Review of BIM in Small-Scale Sustainable Design by François LévyWiley, Hoboken, NJ 07030; 2011; ISBN 978-0-47059-089-8; 312pp; $85.

Abstract

This book, which addresses a very timely topic in the field of architectural engineering, is written by Francois Levy, who is a registered architect in Texas and has been practicing architecture since 1993. Levy has Master’s degrees in both Architecture and Architectural Engineering from the University of Texas in Austin, where he has also been lecturing since 1998. While his degrees must have provided him with a legitimate breadth of knowledge and the background to cover the topics offered in the book, it must be said that the topics included in the book appear to be presented mostly from an architect’s or an architecture point of view, as opposed to an architectural engineering point of view. The book includes an Introduction followed by 11 chapters on various topics related to the use of building information modeling (BIM) for sustainable design of small-scale projects, and per the author’s own claim it is meant to be “a useful guide to smalland medium-sized firms that hold a commitment to sustainable design and are contemplating or undertaking the transition to BIM.” The introduction chapter has a very insightful overview of purpose, which helps readers understand the scope and set the right expectations for the book. From this description, the content proposed sounds reasonable and the style of the book meshes well with the intended purpose. The 11 chapters of the book cover some sustainable design principles and approaches for small-scale buildings, using BIM as a design and/or illustrating platform. Fairly broad sustainable design topics are included in this book, which include passive cooling, passive heating, onsite energy, building hydrology, and lifecycle analysis. The 11 self-contained chapters addressing these topics can mostly be used independently without or with little need of reference to other chapters except the first two chapters. The introduction and the following first two chapters serve as introduction to BIM and sustainable design, and any reader of the book should visit all three before going into their chapter of interest. For example, Chapter 1 has a discussion on “BIM for Design” (p. 7), where the author presents a very good case, stating that “many architects view BIM primarily as a documentation tool, rather than a design tool. This is a missed opportunity.” This is true and well said. However, we think that there are also two missed opportunities by the author: (1) the book addresses mainly architects, but the rest of a design team (comprising various disciplines of engineering) agreeing with the concept of BIM for design would be equally important; and (2) the book addresses only small business industry members, as opposed to also addressing some opportunities in the educational sector. We think that the book has potential to be a useful reference for capstone design classes of Architectural Engineering programs, or collaborative work between many architecture and engineering programs at universities where architectural engineering programs do not exist. The entire Chapter 1 would be a useful reference in many capstone design classes. Chapter 2 gives a brief overview of the BIM software available, namely: ArchiCAD, REVIT, and Vectorworks, along with some complementary software. A few things should be noted here: (1) only REVIT architecture is presented instead of including other REVIT discipline modules, such as REVIT Structure; and (2) there is an interesting argument made by the author that despite popular belief, REVIT is not the most commonly used BIM application. The author presents some market research stating that Vectorworks has a larger share of users than REVIT. The authors of this review have a different experience with this (i.e., REVIT seems the most commonly used); however, we will admit that we did not do market research on this. We know that REVIT is commonly adopted in larger firms and in college-level drafting classes in architectural engineering programs. The author also states “In the interest of full disclosure, the author’s primary BIM application is Vectorworks Architect.” Therefore, the readers should note that there is a bias for this software throughout the book, in terms of the tools, capabilities, and case studies. The author is commended, however, for referring to the more comprehensive BIM Handbook by Eastman et al. (2008) for topics not covered in his book. Writing and organization of the book are both generally verywell done. The narrative style of the book is not only easy to read and follow, but also enjoyable. A notable feature of the book is that each topic is accompanied by a case study, which provides applicable context for readers to further understand the sustainable design principles. Although very useful even in their current and brief content and style, we think that the case studies could benefit greatly from more depth and images presented in color (instead of in black and white). We also understand, however, that such color images would have increased the cost of the book considerably, and therefore a compromise must have been made. Regarding the relationship between BIM and sustainable design, the author makes an important and convincing argument that “BIM creates opportunities for the quantitative assessment of design options.” The authors of this review agree with these comments to a certain extent; however, it should be acknowledged that contemporary BIM programs are not able to do sophisticated quantitative engineering assessments without the use of another software used independently. For example, it is not possible to design and select the lightest structural system that is able to pass all code requirements within available BIM software. Therefore, structural engineers often model and design their structures independently based on safety and code-checks while considering cost and material selections (i.e., indirectly, the sustainability) in mind. Later they bring their designs into BIM for coordination with other disciplines. This flow in contemporary design processes could have been acknowledged a little more accurately. Another argument the author makes is that BIM creates “great opportunities for coordination and collaboration,”which is beneficial for sustainable design. We agree with this comment; however, we