Above: Bob Prieto Keynotes the Thursday Lunch

On Day 4 of  Building Innovation 2014—The National Institute of Building Sciences Annual Conference and Expo, the symposia continued with the buildingSMART alliance (bSa) Symposium, Commissioning Symposium, Building Enclosure Technology & Environment Council (BETEC) Symposium and Low Vision Design Committee (LVDC) Symposium.

The day began with a focus on building information modeling (BIM) at the bSa Symposium: Improving Life-Cycle Performance with BIM. Presenters covered the basics of BIM on through to international guidelines, informational exchanges and the benefits of thinking collaboratively.

The Commissioning Symposium: Optimizing Performance through Commissioning, sponsored by the Building Commissioning Association, focused on the process of commissioning, the roles of participants and the desired result, as well as the differences between commissioning for new construction and existing buildings. 

With an eye at improving the building envelope, presenters at the BETEC Symposium: Building Enclosures for Life: Design, Efficiency and Recycling for the Building Enclosure Life Cycle, sponsored by Tremco Commercial Sealants & Waterproofing, explored continuous insulation, retrofitting condominiums, recycling and waste management, passive and active systems, thermal bridging, daylighting, glass energy and more.

At the Keynote Luncheon sponsored by Acuity Brands, Robert Prieto, Senior Vice President of Fluor presented Life-Cycle Analysis – A 7D Future. Prieto explained how complex replaces simple, dynamic replaces static, and uncertainty replaces certainty in his presentation about the seventh dimension (7D) of building information.

“Since the future is uncertain…” said Prieto, “We need to recognize there may need to be multiple case scenarios.”

During the LVDC Symposium: Creating Flexible Environments for People with Low Vision, sponsored by the Illuminating Engineering Society, designers presented best practices for designing for people with low vision; representatives from the world of eye and brain medicine discussed the symptoms of specific eye diseases and how different conditions affect vision in different ways; and the LVDC presented its work on a design guideline/standard.

Other scheduled activities during the day included meetings of the Sustainable Buildings Industry Council (SBIC) Board of Direction and Member Meeting, Building Seismic Safety Council (BSSC) Board of Direction and BSSC Member Meetings, the LVDC Meeting and Commissioning Council, as well as the CEO Summit.

Day Five of the conference concludes with the BIM Academic Symposium: Advancing BIM in the Curriculum; the Friday Luncheon keynoted by Brion Callori of FM Global, and meetings of the Council on Fire, Insurance and Real Estate (CFIRE), National Council of Governments on Building Codes and Standards (NCGBCS), the ProjNet™ User Group and Government to Business (G2B).