Ecobuild America focuses on sustainability, technology

Ecobuild America kicked off Dec. 8 at the Washington Convention Center. The conference will continue through Dec. 10; the exhibit is open Dec. 9-10.

“'Sustainable' and 'smart' are the theme of this year’s conference,” said Laura Edwards, director of marketing, Ecobuild America. “Sustainability represents green buildings and 'smart' represents technology, such as Building Information Modeling and interoperability.”

There are 110 companies in 155 booths covering 17,500 square feet of exhibit space at the event, Edwards said. JE Berkowitz, Anderson Windows, Serious Materials, and the National Fenestration Ratings Council are among the exhibiting companies.

The National Institute of Building Services is a new co-sponsor this year, Edwards said. "They brought a lot of their members. People are increasingly interested in the fallout of the stimulus funding, and programs like the co-loacted FedCon conference, that presented upcoming federal design and construction budgets, programs, events and market outlook across applicable agencies, drew a big crowd. Yesterday’s FedCon conference was standing-room only, with almost 200 people,” she said.

Like last year, there are a lot of BIM interactive events on the schedule, Edwards said. “It [BIM] is an industry-changing tool. More companies are adopting it, having success and sharing stories on it," she said."NIBS is working on a standard on BIM. We have the new BIM aquarium going on that looks at projects as case studies.”

A standard glass manufacturer probably wouldn’t be interested in BIM, but wouldfocus on greenefforts and energy conservation, said EcoBuild America speaker Diane Davis, president, AEC Infosystems Inc., Baltimore. “Especially in today’s cap and trade scenario, if the glass manufacturers show the energy efficiency offset in the production of glass, it could become a green matrix within the industry and get connected with the green standards, like Energy Star and LEED [Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design] credits. That’s where the manufacturer would be asked for his input, which in turn would become part of the BIM data.”

Glass fabricators have the opportunity “to create virtual model catalogs, so their products work as little BIM sub-models that carry the manufacturers’ data, energy data and carbon footprint data,” Davis said. “These can be downloaded by architects and designers for their model.” Fabricators should not create files for all the BIM programs as they did with CAD, but create their program with the IFC, or Industry Foundation Classes, an international open standard for BIM, she said.

With integrated project delivery and more design build, fabricators are asked to come into the design process and support the BIM model as shop drawings, Davis said. “Instead of the architects creating one set of models and the fabricators creating another set from that, they’re creating one set to meet both needs,” she said.

In the context of fabricators being hired by the architects/contractors, BIM is increasingly becoming a differentiator, Davis said. If an owner asks for integrated project delivery or design build project for BIM, then the fabricator will be asked for this capability in those projects. “Up to 60 percent of architects nationwide have now switched to BIM,” she said. “The GSA Veterans Association, Texas state facilities, the Army Corp of Engineers, the Coast Guard are all now requiring BIM for their projects.”

As an industry, supply standardized data that can be used in BIM, Davis advised. To get started with BIM, “ talk to the contractors and architects you may be working with on how to insert yourself in the process,” she said. “Then acquire the capabilities in-house to support your business calls.”

Getting on the BIM train is a business decision, Davis said. However, “from the standpoint of energy, it’s a societal decision. And once cap and trade comes in, it will be more than societal.”