GSA's BIM Program, and application to Green Building Technologies

A primary driver of BIM (Building Information Modeling) adoption is the US federal government. The GSA (General Services Administration) has created the National 3D-4D BIM Program, designed to allow for advanced and superior cost effective management of federal buildings and facilities. Currently, GSA has over 35 projects utilizing BIM, and has mandated that every new facility and major modification project should utilize a BIM model for spatial validation.

Along the lines of green technologies, GSA's Office of the Chief Architect is currently encouraging, documenting, and evaluating the implementation of Building Information Modeling (BIM) technologies to assist energy performance analyses and operational practices.

Executive Order 13123 is a national initiative to reduce the average annual energy consumption of the GSA’s building inventory. With the use of BIM, more complete and accurate energy estimates earlier in the design process, improved life-cycle costing analysis, increased opportunities for measurement and verification during building occupation, and improved processes for gathering lessons learned in high performance building should result. In general, advancements from BIM may increase the role energy modeling and alternative materials play during both design and building operation, leading to an overall reduction in energy consumption by GSA buildings.

Patrick Suermann of the NBIMS has conducted a number of BIM projects for the USACE. “They have allocated approximately $24B in military construction (upgrades and new facilities).” The USACE also will spend additional monies of $15-20B for upgrades and base reconstruction efforts; creating a broad market for BIM adoption, and as a consequence, BIM – add on applications in the green tech area.

Why should green tech vendors monitor the GSA’s BIM program as well as other agencies such as the USACE? As Suermann states:” Federal agencies have to compete against each other to be the most efficient constructor and manager of assets, which lead to higher budget allocations from Congress. Cleantech firms should pitch to both agencies and their prime contractors to assist them in successful deployment of BIM”.