Enabling Bidirectional Interoperability between BIM and BPS through Lightweight Topological Models

Building Performance Simulation (BPS) tools have become prevalent in the Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and Operation (AECO) sector to assess building performance for various purposes. However, some challenges persist in achieving full interoperability between BPS and Building Information Modeling (BIM). This paper proposes a different approach to BIM-BPS interoperability based on creating space-based Topological Models (TM) for data exchange using Visual Programming (VP) algorithms. The VP approach allows for complex geometrical operations, the automatic reflection of changes made to the BIM model in the BPS model, and easy synchronous modification of these models to encourage design exploration. The proposed workflow is tested on the heritage building of the Faculty of Engineering in Bologna, Italy, with the aim of establishing the basis for developing a Digital Twin (DT) of the building for optimising its energy management. This approach can also be used for the early-stage analysis of new constructions, providing a comprehensive view of building performance

Struttura e costruzione / Structure and Construction Nuova edizione / New Edition

This book explores several aspects of the variegated relationship that connects the operational principles of a structure to its translation into written form, between the laws that govern its structural rationale and the technical solutions that decree the feasibility of its construction. This is considered an essential subject for the training of aspiring engineers, whose education is often strongly conditioned by a didactic approach that divides the knowledge of construction into circumscribed and independent disciplinary units. This same approach negatively connotes the progressive transformation of the professional profile of the contemporary engineer, from the original figure of a designer of technical solutions to that of a specialist-assessor of structural performance. The result is that such figures sometimes lack the critical instruments inherent to a knowledge that does not begin and end within models of scientific explanation, but has to be comprised within a broader cultural dimension featuring the coexistence and mutual nourishment of different branches of knowledge, including History, Science and Design through to the ultimate dynamics of Architecture