An Integrated Decision-Making Framework for Sustainable Residential Building Design using BIM

Abstract

From previous research it is observed that sustainability in some areas is overemphasized and in some areas it is ignored such a socio-cultural dimension. Including all sustainability dimensions for assessment is essential in order to realize a holistic sustainability evaluation of building projects. An Integrated Decision-Making Framework (IDF) is formed to provide a holistic sustainability assessment of residential building projects. The framework has a creative role in this regard as it has gathered all three sustainability dimensions in one place, with 8 indicators and 27 impact parameters incorporated using the published work. In order to thoroughly quantify socio-economic sustainability dimensions, 54 sub-indicators are generated and introduced within the hierarchy. IDF is found to ensure a highly detailed building assessment with a holistic view to help in decision-making process. The framework ensures evaluation of environmental, economic and social sustainability during planning and design stages of residential building projects. Relative sustainability status of subject building as obtained on a scale of 0 to 1, with 0 being lowest and 1 being highest signifies the usability of framework as a decision making tool. By comparing various proposals of a building on such a scale most sustainable designs can readily be selected for development. Some strategies are proposed for integrating BIM with sustainability which can assist in the development of new BIM plugins with holistic sustainability assessment capabilities. BIM application developers can effectively perform this work by making use of proposed strategies.