Commissioning is coming of age. Savvy building owners have adopted commissioning as an effective way to improve the facility acquisition process. Green building initiatives have embraced commissioning as a way of assuring quality in the delivery of high-performance buildings. This long-established quality control process for building mechanical systems is emerging as a broader construction management tool improving nearly all aspects of a project. What exactly is this thing called commissioning? Principles of Building Commissioning answers this fundamental question with the first all-inclusive, practical guide to the application of the principles of commissioning. The book clarifies the underlying philosophy of commissioning: the why, what, when, and who of this process. Shaped by the ASHRAE Guideline 0 view of the world of commissioning, Building Commissioning: Maps out the territory of commissioning Outlines its defining characteristics Explains its flow of processes Demystifies its documentation Making the fundamentals of commissioning accessible to all parties—building owners and operators, architects and engineers, users and suppliers—who may be called upon to join the commissioning team for a particular project, Building Commissioning serves as the professional's road map to the commissioning process, from the predesign phase through occupancy.

Building Information Modeling (BIM) refers to the consistent and continuous use of digital information throughout the entire lifecycle of a built facility, including its design, construction and operation. In order to exploit BIM methods to their full potential, a fundamental grasp of their key principles and applications is essential. Accordingly, this book combines discussions of theoretical foundations with reports from the industry on currently applied best practices. The book’s content is divided into six parts: Part I discusses the technological basics of BIM and addresses computational methods for the geometric and semantic modeling of buildings, as well as methods for process modeling. Next, Part II covers the important aspect of the interoperability of BIM software products and describes in detail the standardized data format Industry Foundation Classes. It presents the different classification systems, discusses the data format CityGML for describing 3D city models and COBie for handing over data to clients, and also provides an overview of BIM programming tools and interfaces. Part III is dedicated to the philosophy, organization and technical implementation of BIM-based collaboration, and discusses the impact on legal issues including construction contracts. In turn, Part IV covers a wide range of BIM use cases in the different lifecycle phases of a built facility, including the use of BIM for design coordination, structural analysis, energy analysis, code compliance checking, quantity take-off, prefabrication, progress monitoring and operation. In Part V, a number of design and construction companies report on the current state of BIM adoption in connection with actual BIM projects, and discuss the approach pursued for the shift toward BIM, including the hurdles taken. Lastly, Part VI summarizes the book’s content and provides an outlook on future developments. The book was written both for professionals using or programming such tools, and for students in Architecture and Construction Engineering programs.