Applying systems modeling approaches to building construction

Abstract

Current building modeling environments lack the ability to support coordinated, incremental and systematic description of project requirements, design specifications, and the set of interactions that emerge among them, from different stakeholders, during building design. This paper discusses the prospect of a system-centric modeling framework that integrates a parametric CAD tool with a system modeling application to assess design intent based on construction-specific knowledge. The CAD tool provides strong geometric modeling capabilities, while system modeling allows the description of feature-based design specifications, aligned with construction standards and construction know-how. The ultimate goal of the proposed approach aims for the identification of conflicting interactions between design specifications, from different building material systems and stakeholders, to prevent design errors and on-site rework. The proposed framework will enable collaborative scenarios between Model Based System Engineering and BIM based on parametric, simultaneous, software integration to reduce human-to- data translation errors, improving model consistency among material systems, BIM tools, and project stakeholders.