Analisi dei processi di automatizzazione per l'ottenimento della certificazione LEED® mediante strumenti BIM e validazione di una procedura innovativa attraverso caso studio

This work was possible thanks to Arup Italy's firm, which granted the possibility to show the effectiveness of the developed procedure through the case study of “Stadio della Roma - Tor di Valle”. This abstract points out the main findings of a research regarding the relationship between sustainability certification standards and building information modeling. The primary aim of this study was to analyse the modern techniques in automating LEED's credits certification process through BIM technologies and to conduct an investingation on possible further developments in this field. In order to do so a literature review was conducted on these topics. As main results, the research stresses out how buildings are the primary cause of energy consumption, which is directly related to the high value of greenhouse gases emissions associated to them. The energy and sustainability certification standards become of primary importance in this context. The U.S. Green Building Council's LEED (Leadership in Energy and environmental Design) is one of the most widely spread standard, in fact Arup's firms adopt this rating system to certify the energy efficiency and environmental respect of its buildings. Azhar et al. and Wei Wu's analysis were also considered in order to define a baseline methodology to develop the case study. This works are foundamental in defining respectively a selection of LEED's credits which can be obtained through BIM implementation and a classification of the standard procedures used to automate this process. The next step regarded an additional selection with respect to the one presented by Azhar et al. in order to find the most representative credits or prerequisites of the automation procedure to develop. To reach this result an analysis of LEED manual was conducted. Arup's needs and suggestions were also considered during this phase and the “Water use reduction” and “Internal air quality” (which was not cosidered by Azhar et al.) prerequisites were selected as the objects of this study. The main reason this prerequisites were chosen is that Arup's LEED consultant uses specific Excel tools developed by the U.S.G.B.C to certify their requirements. Data inside a developing Revit model may change frequently and a standard compiling procedure is not efficient, so the idea behind this study was to find an automated solution which could select specific data inside the model and at the same time write them into the Excel tools. After a deeper understanding of the two prerequisites aims and requirements,”water use reduction” was rejected because the requested data were not available in the Revit model and they were also simple to compile in the USGBC calculator. On the contrary “Internal air quality” data are associated to every single space in the stadium, which are about 920, so an automatic procedure would simplify the engineers tasks. The plugin Dynamo was chosen as the interface beetween the Revit model of Stadio della Roma and the excel tool. A similar approach was developed in a Bergonzoni et al. study, considering “Internal air quality” prerequisite. However, instead of using Dynamo as a simple mediator between Revit and an Excel sheet, the tool was furthermore implemented in order to select the desired data inside the model. As a result a very large amount of information are selected through a Dynamo script and at the same time these data are inserted in an official tool, which can automatically produce the calculations needed to verify the prerequisite.