Enhancing IFC Models for Circular Design: Validation of Required Information through an IDS Framework

Abstract

Given the significant impact of the construction industry on climate change, efforts must focus on reducing energy consumption, emissions, and raw material extraction. Through improved planning and continuous design optimization, building sustainability and circularity can be enhanced. Significant progress has been made in the fields of Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). However, it is still necessary to meet the diverse BIM model requirements defined by LCA software vendors, whose proprietary Property Sets (PSets) must be enriched with information in the BIM model for accurate assessments. However, there are also open developments that have agreed on a common information requirement for sustainability assessment and circularity assessment available as datasets in the buildingSMART Data Dictionary (bSDD). This paper presents the development of an Information Delivery Specification (IDS) that combines the information requirements of two LCA software and two bSDDs. The IDS is successfully validated on two BIM models and will be further developed in an ongoing research project.