Integrating Decision Support System (DSS) and Building Information Modeling (BIM) to Optimize the Selection of Sustainable Building Components

摘要

One of the challenges in sustainability analysis and its development is the optimum selection of sustainable materials to meet the project’s requirements while doing sustainable design. This can only be achieved when project team adopt the use of a strategic approach while selecting the materials, although this could be a complex task for decision makers. Building Information Modeling (BIM) offers designers the ability to assess different design alternatives at the conceptual stage of a project. As a method of integration and through its modeling techniques, BIM can be used to assess the impacts of design alternatives on the energy saving of buildings all over their life. Furthermore, BIM has the potential to help designers select the right type of materials during the early design stage, and make vital decisions when selecting the materials that have sustainable impact on the building’s life cycle. The main purpose of this study is to propose a methodology that integrates BIM with decision-making problem-solving approaches (i.e. Entropy-TOPSIS) in order to efficiently optimize the selection of sustainable building components at the conceptual design stage of building projects. Therefore, a Decision Support System (DSS) is developed by using Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) techniques to aid the design team decide on and select the optimum type of sustainable building components and design families while doing conceptual design of proposed projects, based on three main criteria (i.e. environmental factors, economic factors -