Prefabrication 4.0: BIM-aided design of sustainable DIY-oriented houses

Authors:

• Karolina Ostrowska-Wawryniuk

Abstract

In the context of continuous housing shortage, increasing construction standards and rising labour costs, one of the possibilities to address this array of problems is prefabrication directed towards do-it-yourself (DIY) construction methods. This paper presents a prototype tool for aiding the design of DIY-oriented single-family houses with the use of small-element timber prefabrication. The introduced solution uses the potential of BIM technology for adapting a traditionally designed house to the prefabrication requirements and reduction of waste generated in the assembly process. The experimental tool was developed in the Autodesk Revit software. It incorporates custom Dynamo-for-Revit scripts. The experimental tool implemented the user- and technology-specified boundary conditions and converted an input BIM model into a prefabricated alternative. The tool was tested on the design of a two-story single-family house. The results compare the automated optimized panelization with manual approach. The simulation revealed the possibility of the construction waste reduction by at least 50% when comparing to the non-optimized panelization.