Even architecture and engineering are set to go green.
This was the focus of the seminar by Autodesk, Inc. and Philippine Green Building Council on October 28 as both joined hands to promote sustainable green building practices in the Philippines to answer the need to consider environmental sustainability in the building sector.
The seminar titled “Building for Success: Green Building Design and Strategies” became a venue for sharing techniques on how green building can be started in the country by local architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) agencies.
Autodesk country manager Teddy Tiu said the joint effort of Autodesk and PhilGBC “will be a huge step towards seeing sustainable structures in the Philippines that will ultimately help business achieve bottom lines of profitability and social responsibility.”
Filipino architects and engineers, although equipped with necessary skills, need to utilize green building practices in their line of work, said Tiu, adding that “environmentally friendly building encompasses not only the structure itself, but also the process through which the structure was created.”
To equip designers in producing sustainable green structures, Autodesk created a design software which will help in conducting “parametric design and rapid analysis,” which according to Tiu reduces cost and allows for “advanced sustainability goals.”
Autodesk’s Building Information Modeling solutions (BIM) which provides digital representations of building information which will enable the country’s various design firms better “visualize, simulate and analyze their designs even before they are built,” Tiu announced.
Tiu explained that BIM’s representations will allow for easier collaboration and communication “from design to construction.”
The Autodesk BIM solutions available in the Philippines includes the Autodesk Revit Architecture software which lets firms “capture and analyze early concepts, and then better maintain designs through documentation and construction,” said Tiu, adding that the software is also useful “in design analysis, clash detection, construction planning and material fabrication.”
The country manager stated that firms are set to reduce their unbudgeted change by 40 percent, cost estimate generation time by 80 percent, and project time by up to 7 percent, citing the figures gathered by Stanford University’s Center for Integrated Facilities Engineering (CIFE), based on 32 major projects that utilized BIM.
Tiu explained that Autodesk’s BIM solutions is timely today when there are limited projects and competition is fierce, adding that “when artistic expression is combined with emerging technologies, profound design solutions are possible,” said Tiu.
