360 Energy. BIM as a device

The pilot project developed during the teaching period of Building Design course of the Combined Bachelor and Master Degree Courses in Architectural and Building Engineering, of DICATAM (Department of Civil Engineering, Architecture, Land,Environment and Mathematics), aims to offer a clear message regarding the new function in relation to both, the existing and future viability and the largest urban scale of the “Modulo Didattico” of University of Brescia. The building, that currently hosts classrooms and computer labs, has been redesigned (or, rather, "rehabilitated") with a smart environmentally view and an intelligent use of resources in order to convert it into a center of excellence for renewable energy called “eLUX”. In the design process it is important to use a BIM platform (Building Information Modeling) to virtualize and share heterogeneous and alphanumeric data: it became an essential exchanging device for a depth and mutual understanding of the disciplines involved in the conversion plan of the building, in relation to the techniques and procedures used connected to their technological and constructive, productive, functional, formal and operation features, and depending on the ratio that each one establishes with the spatial and environmental reference and, not at least, depending on the relationship between every constructive element with the construction industry and the market. Through this shared and participated methodology it was possible to simulate a new concept of the construction, a smart virtual objects with an intelligence (smart embedded), developed through the use of innovative computational tools feeding the digital prototyping with the typical aspects of the design products such as creativity and social utility, two of the essential features that the great Italian masters of industrial design – between all is enough to mention Joe Colombo – have left as a legacy to future generations. The educational experimentation for the conversion of the didactic building has shown that it is possible to set up the architectural project as part of the digital foreshadowing where the BIM (Building Information Modeling) turns out to be essential to reach an informed and effective integration of a variety of operating scopes characterized as a process of complex and multidisciplinary nature. The project activity carried out with the students saw an overcoming of the conventional model based on “unique director” by establishing a team of many specialists as the inevitable hybridization of knowledge can develop new configurations of work hopefully able, in near future, to break the deadlock faced by the Italian construction industry.