DESIGN AND USE OF BUILDING INFORMATION MODELS FOR PREPLANNING COMMERCIAL BUILDING CONSTRUCTION ACTIVITIES

Over the past several years, the building codes that govern commercial building construction have become increasingly prescriptive in nature, specifying detailed information related to the design and installation of the systems, while offering no reasoning behind their prescriptive measures. For example, metal stud framing is commonly used in commercial building construction to create bearing walls and non-bearing partition walls. BIM provides a powerful platform for developing and implementing "pre-planning" tools and methods to facilitate both engineering and administrative controls during construction. This paper discusses the use of BIM to enhance constructability for commercial building construction activities, specifically metal stud framing. Using specific real-world examples this paper demonstrates ways that BIM can be used to foresee potential construction issues and motivates and informs future uses of BIM technologies