UK BIM mandate pushes industry forward.​

While the United Kingdom’s Government Construction Strategy mandated use of Level 2 building information modeling on all public sector projects by 2016, recent surveys show that fewer than 15 percent of firms are fully prepared to do so.

“There is a very strong push for BIM in the UK,” Tim Dwyer said. “While the majority of firms have indicated they are not ready for the mandate (84 percent), nearly two-thirds have indicated it will be good for the building industry and is the future for building services.”

Successful collaborative efforts within firms and between firms for BIM are presented in a session Dwyer is chairing at the ASHRAE 2016 Winter Conference, which takes place Jan. 23-27, Orlando, Fla. The ASHRAE co-sponsored AHR Expo is being held Jan. 25-27, next door at the Orange County Convention Center. To register for the ASHRAE Conference, which includes free access to the Expo, visit www.ashrae.org/orlando.

The Technical Program features eight tracks, some 100 sessions and more than 300 speakers. It runs Sunday, Jan. 24, through Wednesday, Jan. 27, and offers over 200 Professional Development Hours, as well as Continuing Education Units, which can be applied toward a Professional Engineering license in many states, including the state of Florida.

Dwyer’s seminar focuses on “Delivering Building Performance through Collaboration and Integration.” He notes that with an ever-increasing demand for more stringent building environmental requirements, collaboration across the building ‘team’ is critical to deliver effective buildings that meet standards and performance metrics.

“Successful projects do not come from ‘silo’ working practices, and increasingly the engineer will be the lead for interdisciplinary design solutions that benefit from the integrating tools, which include BIM, and technologies as well as timely, and properly informed, client communication and interaction,” he said. The seminar takes place Tuesday, Jan. 26.

Other sessions that incorporate BIM are:

• Do Tall, Super Tall and Mega Tall Buildings Consume More Energy than Conventional Buildings or Do They Conserve More Energy?
• New CFD Techniques for Design of Air Distribution Systems
• BIM Strategies for Energy Modeling and MEP Design Consulting
• Improving the Design and Performance of Ground Source Heat Pump Systems
• Building Modeling Simulation
• Building Modeling and Optimization
• Advancements in Energy Modeling
• Strategies to Improve Building Models and Operation
• Simulation for Cutting-Edge Building Design