Customer Reviews

Green BIM: Successful Sustainable Design with Building Information Modeling

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The best book for anyone wants to integrate BIM and Sustainability in their work practice, mainly designers.
Good for both students and professionals. a step by step procedure to achieve Green Design using BIM technology, with real life examples, procedures, calculations, etc...
The main program discussed is Autodesks's Revit, wish they used more than one application.

I hesitate to give this book a negative review because I think the subject matter is extremely important. Both BIM and Sustainable Design are the future of architecture and there is still enormous potential to create synergies between the two, using the power of BIM to create more sustainable solutions.

However, I was personally disappointed by the actual content of this book and ended up returning it. Amazon was nice enough to refund it no questions asked, so I feel like I owe them some explanation. For me, there was very little new, practical information on how to actually integrate BIM and Sustainable Design.

The first section discusses the history of Sustainable Design (going back to the pyramids of Egypt) and answers basic questions like what is sustainable design, why is it important, what is LEED, etc. If you have no experience whatsoever with sustainable design, you might find this interesting. If you have even a moderate level of knowledge of sustainable design (as most architects today do) there is no new information here.

The second section discusses what BIM is, how it works, and why it is important. Again, if you have never heard of BIM this might be news to you. If you have already been working in BIM for even a couple of months, you will probably skip over this section, too.

Then there's a section on Integrated Design. It's an important topic and a growing field of interest in sustainable design, but there's no practical, hands-on information on how to use BIM in Integrated Design.

What little practical information on using BIM there is doesn't begin until about page 127 and it is disappointing. The main BIM program disussed (and practically the only one) is Revit and pretty much all of the strategies for using Revit for sustainable design I had already learned in the "Mastering Revit Architecture 2010" book by Greg Demchak, Tatjana Dzambazova, and Eddy Krygiel. There are instructions for how to change your geographic north to make accurate sun studies. There is discussion of how to calculate surface areas, how to export to energy modeling programs using gbXML, and how to track and calculate recycled content material volumes. All of this is explained even better in the Mastering Revit book, which also contains much more information on using Revit and costs less.

I hope that future editions of this book will contain more practical, innovative content, targeted at people actually using both BIM and sustainable design, who are already familiar with both of them.

As BIM becomes common place in the architectural design community, the tools and thought processes for designers will be transformed. The expectations of those who hire and pay the designer will be heightened far beyond the current standard of care.

It's about time! CADD has held potential to automate, systematize, and streamline the construction industry for decades but has failed miserably to deliver. Currently with the advancement of BIM that potential is becoming a reality. We are on the cusp of a paradigm shift in our industry. Eddy Krygiel and Brad Nies have given us a glimpse of what the future holds. I am thinking every day about the impacts of what I do in my design work and with this cogent book I am more motivated to develop my basis of design concepts in a globally responsible manner. This text informs that basis with processes and theories in a very readable fashion

Its' very useful for environment-friendly architecture planing.
they are introducing latest computer aided simulations and examples.

This is a groundbreaking exploration of what you can do TODAY with BIM to make your buildings sustainable. Its got a lot of pictures and graphics that neatly explain the concepts. You can tell from reading the first few chapters that these guys really know what they are talking about.

This was a very useful book. The text was clear, easily understood and comprehensive. A wealth of information. Highly recommended...