Project-based pedagogy in interdisciplinary building design adopting BIM

Abstract

Purpose -This study aims to present a pedagogical practice in the project-based assessment of AEC students' interdisciplinary building design work adopting BIM. This pedagogical practice emphasizes the impacts of BIM, as the digital collaboration platform, on the crossdisciplinary teamwork design through information sharing. This study also focuses on collecting students' perceptions on BIM effects in integrated project design. Challenges in BIM adoption from AEC students' perspective were identified and discussed, and could spark further research needs.Design/Methodology/Approach -Based on a thorough review of previous pedagogical practices of applying BIM in multiple AEC disciplines, this study adopted a case study of Solar Decathlon residential building design as the group project for AEC students to deliver the design work and construction planning. In total 13 different teams within the University of Nottingham Ningbo China, each group consisting of final year undergraduate students with backgrounds in architecture, civil engineering, and architectural environmental engineering, worked to deliver the detailed design of solar-powered residential house meeting pre-specified project objectives in terms of architectural aesthetics, structural integrity, energy efficiency, prefabrication construction techniques, and other issues such as budget and scheduling. Each team presented the cross-disciplinary design plan with cost estimate and construction scheduling together within group reports. This pedagogical study collected students' reflective thinking on how BIM affected their design work, and compared their feedback on BIM to that from AEC industry professionals in previous studies. Findings -The case study of Solar Decathlon building project showed the capacity of BIM in enabling interdisciplinary collaboration through information exchange and in enhancing communication across different AEC fields. More sustainable design options were considered in the early architectural design stages through the cross-disciplinary cooperation between architecture and building services engineering. BIM motivated AEC student teams to have a more comprehensive design and construction plan by considering multiple criteria including energy efficiency, budget, and construction activities. Students' reflections indicated both positive effects of BIM (e.g., facilitating information sharing) as well as challenges for further BIM implementation, for example, some architecture students' resistance to BIM, and the lack of existing family types in BIM library, etc.Research limitations/implications -Some limitations of the current BIM pedagogy were identified through the student group work. For example, students revealed the problem of interoperability between BIM (i.e., Autodesk Revit) and building energy simulation tools. To further integrate the university education and AEC industry practice, future BIM pedagogical work could recruit professionals and project stakeholders in the adopted case study, for the purpose of providing ...

Introduction of Building Information Modeling in Industrial Engineering Education: Students’ Perception

“…Different authors have promoted a collaborative environment for introducing BIM into undergraduate and postgraduate courses, with some success [12,18,19,[28][29][30]. However, most documented cases of the academic implementation of BIM focus primarily on the implementation strategy [29], the tools in use [30], or the industry's perception of this implementation in the university setting [31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39], with relatively few studies on students' perceptions of this implementation [40][41][42][43][44]. The present study analyses the implementation of BIM within a collaborative learning methodology for curriculum subjects at an industrial engineering school.…”

Incorporating Woodwork Fabrication into the Integrated Teaching and Learning of Civil Engineering Students

“…Following the workflow described in Fig.3, student work in FWA course was demonstrated with engineering drawings, woodwork fabrication, and application of mechanics of materials to structural modeling and analysis. Active learning and critical thinking targeted in engineering education proposed by Jin et al (2018) were demonstrated with student sample work in FWA.…”

“…The integrated pedagogical approach, involving multiple learning activities such as information search, teamwork, research-driven teaching, sustainability, student presentation, and industry-led education, has been applied in some existing CE pedagogies (e.g., Sacks and Barak, 2010;Amekudzi, et al, 2010;Beiler and Evans, 2015;Jainudin et al, 2015;Gadhamshetty et al, 2016;Jin et al, 2018). Some of these pedagogical studies adopted handson activities as teaching innovations aiming to enhance the teaching and learning effectiveness, such as those in geotechnical engineering (Cerato et al, 2012), in earthquake engineering (Mosalan et al, 2013), and in structural analysis (Sánchez and Millán, 2013).…”

“…It is believed by many researchers (e.g., Dancz et al, 2018) including authors of this pedagogical study that traditional hands-on learning activities are one of the most effective teaching methods in CE education. Information technology applications (such as Building Information Modeling or BIM) in CE and built environment subjects have been undergoing rapid development since 2010, as reported by Sacks and Barak (2010), Tang et al (2015), Jin et al (2016), Lucas (2016), andJin et al (2018). However, the fast-growing BIM usage does not mean that it is necessarily the only effective learning tool in CE education.…”

Dynamic Representation of Barriers for Adopting Building Information Modelling in Malaysian Tertiary Education

“…The difficulty to embedded BIM in the education system can be factored to different understandings on the needs of the industry, as well as the content, principles and methods of education (Sacks and Pikas, 2013), with significant diversity found in BIM related curriculum (Hedayati, Mohandesa and Preece, 2015). Nonetheless, growing numbers of studies have been conducted to embedded BIM in the curricular for tertiary institutions, such as Sampaio 2015 Jin et al (2018) have provided an insight into the pedagogical practices in an interdisciplinary building design project that has adopted BIM. Findings from their study suggest that students were equipped with BIM capabilities for future employment, as thepedagogical practices have emphasised the link between the academia and the industry.…”