From real to virtual (and back): survey and design applied to BIM approach

The aim of the paper is to present some comments about innovation in languages and project procedures, with a particular regard to Building Information Modeling (BIM) technologies and the consequent renewal of the representation techniques, explored in the building and construction areas, as methodological and operational equipment that the digital design tends to upgrade. BIM methodologies express the added value of a virtual modeling, basing most of the procedures of interaction between the various building components in accordance with the rules of construction. Doing that, the analytical knowledge of the existing is completely transferred to the digital model: the multi-relational database manages the complexity of the parametric information by coordinating heterogeneous representations derived from 3D model. Regarding to these technologies, in Italy it has been started a research project in the announcement “Energy Eficiency Industria 2015”, named InnovANCE, which provides for the development of the irst uniied and interoperable database in the construction industry, identifying the strategies for integration in the construction process, from the design phase to construction and management. We discuss on the added value of the outcomes of the research in progress, focusing on the use of operational methods that are best suited to manage the complexity information carried on in the project representation; data are relating to each other different professionals in a new system, requiring explicit coordination of activities and procedures, both for the exiting and for new intervention.