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1. Nuhu Bamalli Polytechnic Multidisciplinary Journal 1 :( 1) 66-72 Umar, Sadauki & Abdullahi (2016)
APPLICATION OF BUILDING INFORMATION MODELLING TOOLS FOR GREEN
BUILDING DESIGN
Usman Aminu Umar1,a
, Abdullahi Sadauki2,b
, Ibrahim Abdullahi3,c
1
Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering,UniversitiTeknologi PETRONAS,
Bandar Seri Iskandar, 31750 Tronoh, Perak, Malaysia.
2
Department of Architecture, Nuhu Bamalli Polytechnic, P.M.B 1061, Zaria, Kaduna State,
Nigeria.
3
Department of Architecture, Nuhu Bamalli Polytechnic, P.M.B 1061, Zaria, Kaduna State,
Nigeria.
a
usmanaumar@yahoo.com, b
abdullahisadauki@yahoo,c
abdulbiye03@yahoo.com
ABSTRACT
Due to global population growth, production and ignorance have brought about increase in
demand and consumption of scarce resources like energy, buildings, food and health amongst
others which adversely affect the environment. However, such adverse actions can be minimized
by the adoption of Green Building Design concept through the use of Building Information
Modelling (BIM). The aim of this paper is to discuss the benefits and use of BIM tools to develop
more functional data and information for utilization and simulation.The significance of BIM in
this paper to designers, users, and stakeholders in building and construction includes providing
strong information on design, materials, system and locations to enable them analyse building
performance and save energy over the building life cycle.The source of data for this study was
secondary data where relevant literatures were reviewed. The findings showed that BIM can
contribute towards encouraging Green Buiding Designs through generation of high quality
visualization and conduct of indepth analysis. The study therefore concludes that BIM tools
promote the design of Green Buildings and its attendant benefits. It is therefore recommended that
the use of BIM tools for the design of Green Buildings should be encouraged through research,
education, training and awareness to construction managers as this will help in reducing carbon
footprint on the people and the environment.
Keywords: Building Information Modelling (BIM), Green Building, Green Building Design and
Construction Management
INTRODUCTION
Buildings need to perform efficiently under present and future climate with the aim of reducing
emission of greenhouse gases and mitigating climate change (Umar, Khamidi, & Alkali, 2012).
Green buildings can contribute towards climate change mitigation due to its effectiveness in
cutting energy, resource and waste consumption while providing healthy living and productive
working environments. Breakthroughs in building technology can optimize both economic and
environmental performance of buildings (Umar, Tukur, Khamidi, & Alkali, 2013). Growth in
population and production leads to rising energy consumption. Therefore, new methods and
approaches to make buildings green must be developed and employed in order to contribute to the
reduction of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

2. Nuhu Bamalli Polytechnic Multidisciplinary Journal 1 :( 1) 66-72 Umar, Sadauki & Abdullahi (2016)
A relatively new technique that is increasingly popular in construction is Building Information
Modelling (BIM). With BIM, a digital model of a building can be developed prior to construction.
This allows for early assessment of the buildability and detection of potential construction issues
that can ease the design of green buildings with passive design strategies that reduce energy
consumption and waste of resources. The ability of BIM tools to store and display design,
construction and management information of buildings is one of the many benefits that BIM users
can take advantage of (Eastman, 1999). Present BIM tools can connect building models to
construction management tools that are capable of generating information on the project cost
(Hijazi, Alkass, & Zayed, 2009) and scheduling (Viscosoftware, 2012) and also facilities
management tools (Watson, 2011) in order to target the use phase of the four-phase recursive
representation of a building life-cycle as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: A four-phase recursive representation of a building life-cycle.
(Source: Watson, 2011).
With design, construct, use, and modify phases, it seeks to convey the relatively long duration of
the use phase (which implicitly includes manage and maintain the building). This representation
does not show demolition which is included in the modify phase and would follow a decision not
to adapt or redeploy the building. This paper discusses several BIM tools and their benefits for
design of green buildings.
Adoption of BIM for Green Buildings
The ability of BIM tools to analyse information across various disciplines in a single model can
augment the quality of analysis, minimize errors and improve accuracy (Azhar, et al., 2011).
Information stored in BIM enables users to analyse building performance and energy as well as
generate visualizations as a means of communication with stakeholders (Reed, 2010). This gives
building designers immediate feedback to test the design so as to to enhance building performance
over the life-cycle of the building. Normally, a BIM can store and display information of a building
project, among others, design, materials, system and location that can be exported to building
simulation tools. The typical analyses from simulation tools include energy, thermal, lighting,
shading, acoustic, value and cost. Furthermore, carbon emission from buildings can be reduced by
increasing the energy-efficiency of the building envelope, which includes lowering its thermal
conductivity (Farhan, et al., 2012) and improving the roof thermal performance (Al Yacouby,
2012). However, there is a lack of knowledge among the public on the importance of designing
Design
Use
ConstructModify
Digital
Building

3. Nuhu Bamalli Polytechnic Multidisciplinary Journal 1 :( 1) 66-72 Umar, Sadauki & Abdullahi (2016)
green buildings (Umar, Al Yacouby & Farhan et al., 2012). Implementation of BIM can contribute
towards encouraging the design of green buildings through the capability to generate high quality
visualizations and conduct in-depth analyses.
BIM tools develop more functional data and information for visualization and simulation instead
of the traditional separate project application. BIM is considered to change how a built
environment operates. Research associated with BIM have shifted from basically the functions to
store, link and exchange the project-based technical information to cover all data, information and
knowledge analysis of the whole project life-cycle that benefits all stakeholders. Presently, for the
practices of sustainable design, the traditional computer-aided design (CAD) tools are used to
model buildings. The design data is then entered into energy simulation tools to analyse building
performance.In case of any unwanted result, users can adjust design characteristics such as window
orientation, window size and building orientation and test the impact on thermal loads and energy
usage.
BIM Tools
Various kinds of tools can contribute to the development of BIM for a project. Some of these tools
support more extensive authoring of multi-attribute information concerning buildings and building
elements while others may just support the creation of geometry. There are numerous alternatives
as many companies today develop BIM tools. Below is a brief look at the different types of BIM
tools available today.
i. Autodesk Revit. This is a BIM tool that provides 3D modelling and can be classified as
4D CAD, meaning that it also gives the capability of storing and managing information
about the phases of the building process in addition to 3D modelling.
ii. ArchiCAD Software by Graphisoft.This tool is mainly employed for BIM-based
architectural design and modelling. This tool provides visualization capabilities such as
virtual camera and possibility to make animations right from the model that consists of a
tool for modelling landscape and soil layers (Khoshnava, 2012).
iii. Tekla Structures by Tekla Company.This is a structural modelling tool for the design of
steel structures, concrete precast-elements and cast-in-place structures and details such as
reinforcements, welding, and other connections. It can model and determine the assemblies
of structures corresponding to the construction site implementation and produce custom
components for safety planning.
iv. Navisworks by Autodesk. This tool combines views and analyzes the content of various
models as well as clash detection and 3D/4D visualizations. It can read in and mix a variety
of file formats with small sizes (Khoshnava, 2012).
v. Solibri Model Checker by SolibriInc. This tool is used for combining, viewing and
analyzing the content of different BIM-models that consists of specific tools for rule-based
automated checking, analyzing, quantifying and other information take-offs but not
containing any modelling tool. Models can be created with the help of other tools. It is easy
to use and versatile for reviewing and examining models (Khoshnava, 2012).
Benefits of Applying BIM for the Design of Green Buildings
BIM tools allows users to develop virtual models with the ability to store, display and analyze
multi-disciplinary information to describe building design and performance prior to construction.

4. Nuhu Bamalli Polytechnic Multidisciplinary Journal 1 :( 1) 66-72 Umar, Sadauki & Abdullahi (2016)
The ability of BIM tools to develop and assess several design options within a single model enables
users to make comparisons between the different options prior to making the decision as to which
design to opt for. Other than that, BIM can generate accurate and detailed digital models that can
carry out many type of analyses on them such as quantity take-offs and clash detection. Use of
BIM enables users to understand the performance of the building prior to construction.
Furthermore, BIM users are able to quickly access information of the building whenever required.
To add to that, the ability of BIM tools to store important information of buildings can improve
the quality of the green certification process.
CONCLUSION AND RECOMENDATION
Conclusion
Several BIM tools were discussed and some of the main benefits were mentioned. Utilization of
BIM tools for the design of green buildings must be promoted through education, training and
increase in awareness.
Recommendations
It is therefore recommended that the use of BIM tools for the design of Green Buildings should be
encouraged through research, education, training and awareness to construction managers, as this
will help in reducing carbon footprint on the people and the environment.
Researchers should be encouraged to conduct researches on the development and assessment of
green buildings with the use of BIM tools in order to reduce energy consumption of buildings and
contribute towards mitigating climate change.
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