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BUSINESS SOLUTIONS
GSA Applies BIM Models to 100 Buildings
in Portfolio
Charles Matta
Deputy CIO
Public Buildings IT Services, GSA
Real estate owners plan, construct, and manage building
portfolios that touch every aspect of the built environment, sustainability (orientation, density, vegetation, proximity to public
for the occupants, the general public, and the city environ- transportation and living/working amenities, and leverages solar
ment where they work, reside and play.
Public owners have a respon-
sibility to be stewards of the built
environment they create, to set
the example for excellence in
design, construction and facility
management to deliver buildings
that provide healthy environments
for tenants, neighbors, and the
citizens that visit them. A key com-
ponent of this stewardship is to
build facilities that are sustainable,
that reduce the environmental
impact and that operate efficiently.
Enter Building Information
Modeling (BIM) as the most advanced technology tool to enable
the building community (owners, developers, architects, engi-
neers, construction managers, and contractors) to plan, build,
and operate buildings and the environments they shape.
A BIM model is the most accurate virtual representation of
the actual physical building. BIM reduces the risk involved in
the design, coordination, and construction of buildings for ALL
stakeholders. BIM brings higher accuracy, higher efficiency, better program may have been an important catalyst for architects and
predictability, better communications, and better conformance
validation when it comes to program management, documenta-
tion of existing condition, energy and operation, and facility se-
curity for GSA. With today’s technology, this can be accomplished
with 2D, 3D, 4D technology, up to the nth D.
A Smart Building is a building that operates efficiently and
sustainably by: (a) allowing users to control their environment
for air quality and comfort; (b) having a central repository of ALL usage data against the quantified benefits in BIM to see if the
current building information through BIM; (c) having sensors
that continuously obtain and deliver data on how the building
is meeting its intended function in terms of occupancy, daylight,
energy use, etc.; (d) enabling facility operators to have ready ac- optimization of factors such as building orientation, material
cess to its current and on-going performance; (e) empowering a
designated operator to centrally control the building automation
system in a secure environment.
34 Realcomm
A Smart Campus is a campus that is well planned and built for
+ water + geothermal harvesting). It is also a campus that has all
buildings’ automation systems
linked for optimum operational
efficiency.
A BIM-based approach sup-
ports ‘on demand’ generation
of documents (e.g., drawings,
lists, tables, and 3D renderings)
from a consistent BIM. A BIM
model, therefore, can live longer,
contribute more to process
efficiency, and provide superior
accuracy than traditional CAD
drawings. Therefore, a BIM model
is essential to create a true Smart
Building and a Smart Campus.
The earliest GSA owned projects have been BIM-deployed
starting in late 2003. These BIM Requirements have applied to
all major projects started in 2007 and beyond. As technology
has matured, we have seen a much higher BIM adoption rate
by architects and contractors, as BIM also promises designers
and builders better efficiencies and performance, and ultimately
competitiveness, with or without owner’s mandate. GSA’s BIM
contractors to challenge their status-quo.
Given GSA’s push toward sustainability and “green”, the
Architect/Engineer firms are looking at ever more creative ways
to design a building with sustainability in mind. An Energy
Performance and Analysis capability exists in BIM to conduct
efficient, accurate, and reliable energy simulations to predict
building performance during facility operations. Using this BIM
capability can facilitate the comparison of actual building energy
design held up to its promise.
BIM and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) provide
measurable sustainability in the areas of: energy simulation and
choices, operation, location, and building system selection;