A Curriculum Approach to Deploying BIM in Architectural Engineering: Fid-Bau Portal

A Curriculum Approach to Deploying BIM in Architectural Engineering

Solnosky, Ryan L. / Parfitt, M. Kevin

In recent years, rapidly advancing new technologies and project delivery methods, such as Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Integrated Project Delivery (IPD), have had a significant impact on the building industry. As a result, practitioners and academia have realized that educating future engineers on these topics is a necessity. To adopt these, proper course and curriculum structures need to be developed and tested. The focus of many efforts to date have been on the first topic, courses. BIM in particular has proven to provide positive opportunities to advance education of buildings at the course level but when expanded upon to an entire curriculum; its effects have seen limited study and less commonly adopted throughout departmental programs. This paper will describe the efforts that the Department of Architectural Engineering (AE) at Penn State University has taken to implement different levels of BIM via collaboration, integration and technology in different courses throughout the program. The discussion will first focus on the overall structure of the program and how they interrelate to one another. Then the efforts within each of the four disciplines: Construction, Lighting/Electrical, Mechanical, and Structural Engineering will be examined more closely.