Daniel Klem,et al.  Collisions between birds and windows: mortality and prevention [FULL TEXT] , 1990 .

[19]  Salman Azhar,et al.  BIM for Sustainability Analyses , 2009 .

[20]  Daniel Klem,et al.  BIRD-WINDOW COLLISIONS , 1989 .

[21]  Travis Longcore,et al.  Height, Guy Wires, and Steady-Burning Lights Increase Hazard of Communication Towers to Nocturnal Migrants: A Review and Meta-Analysis , 2008 .

[22]  Donald A. Jackson,et al.  Window collisions by migratory bird species: urban geographical patterns and habitat associations , 2015, Urban Ecosystems.

[23]  Daniel Klem,et al.  Evaluating the Effectiveness of Select Visual Signals to Prevent Bird-window Collisions , 2013 .

[24]  Daniel Klem,et al.  Bird–Window Collisions: A Critical Animal Welfare and Conservation Issue , 2015, Journal of applied animal welfare science : JAAWS.

[25]  Ajla Aksamija,et al.  Parametric Control of BIM Elements for Sustainable Design in Revit: Linking Design and Analytical Software Applications through Customization , 2011 .

[26]  Todd W. Arnold,et al.  Collision Mortality Has No Discernible Effect on Population Trends of North American Birds , 2011, PloS one.

[27]  C. S. Robbins.  Fall migration at the Washington Monument , 1946 .

[28]  Carlos Eduardo Verzola Vaz,et al.  CAD Scripting and Visual Programming Languages for Implementing Computational Design Concepts: A Comparison from a Pedagogical Point of View , 2012 .

[29]  Daniel Klem,et al.  Landscape, Legal, and Biodiversity Threats that Windows Pose to Birds: A Review of an Important Conservation Issue , 2014 .

[30]  R. R. A. Issa,et al.  Feasibility of integrating building information modeling and LEED ® certification process , 2010 .

[31]  David Greenwood,et al.  Rapid LEED evaluation performed with BIM based sustainability analysis on a virtual construction project , 2015 .