Formalizing a Language for Specifying Building Components from IFC

Engineering, Project, and Production Management

EPPM 2015 Conference Papers

Formalizing a Language for Specifying Building Components from IFC

Ernest L. S. Abbott¹ , Kerwei Yeoh² and David K.H. Chua³

¹ Research Engineer, Dept. of Civil & Environmental Engineering, National University of Singapore, Block, E1A #07-03. No 1 Engineering Drive
² Singapore 117576. (65) 65164643. Fax (65) 67791635. Email. ceeaels@nus.edu.sg 2 Lecturer, Dept. of Civil & Environmental Engineering. National University of Singapore. Block E1A #07-03. No 1. Engineering Drive 2. Singapore 117576. (65) 65164643. Fax (65) 67791635. Email. ceeykw@nus.edu.sg
³ Associate Professor. , Dept. of Civil & Environmental Engineering, National University of Singapore, Block, E1A #07-03. No 1 Engineering Drive 2. Singapore 117576. (65) 65162295. Fax (65) 67791635. Email. ceedavid@nus.edu.sg

Abstract:Identifying construction requirements is a complex task that is often overlooked. With the advent of Building Information Modelling (BIM), building components such as beams, columns and slabs are represented as objects using the IFC specification. This paper proposes a Building Component Specification Language which formalizes a method of specifying the elements which make up the spatial attribute of a construction requirement. The advantage of the proposed language is an easily understood mechanism which allows low level specifications to be easily represented using an iterative mechanism. This iterative mechanism allows the scaling of low level specifications to a higher level one, thus significantly reducing the complexity of user entry.

Keywords:BIM, Construction Requirements, IFC, Building Component Specification Language.