What Building Information Modeling Can Offer for Understanding Financial Income and Expenses for Laboratory Buildings
Terence Alcorn, RA, Burt Hill/Stantec
Utilizing building information modeling's (BIM) capacity to perform quantitative calculations, the BIM building model can be programmed to provide financial information that can be used by architects, builders, owners, and users. To demonstrate the range of information that can be generated, the presentation will provide two examples of financial analysis and planning that have been generated with the use of BIM.
The first program was an income analysis that compared income generated by research grants to the quality and quantity of space allocated to conduct that research. Working with a client to renovate 120,000 square feet of research space, but with very limited swing space, the project involved multiple phases and multiple moves over the projected length of the renovation. Although a "dollar density" program is simple to set up, the program provided a valuable means for tracking and comparing the changing conditions being encountered throughout the project, but also served as a tool for planning future space utilization goals.
The second program was an operating cost analysis that was developed using a recent science building project where the architecture, structure, and engineering design was done in BIM. The program uses BIM's ability to track building areas and building elements, and combines it with a spreadsheet that calculates operating costs. The program will be demonstrated and will show how the results can be sorted to provide answers to questions, including the following:
- What are the operating costs for a specific equipment room, or for an individual research area, or for an entire floor of a building?
- How does the operating cost of a research area compare to the income generated by the research done in that area? How does one research group compare to other groups?
- What financial comparisons can be done comparing research being done in older buildings versus newer buildings?
BIM is a building modeling program, but a program that also allows the user to add, store, and manipulate data. The ability of the program to do that is only limited by our understanding of how we can use it.
Biography:
Terence Alcorn is a registered architect with 25 years of experience, primarily in higher education and laboratory design. Mr. Alcorn's notable projects have included both the computer science building and the national supercomputing building for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and two research laboratory buildings for The Scripps Research Institute's new campus in Florida. Mr. Alcorn has been a professor of economics, teaching both micro- and macro-economics, has served as a board member for the Frank Lloyd Wright Darwin D. Martin House in Buffalo, and has been a speaker on quantity versus quality at the American Institute of Architecture Students conference in Phoenix.