How to Measure Qualitative Building Circulation Factors - BIM-enabled Evaluation Approach using Quantities

Abstract

This research aims to develop a BIM-enabled evaluation approach to building circulation regarding qualitative factors of building circulation. Building circulation should be carefully planned with consideration of efficiency, privacy, security, safety, and some binding-forced factors such as fire-egress, depending on building types and specific requirements. As these building circulation factors have impacted to overall spatial planning, a well-defined circulation plan is of importance especially in early phase of design. In the perspective of finding such a satisfactory circulation plan, architects and related specialists have conducted iterative analysis tasks manually based on their knowledge and expertise to improve the design. As an advent of Building Information Modeling (BIM) and its various applications, design and analysis process can be automated by BIM-enabled assessment tools using given models. The basis of BIM-enabled analysis is on a series of explicit quantity data computed by building components and their properties, such as metric distance, number of turn, spatial depth, and so on. This enables us to measure the explicit egress distance between specific spaces and exits in order to review the Fire Code, however, even more intrinsic factors of building circulation such as ‘convenient access’ have been usually ignored in the development of such BIM applications. This paper basically shows an answer to the question how to measure qualitative building circulation factors using BIM-enabled quantities. In this regard, two key aspects are suggested as the answer