Analysis & Design of Interdependent Building Systems through Data Analytics

Catalog description

A building is an interdependent system of systems, which consists of tens of thousands of building components that spatially or functionally depend on each other. These interdependencies increase the complexity of analysis, research, design, and construction of buildings, and require a high level of multi-disciplinary coordination. This course utilizes Building Information Modeling (BIM) as an integration platform and central database to coordinate the interdependencies between various building functionalities and support multi-disciplinary coordination. The course begins with an overview of BIM in the construction project lifecycle and addresses operational details of BIM tools for modeling, scheduling, and 4D simulation. Lecture content covers graph theory as a data analytics tool, and the use of graph databases to analyze the information embedded in BIM models for the analysis of system interdependencies. Graph algorithms will be applied to support system optimization. The latest research on BIM and graph analysis will be reviewed and discussed with a focus on the interdependency of building systems. Based on the latest research studies, students complete a semester-long group project that focuses on analyzing building information from a graph perspective for holistically improving building systems or construction activities.