Sustainable building information modeling in the context of model-based integral planning

Solving complex issues of energy-efficiency - at the building as well as urban level - requires a holistic, integrated approach. The energetic behavior of a system should not only be considered in individual processes or phases, such as operation. A holistic optimization should rather consider the explicit energy flows as well as the material fluxes including the associated gray energies over the entire system life cycle. The realization of such a holistic integral planning process implies an integrated planning-accompanying evaluation and optimization of the planned object. The early use of LCA tools and sustainable building assessment systems (SBA) provides an important basis for assessing planning decisions at a conceptual level for their impact on the entire lifecycle of a building and for ensuring good sustainability performance. In practice, however, it is currently evident that the non-standardized and inadequate connection of simulation and balancing tools (e.g. LCA) to BIM authoring tools and the resulting high time expenditure for data acquisition and LCA application counteracts with a targeted stronger penetration of the market. For realizing a consistent integral planning process - especially in early planning phases - an IFC-based interface is being developed for the connection of LCA tools to BIM models (data input) and the preparation and configuration of the LCA result data for the designated use in different SBA. In this contribution, from the interface specifications for different levels of granularity and concretization in the different planning phases that are developed by means of norm-based processes of model standardization in an underlying research project, parts regarding the early project stages will be presented.