Development of planning and design phases of an integrative building lifecycle process model for advanced energy retrofit projects

Advanced Energy Retrofit (AER) projects provide an opportunity for significant energy savings for existing buildings. They can reduce the overall environmental impact of existing facilities, while also providing long-term economic savings to the facility owner. The planning and design phases of an AER project play a significant role in defining the success or failure of the project. The process for delivering AER projects can be complex, and it is important to effectively design the delivery process to enable the design solution to effectively reduce energy consumption. This research focused on the development of an efficient and structured process for performing AER projects. It also identified the level of system integration and team collaboration that can occur in retrofit projects that are focused on reducing the energy consumption in existing buildings. A baseline Integrative Building Lifecycle Process Model (IBLPM) for the planning and design phases of retrofit buildings was developed by using literature on building systems and retrofit approaches. The baseline process model was then analyzed and validated using three detailed case studies. Two scales of retrofit projects were chosen for case study project. They included comprehensive and medium scale retrofits that contain scope for team collaboration and building system integration. After performing all the case studies, it was identified that the processes followed by both scales of retrofit projects is similar, although there were clear differences in the level of detail in the activities that were pertbrmed on the different scales of projects. A protocol that includes the validation outcomes and the evaluation criteria was developed and used to create the final planning and design phases of the IBLPM. The planning phase process map of the IBLPM gives a high level overview of the activities that needs to be performed by the owner and the project team members. The design phase process map of the IBLPM is more detailed and contains the activities that occur throughout the different phases of the integrative design process. The final outcome, the planning and design phases of the IBLPM, will aid project teams in the implementation of repeatable, consistent retrofit processes, along with the identification of important information exchanges that take place between the project participants. The IBLPM also identifies collaborative activities that need to be performed between a series of detined integrative workshops. This research work also aims to support the United States National BIM Standards initiative by providing an integrative process framework to define and structure different information exchange standards.