THE INTEGRATION OF BUILDING INFORMATION MODELLING (BIM) TO EFFECTIVELY MANAGE COVID-19 IN BUILDINGS

Abstract

The global COVID-19 pandemic has left a permanent impact in our way of lives ever since 2020. As we transition into the new normal by gradually opening the society, there is a large surge of occupants returning to various office, school, and commercial buildings. Facility managers will be faced with additional tasks to implement strict but reasonable controls in buildings to effectively manage COVID-19 cases. On the other hand, Building Information Modelling (BIM) has been a hot topic in the built sector for years and its benefits are well recognized in the industry. The aim of this study is to combine these two and to find out whether BIM can be utilised to manage COVID-19 in buildings. Literature reviews were conducted to dwell deeper on the benefits and adoption of BIM in Singapore, as well as the impacts that COVID-19 had on current building management policies. A two-part questionnaire was sent out to local building professionals with BIM knowledge gather more information on the topic and 60 responses were gathered. The consensus was that BIM is indeed helpful in managing COVID-19 in buildings as it can improve measures such as social distancing and ventilations. However, there still exist obstacles that preventing the full unleash of this potential, such as the lack of BIM trainings and standardisation. This helped to shed light on possible future frameworks that can be implemented to further enhance this integration.