From the rental BIM to the social BIM: BIM applied to the management of public rental housing

PILOT MODELING OF ALOKABIDE PUBLIC HOUSING PARK, ESTABLISHMENT OF REQUIREMENTS FOR PROJECT AND WORK, AND CONNECTION WITH GMAO

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.

This research and development work, as well as its publication, would not have been possible without the supervision, validation and approval of the Alokadibe team formed by Carlos Orbea, Gorka Sagasti, Iñigo Antepara Aitor Pradovaso Cañas and Itziar Bañares Molina. And on the other hand, Laura García Ropero and Cristina Llamas de Visesa and Igor Cerrillo, Ainara Sertutxa and the director Pablo García Astrain from the Vasco Government’s Directorate General for Housing.

SCOPE AND OBJECTIVES

OBJECTIVES

Since the beginning of 2019, the Vasco consultancy  Berrilan BIM, with a team led by David Barco and completed by Adolfo Gerodetti (Architect BIM Manager) and Albert Alvarez (Surveyor BIM process expert), has worked as technical assistance expert in the BIM methodology for Alokabide  https://www.alokabide.euskadi.eus/home-alokabide/, the public society dependent on the Vasco Government for the development of the social function of housing through rental policy

These works based on the BIM methodology are included in the set of actions marked in the Zero@Plana High efficiency in public renting, as part of the digitalization project of Alokabide’s social rental housing stock.

The plan is a pioneering initiative that analyses the future of the existing stock and the new management model for public rental housing facing the challenge of climate change. It is led by Alokabide within the framework of the research line “Coordination of the Energy Rehabilitation and Accessibility Plan for the public rental park” with Carlos Orbea, Gorka Sagasti and Iñigo Antepara. It analyses the environmental and energy behaviour of public housing buildings and the people who live in them, including their health and well-being, with the aim of developing improvement actions that will lead them to a situation of almost zero energy consumption. This “real-time” analysis of buildings and users is providing valuable information that opens up new fields of innovation. New opportunities have opened up for the design of public rental housing and its services, with solutions being considered with facilities more in line with the needs of users. The aim, at the end of 2020, is to start implementing the Zero Plan for the “intelligent” energy rehabilitation of the entire public rental park.

This initiative is framed in the Science, Technology and Innovation Plan (STIP) of the Vasco Government, which co-leads the project from the “Department of the Environment, Territorial Planning and Housing” with the research line “Rehabilitation ECCN 2017“, with the aim of knowing the impact of projects and works of rehabilitation ECCN in public buildings of social renting, triggered in 2017, to analyse the global strategy in the park, with Pablo García Astrain, Ainara Sertutxa and Igor Cerrillo.

This initiative is framed in the Science, Technology and Innovation Plan (STIP) of the Vasco Government, which co-leads the project from the “Department of the Environment, Territorial Planning and Housing” with the research line “Rehabilitation ECCN 2017“, with the aim of knowing the impact of projects and works of rehabilitation ECCN in public buildings of social renting, triggered in 2017, to analyse the global strategy in the park, with Pablo García Astrain, Ainara Sertutxa and Igor Cerrillo.

Plan Zero Plana

To tackle a project of the magnitude of the Plan Zero Plana, with so many variables and participating agents, of such a diverse nature, is in itself a challenge of organization and team coordination. The organization for the development of the Plan Zero Plana has orbited around Alokabide, which has led the development of the project, directing the different collaborators according to the needs, so that all the areas of public management of social renting could be reflected in the different lines of research launched. Monthly meetings have been held to monitor the project, sharing progress and difficulties, in order to assess the possibilities of tackling and overcoming them. Without a doubt, this is a very enriching work in which the different agents, subjects, sectors and companies that coexist around the social management of the public park, have been studied. Not everything has been simple, because to transmit the social aspect of public rental management to an innovation project framed in energy, is something that requires a special involvement and commitment in the project.

Alokabide, as the Government’s own way of public rental management, has become a benchmark for the comprehensive management of the public housing stock in the Vasco Country, with a managed stock of 14,000 homes and 240 buildings. The great experience of this public company has led to important reflections in the fields of energy, design and management, which until now had no place in a strategy development focused on VPO. Therefore, in a strategy aimed at public rental, specific reflections and approaches from those who manage people and housing, take on even greater significance in the drafting of the Energy Rehabilitation and Accessibility Plan for the public rental park.

It should be noted that Plan Zero Plana is one of the most innovative and pioneering projects being carried out in the field of public housing rental asset management in Spain and internationally, both in terms of the size of the research and development budget, the final results and the quality and number of specialist consultancy companies:

The starting point of the project at the level of BIM methodology is established by defining the scope of work:

• Define the parameters to be included in the virtual BIM model (Building Information Modeling) from the project phase to facilitate the management in the future maintenance of the housing stock to automate its integration in the Alokabide CMMS.
• Define the projects and works BIM requirements.

Based on this scope, detailed objectives were defined:

• To debug the ASSET CHARACTERIZATION EXCEL with the system of parameters made by the EHU/UPV research team.
• To model a series of pilot buildings with Autodesk® Revit BIM modeling software.
• To Interoperate and link EXCEL to BIM models, to analyze integration and to debug it.
• To define the process and operation of integrating the BIM models with the IBM Maximo CMMS management system, by using the COBie format and the Autodesk® BIM 360® viewer as a bridge.
• Without being the object of the contract, it was proposed to investigate the usability of BIM models for users not familiar with the methodology, as well as to identify control variables, indicators and measurement and reporting processes.

PREVIOUS DATA

As a starting point, a number of documents are attached:

• Alokabide’s Management Tool Operation Indicator Dashboard.
• List of parameters in EXCEL ASSET CHARACTERIZATION format developed by Alokabide.
• Inventory list of the 6 header buildings selected for modeling.
• Previous works developed in Alokabide before the BIM implementation:
• BIM diagnosis.
• BIM Protocol (basic).
• Modeling time estimation, based on modeling tests carried out on the basis of different documentation.

Figure 01 Structure of indicators of the social housing stock

ROADMAP

Despite not being defined in the assistance contract, a ROUTE SHEET has been made to facilitate the understanding and the scope of the work in a 2-year scenario, including the technological variables, the software, the information exchange formats, as well as the evolution of the technological MATURITY LEVEL of ALOKABIDE’s internal development team.

The roadmap has as its axes:

• Incremental development at the level of integrations.
• Summary of developments to be made and type of related maintenance.
• From analytical model to cognitive model: digital twins using 10D BIM.

Figure 02 Alokabide BIM implementation diagram

This Alokabide scheme has been included in the general scheme of BIM IMPLANTATIONS IN THE CAPV Autonomous Community of Vasco Country:

PARAMETERIZATION OF THE HOUSING STOCK

Based on this premise, the first CHARACTERIZATION or debugging work, on the parameters initially planned by a research team from the School of Architecture of the UPV/EHU begin, were classified into several groups

• 01_ General data: building-specific such as location.
• 02_ Construction Data Facilities: building and dwellings specific.
• 03_ Energy efficiency: building specific.
• 04_ Accessibility and Inclusion: building specific related to accessibility compliance.
• 05_ Social Conflict: specific to Alokabide, to be introduced in the CMMS.
• 06_ Functionality: specific to Alokabide, to be introduced in the CMMS.
• 07_ Sufficient health: specific to Alokabide, to be introduced in the CMMS.
• 08_ Sustainability: specific to Alokabide, to be introduced in the CMMS.

Figure 04 Image of the original parameter file “P1810_Parameters R06b_INITIAL BASE”

Based on the data listed in the excel, each kind of parameter was validated field by field with the classification systems of the modeling programs, in particular the Autodesk® Revit® solution. In order to make the process more accurate, a residential building was being modeled in parallel, to check the analyzed parameters.

The analysis objective is to debug the parameters in order to unify them with the COBie standard, which is the basis of the CMMS (Computerized Management and Maintenance of Assets). In turn, these parameters should form part of a future template of BIM projects to be supplied to each designer in the basic project phase and/or execution in both VISESA and VASCO GOVERNMENT projects. This way, from the project phase, data will be integrated in the native format of the modeling software.

In the first approach, the data groups were maintained, and in a second review the subgroups were refined to eliminate possible duplication of data. In the following table we can see the nature of the kind of data that are interesting for a rental asset management entity:

Figure 05 Data classification system adapted to a Autodesk® Revit®

One of the most complex tasks in this phase was the discretization of the parameters and their transfer to Autodesk® Revit® software categories, families, types and copies language, as well as the creation of the parameters in the program through TXT files that feed it.

Figure 06 Image of the debugged parameter file “ALK_OP_BEP_Parameters_v##”

All these parameters, have a unit or type of parameters (text, number with decimals, integer, percentage, length, area, boolean yes/no, url, currency), it is indicated if they correspond to a type of family or to specimens and how the information should be grouped in the Autodesk® Revit® properties table. This line indicates if there is a correlation with COBie (Construction Operations Building Information Exchange).

An important aspect was the responsibility of the person who is filling in the data, and for this purpose a series of fields were identified indicating the responsible entity  for the data (Technical area, Communities area or Alokabide Social area) and who should fill it in, as well as the origin of the data (Required to be entered by technicians, Internal control, Not used, External software and Optional Control reference). 

In the name of the parameter was finally decided to enter the ALK_ prefix so they were correctly identified in software environment.

PARAMETER CREATION SYSTEM

One of the main problems we encountered was to transfer more than 280 parameters generated in control Excel “ALK_OP_BEP_Parameters”, to Autodesk® Revit® models generated. To optimize and systematize this work, we used Dynamo software to interoperate between Revit and the Excel table.

A script was developed in Dynamo to create shared parameters in their corresponding files in *.txt format and assign them to their categories. 

Figure 07 TXT files of shared parameters and Examples of the “General data identification group”

This visual programming routine is in improvement and optimization process, in order to apply it to any type of model that does not include it, since in principle the BIM PROJECT TABLE of the Vasco Government’s Directorate General for Housing and Visesa must include them as part of compliance with  requirements established in the EIR (Employer Information Requirements)

Figure 08 Dynamo’s Autodesk® Revit® routine for applying parameters to categories

Once the shared parameters have been created in txt files. We can load them to models for the first time with the Parameter Scheduler tool of RF Tools, in a massive way.

Figura 09 Imagen de la aplicación RFTools Parameter Scheduler en Autodesk® Revit®

EIR: MODEL REQUIREMENTS FOR PROJECTS AND WORKS

In order to ensure, that the work, was consistent with the design and construction process, the conclusions abstracted from the development of the project must have been gradually transferred to the requirements document known as the EIR (Employer Information Requirements). In this case we start from the work done for both the Vasco Government’s Directorate General of Housing and La Visesa, and should achieve the following objectives:

• To serve as a guiding document for its building suppliers Directorate General for Housing y Visesa for designing and building in BIM, from an asset maintenance management perspective.
• To align with objectives of Directorate General for Housing and Visesa.
• To document the EIR bidding process, pre-BEP bidding and award and development of the contractual BEP.
• To identify minimum requirements: modeling criteria, model organization, nomenclature systems, data sharing environments, relationship with CMMS.
• To Include the COBIe standard based on already defined characterization parameters.
• To establish the relationship framework between agents, bim roles, responsibilities.

Figure 10 Diagram of the bidding process including the BIM EIR, PREBEP and BEP documents.

Because the main housing suppliers to integrate their park are the Department of Housing of the Vasco Government and Visesa, they must respect the maintenance parameters required or established by Alokabide in their tenders.

This EIR document is understood as an annex to the bidding technical specifications in which the BIM uses that the client (Alokabide or others) would like to develop from generated modeling for the Execution Project and completed in the Construction phase, will be established. And to facilitate the mentioned BIM uses, the modelled elements must respect some creation criteria and have certain data or parameters (native or created ad hoc) that enable/facilitate these future BIM uses.

Figure 11 EIR Index

It is necessary for Alokabide staff and other administration agents involved in these processes, to have the minimum knowledge of project supervision in BIM environments to establish the appropriate project requirements in form and content, and thus be able to control the necessary data in future maintenance. In other words, to be involved in the whole process and to be familiar with the different origins of data that they are going to control, such as BIM models.

To meet this challenge, project modeller document templates will be prepared, including the different parameters to be reviewed and requirements checklist (work already done in the project supervision process of the General Directorate of Housing). These parameters will have to be introduced by each designer or generator of the model supervised by the General Directorate of Housing or Visesa. Alokabide must, using the modeling software tools or other complementary tools specifically designed for review of these models, to check and validate their required parameters, and in turn introduce them in maintenance CMMS.

MODELLING OF RENTAL HOUSING BUILDINGS

Modeling of the head building (3D + associated information) of each of the 6 typological families with Autodesk® Revit® platform, in which the buildings managed by Alokabide are grouped. Modelling of 6 buildings:

• FAMILY 1: Building with lift, energy rating A/B Model Hernani 20.
• FAMILY 2: Building with lift, energy rating C/D Model Zabalgana 155.
• FAMILY 3: Building with lift, energy rating E/F/G.
• FAMILY 4: Building without a lift, energy rating A/B.
• FAMILY 5: Building without lift, energy rating C/D.
• FAMILY 6: Building without lift, energy rating E/F/G.

Figure 12 Hernani apartment building in current condition and BIM de Autodesk® Revit® model.

Based on typologies of buildings to be managed called FAMILIES of buildings, the modelling process must be analyzed in order to systematize it as far as possible, to identify critical elements and to simplify methodologies, as well as to structure the BIM objects used, face to linking them to the CMMS. Likewise, EXCEL parameters of the maintenance management process must be included in the Autodesk® Revit® BIM models, by increasing in each model the analysis of data, the linkage with existing standards such as COBie, as well as their usability and practicality validation. As explained in the previous section, this process was automated with the use of Dynamo and RFTools plugin.  In this phase two buildings of families 1 and 2 have been modelled, and it has been accessed to other families modelled in projects of General Direction of Housing as Ortuella Family 3:

BUILDING MODELING APPROACH

The first starting point of any existing building modeling process with Autodesk® Revit® platform is to establish the modeling criteria and strategies. In this case critical points have been:

• UTM coordination strategy, model scheme base (standard floors and standard dwellings).
• Architecture modeling based on AutoCAD Basic project plans provided by Visesa.
• Review of the inventory of architectural elements: facades, divisions, finishes, carpentry.
• Model of structures seen in common areas such as pillars in garages, ground floors. Although by constructive logic, finally the structure was modeled entirely.
• Model of maintenance elements: lifts, fire extinguishers, kitchen equipment.
• Program control:
• Creation of rooms and areas for zone management and their attached data.
• Creation of shared parameter sets in txt files.
• Information control:
• Loading of “ALK” parameters defined in the “ALK_Parameters_BBIM_v08_CamelCase_REV.xlsm” matrix, of which a v09 version has already been created, with new observations and comments.
• Creation of COBie Parameters in the model You must check the final mapping for each parameter with its corresponding ALK parameters.
• The model is prepared as an information container to start data loading and synchronization process with CMMS.

Figure 14 Diagram of initial CAD information at Zabalgana 155, modeling of typical floor and building

All modeled elements were provided with basic information to be easily identified, indoor/outdoor type. View control criteria were established to check the construction elements correctly, which is very important for a possible future energy analysis or BIM 6D use.

Figure 15 Colour scheme for quality control of facade finishes

Potential of modeling programs such as Autodesk® Revit® is based on the ability to analyze information from different points of view or formats. “Excel”-type data tables were used to create planning tables with the values to be validated and then integrated into CMMS in subsequent phases / challenges.

Figure 16 Room finish control planning table

Figure 17 Planning table for control of useful and constructed areas

Also, the template includes plans formats that can be easily exported to DWG™, PDF or printed. As well as standard files of each housing unit to be managed:

Figure 18 Example of a typical floor plan with the Visesa and/or Alokabide format

Evolution of these templates in what would be “the future families to develop” will improve supervision management process to be carried out by ALOKABIDE and fully integrated into process of drafting projects and construction of housing together with the General Directorate of Housing and Visesa.

INFORMATION CONTROL

Here are some examples of how template of modeling program can facilitate control of information through tabs, visualization with use of colors:

Figure 19 Example of an inventory sheet of an equipment

Figure 20 Colour scheme of typical dwellings and their relationship with the information in tables by portals, zoning

Figure 21 Colour scheme of typical dwellings and walls coloured by orientation

QUALITY CONTROL OF HOUSING AND TYPOLOGIES

Each of modelled entities, as well as housing units have all the parameters defined in the EXCEL, for their control and later transfer to CMMS.

Figure 22 Room information for the building at Zabalgana 155 and Hernani 20 on the Autodesk® Revit® model.

LOCATION AND ENERGY USE BIM 6D

Combination of virtual model parameters with visual power of Autodesk® Revit® modeling program allows to check orientation element, as well as integrate with energy calculation platforms such as Green Building Studio or Insigth, which are not subject of current analysis, but which make possible to understand the potential of using BIM methodology.

Figure 23 Georeferenced and oriented location of the Zablagana 155 building.

Figure 24 Façade parameter control of the Hernani 20 building.

INTEGRATION OF BIM & CMMS MODELS

In the final phase of the work, BIM models generated with Autodesk® Revit® must be integrated with IBM Maximo ERP, that assist the company Mainset (A Indra Company) that won the tender to execute it in 9 months. For this phase, different sources of information of BIM models will be considered:

• New construction models: models enriched during the evolution of construction process, from design phase. These models will follow the previously mentioned EIR, so they can be integrated into the management tool, to guarantee their exploitation and suitability for their intended use.
• Models of the existing Park: models developed later with limited information (CAD, point cloud…). For this type of model, it is necessary to describe the defining parameters for the bidding of modeling of the different assets managed by ALK and its integration in the management tool, to guarantee its exploitation and adaptation to the use it is going to be put to.

In order to optimize the workflow in terms of exporting data from houses or buildings to the housing management system, after the different types of families studied and modelled have been tested, we will study the different types of export to be made, their configurations and file formats to be used to integrate them into the CMMS adopted by ALOKABIDE.

You will also have to find a simple visualization solution that starts from Autodesk® Viewer and could reach an Autodesk® BIM360® and to optimize it through the Autodesk® platform Forge™ although it is not the object of this contract.

Figure 25 Example of BIM360 integration into IBM Maximo.

An important part of the work is to comply with COBIe format standard (Construction Operations Building Information Exchange) which is the basis of connection between Autodesk® Revit® and IBM Maximo, by integrating necessary data for ALOKABIDE into it. This will require specific technical meetings to adapt to new data management system for computer-aided maintenance.

Figure 26 Example of COBie information scheme.

All this work will allow in the future to make a pursuit based on indicators that mark improvement in the management of all the park of houses, allowing an optimal analysis of future needs to optimize times, costs, and management in general.

Figure 27 Example of COBie information entered in the Hernani 20 building.

INDICATORS

Finally, it is necessary to establish control indicators to check whether the project is meeting objectives initially set, such as:

• Tables: The indicators to be observed in the evolution and testing of the work developed within the scope of this document will be defined. Their format will be adaptable to the management and supervision tools of the agents involved in the implementation. Following indicators are established a priori:
• Indicator 1: % of parameter usage, obtained from (No. of parameters used in template) / ( No. of parameters created in base Excel).
• Indicator 2: % of compatibility and use of COBIE standard, obtained from (No. of COBIe parameters in Excel) / ( No. of parameters created in the base Excel).
• Indicator 3: % of affinity with COBIE standard, obtained from (No. of parameters interoperable with CMMS from the model’s bim-in-rent-social-bim: -bim-applied-to-home-management) / ( No. of parameters created in the base Excel).

CONCLUSIONS

Once integration of the pilot projects modelled with Autodesk® Revit®, optimization at parametric level and connection to CMMS, is completed, next logical step would be modelling the whole existing housing stock of about 7,500, work that can take between 1-3 years depending on the priorities and resources available , and the integration of models into CMMS.

This way Alokabide would have the information integrated in a single IBM Maximo platform, would visualize the models with Autodesk® BIM 360® optimized with Autodesk Forge™ and would be able to optimize  public resources related to the maintenance of houses to rent, based on BIM models, or also to pass from “BIM for rent” to “BIM Social”.

AUTHOR. DAVID BARCO MORENO. DIARY OF A BIM MANAGER

CTO and Official editor of Bimchannel. Responsible for the editorial line Diario de un BIM Manager and the blog QBIMGEST and the YouTube channel

Technological architect BIM expert (Revit architecture, structure, MEP, Navisworks) +12,000 hours in training and consulting. CTO Berrilan BIM. Postgraduate director BIM Manager European University.

Podcaster at Shared Coordinates.