Digital Building Lifecycle: Taking BIM to the nth Dimension

To date, we’ve covered a lot of territory in this series on the Digital Building Lifecycle and how using data-driven building information modeling (BIM) can transform the AECO industry. We have seen how BIM works from initial design strategies to off-site construction planning.

BIM is well known for 3D modeling. But did you know there are even more use cases for BIM? As we keep adding new layers of information to the datasets and link external systems to the models over a cloud, we can readily go into new dimensions from 4D to 9D BIM. There’s even potential for unlimited nD BIM, with data applied to any purpose a user might require.

Let’s take a quick look at these many dimensions of BIM, and how they serve us throughout the digital building lifecycle.

1D BIM: The Documented BIM Execution Plan

Every digital building lifecycle project starts with BIM in 1D. This is a written BIM execution plan (BEP). BEP documents the project’s intended tasks, data requirements, information deliverables, and stakeholder responsibilities as related to the building information models, the modeling process and the information management. Project teams accomplish each BEP phase by using the data and information that have been made available for that phase.

2D BIM: Intelligent 1-Line Drawings

BIM in 2D comprises the project’s line drawings, usually produced with drafting software tools. BIM as 2D drawings can be “intelligent 1-lines”, which is a concept developed by Gafcon Inc. The intelligent 1-lines look like drawings, but are created as BIM components using a BIM authoring tool and they have BIM attribute data attached to them. The drawings communicate the plan in a familiar way, but ensure that the data-centric approach is embedded in the process, leading to the new ways of working.

3D BIM: Three-Dimensional Geometry with Parametric Attributes

Using BIM as 3D models captures a building's complete geometry and parametric attributes. The data is “parametric” in that everything in the 3D model is related to everything else in the model, so a change to one attribute automatically updates related attributes and components. Practically a design standard today, 3D BIM enables stakeholders to coordinate multidiscipline geometry and digitally fit options of a building, create renderings, and experience tangible visualizations such as virtual walkthroughs in Extended Reality.

4D BIM: Data-Driven Project Scheduling

Adding master schedule data to a 3D model creates BIM in 4D—data-driven project scheduling to animate, coordinate, and optimize work sequencing. Today’s 4D scheduling tools are very user friendly and capable, and construction teams use them daily for tasks such as simulating and testing pour schedules and installation sequences; playing out the use of jobsite heavy machinery; and defining which tasks will be done by which crew members on which day. Applied to takt production and Advanced Work Packages (AWP) as a new delivery model, 4D BIM helps schedulers plan appropriate task overlap without interfering with the quality, cost, or schedule of individual jobs. 

5D BIM: Data-Driven Cost Management

Cost-engineering a project becomes possible with BIM in 5D, which links pricing information from suppliers and manufacturers to the models. With actual, on-time data shared over a cloud, teams can discuss how to optimize resources to stay within a project’s caps as its parameters and attributes change. Suppliers and manufacturers can participate in balancing product choices with available budgets, knowing the total performance of their manufactured products. Full use of 5D BIM is emerging among general contractors and construction management companies as a way to make cost and schedule overruns easier to control or avoid.

6D BIM: Data-Driven Facilities Maintenance and Predictive Operations

BIM in 6D puts the data-rich building models into the hands of owners and facilities managers for data-driven proactive maintenance, warranty planning, and predictive daily operations. The need to deploy technicians three times to change a lightbulb is transforming into new ways of working. Digital building operations management is emerging with linked digital physical building and the digital virtual building. In this use case of the future, BIM is a on-time digital platform that can identify if a part needs replacement, show the physical location of the repair, support technicians' task planning, and help update maintenance records after the ticket is resolved. A 6D BIM model can also identify similar parts elsewhere that may need timely attention. Such digitally driven maintenance and predictive analysis allow for leaner, more holistic maintenance operations.

7D BIM: Data-Driven Sustainability Analysis and Measurement

Long-term environmental, economic and social sustainability in buildings are on everyone’s mind, and 7D BIM can help guide program decisions early. BIM in 7D has parametric data from product suppliers that can be consumed by lifecycle assessment (LCA) and lifecycle cost (LCC) software for environmental sustainability metrics. These tools can run analyses on real product choices, then deliver reports about materials and design options in terms of their embodied carbon, operational carbon, and health, safety, and environmental attributes such as indoor air emissions. Using 7D BIM, teams can confidently design built environments that support people's wellness and our planet’s future and help real estate owners plan for the safe decommissioning of a building before it is even built.

8D BIM: Data-Driven Accessibility Analysis and Simulation

True accessibility is about universal design—creating environments that empower everyone. Standard 3D models provide the basics, but BIM in 8D adds the ability for special analysis tools to test models for specific attributes. For instance, users can simulate movement paths with different scenarios applicable for construction safety or end-user experiences, or check how well the environment’s visual contrast enables them to navigate with changing lighting situations. Some accessibility analysis tools already exist, and some are opportunities for further development. All of them can help AECO teams intelligently include universal design before a project is built, when adjustments have the least impact on costs and schedules. 

9D BIM: Data-Driven Security Simulation and Analysis

BIM in 9D works within a plan’s defined constraints to help security organizations simulate and analyze BIM the security and safety systems of their physical and digital environments. For example, data from models can be linked to simulation tools to test fire escape routes for areas of congestion and where more exits might be needed. Security teams can test camera viewpoints and optimize placement of security monitoring equipment. BIM in 9D can be also useful after construction, such as to plan new security setups during a building expansion or to determine how people might exit a space with a different furniture layout or temporary staging.

nD BIM: Anything You Want It to Be for Analysis And Simulation

And thus we reach the open-ended realm of BIM in nD, in which use cases are limited only by what we want to know and do next. By this time, BIM is a virtually limitless source of structured data about a digital virtual building in its current state. This data can be consumed in endless ways to support new digital solutions, explore new interconnections of buildings and people, inform decisions, and direct processes. Generative design, for instance, is an nD use case of BIM, allowing designers to test thousands of options before making that one final decision.

Too Valuable to Ignore

The limitless nature of BIM makes it a remarkable tool for coordinating teams and delivering the digital truth to be used by many types of experts and stakeholders throughout a building’s lifespan. It fosters high-trust project teams that can easily collaborate on the most usable, sustainable, accessible, manageable, and secure built environments ever delivered. I for one am eager to explore what else our industry can accomplish within the digital building lifecycle as we creatively apply BIM in all its dimensions.

Previous Articles in This Series

• The Digital Building Lifecycle: Taking the Long View
• Digital Building Lifecycle: The Data-Driven Feasibility Study
• Digital Building Lifecycle: How Technology Can Transform Schematic Design
• Digital Building Lifecycle: The Benefits of Data-Driven Design Development
• Digital Building Lifecycle: Analyzing Costs and Simulating Performance with Data and 3D Models
• Digital Building Lifecycle: Using BIM for Onsite-Offsite Construction Planning
• Digital Building Lifecycle: Using BIM for Offsite Construction