Green Building Information Modelling to Raise the Efficiency of a Residential Building in the New Administrative Capital

Abstract

Recent economic and population growth patterns in Egypt almost guarantee that energy consumption and emissions will continue to rise rapidly if nothing changes. According to the United Nations Development Program, Egypt’s energy demand will have been triple by 2030. Additionally, Egypt’s total emissions from energy use have been increased eightfold since 1971. The construction industry has been pushed to adopt sustainable building strategies, and the consensus among researchers and practitioners is that the most important phase to make decisions about is during the early stages of design. Arguably, high-performance buildings require a different design mechanism than traditional methods to achieve a holistic, sustainable outcome. Indeed, Building Information Modelling (BIM) can greatly facilitate the informed sustainability in buildings. Although BIM and sustainable design emerge from different underlying factors, they share an important common thread: the success of both depends on large part of building design philosophy loaded from the start. In fact, BIM can greatly facilitate the informed sustainability in buildings. Within the framework of reviewing the literature, researchers concluded the importance of BIM in the early stages of building design. The authors conducted an applied case study to evaluate a residential building in the new Administrative Capital in Cairo, Egypt, and concluded a set of design upgrades to raise the energy efficiency of the building and reduce carbon emissions from operating energy.