Public Funding for Riba Financial Services Limited

The RegBIM project is a Technology Strategy Board supported collaboration between BRE, Cardiff University, Bentley Systems, AEC3, Skanska, RIBA and LABC. Working with Building Information Modelling (BIM) within the UK construction industry, the two year project is progressing towards automation of (English) Building Regulations, BREEAM and Code for Sustainable Homes design stage compliance checking, with the goal of establishing a non-platform specific mechanism to deliver these BIM-based services to the construction industry. The perceived potential benefits to the wider construction industry are significant savings in design and checking time, increases in ‘first time’ compliance and reductions in construction & design costs associated with these industry & statutory standards.

Building Information Modelling (BIM) is a methodology for representing the physical and functional characteristics of a building, creating not just a 3-D model, but a shared knowledge resource, forming a reliable basis for collaboration and decision making during the building’s entire life cycle from conception to demolition. Managing data through BIM can also lead to substantial design and construction cost savings and reduce waste on site. The BIM Gateway project uses Semantic Web and linked data principles to aid construction industry professionals in creating BIM-ready data for incorporation in BIM projects by providing next-generation classification and specification markup technologies, in-line with the UK government’s BIM construction strategy roadmap, and will provide a platform to facilitate data connection, sharing and re-use using linked open data principles.

CarbonBuzz is the result of collaborative project between architects, engineers, professional bodies, policy makers and academics to develop more effective measures to reduce the energy consumption of existing and new building. This unique online platform, offers users a graphical interface to benchmark and track the energy use of building and building portfolios from design to operation. It encourages users to share expertise and compare forecast and actual energy use against CIBSE benchmarks as well as live data anonymously. CarbonBuzz provides a robust foundation for comparing energy use and CO2 emissions from different measurement and reporting standards spanning acquisition to operation (Part L, EPC, planning, DEC, CRC, Carbon Trust Standard). The project will broaden CarbonBuzz’s scope to create an authoritative database on design and actual energy use of buildings by: continuing to champion transparency in reporting energy use and fostering communication between experts, clients and operators; delivering a mechanism to manage energy use expectations for both publicly and privately funded projects from acquisition to design and operation; informing future policy making by providing evidence for scientific research into the factors affecting the real energy use of buildings; and delivering a collaborative interface that will link the database and reporting framework to other research, commercial and governmental programmes working towards the reduction of energy use in buildings.

Awaiting Public Summary