The new Humber River Hospital is a fully digital acute care facility of Canada. Its design-builder PCL Constructors Canada Inc. used virtual construction technology to identify elements of the project that could be delivered as offsite solutions fabricated in PCL's PMC production facility. By taking some of the challenges offsite, PCL was able to assist the schedule and reduce onsite logistical and manpower pressure on critical path activities. Besides, the factory setting provided a much more controlled environment to build in, which increased efficiency and enhanced quality on the project. BIM was used extensively in its modular business unit. BIM helped to identify portions of work, rather than individual trades, which increased the amount of prefabrication potential. It also automated more of the process in the shop, where the model was tied to CNC and other equipment to reduce errors and increase efficiency.

This article helps us to fully understand the value network of BIM/VDC through measuring BIM's disruption. First of all, the author makes a comparison between two kinds of innovation with Clayton Christensen's ideas of "sustaining innovation" and "disruptive innovation." Secondly, he points out that disruptive innovations occur in two ways: "low-end' disruption and "new-market" disruption. And then, the value network theory explains why the author regards BIM as a disruptive innovation: BIM has introduced new capabilities, spawned new markets, attracted new customers, and will finally establish its new value network. In the end, the author points out that to successfully navigate BIM/VDC's future value network for the AEC industry, we should be open-minded, embrace the strange and ready to explore the opportunity for disruptive innovations.

This article reviews the British government's BIM strategy since 1970s, namely construction operations building information exchange (COBie). Although the British government did not directly use this generic term BIM, the BIM technology is more and more widely used, such as London Heathrow's fifth terminal project. The British Government has taken a series of initiatives to promote BIM technology in the UK construction industry, such as the central government (Whitehall) pointed out the importance of BIM applications in government procurement, and all of the buildings and infrastructure, regardless of new or refurbished, should take advantage of BIM technology in the management; the National Institute of Building Sciences has also developed a BIM national libraries; a series of BIM-related education and training activities have been carried out. Therefore, the author concluded that the whole life cycle of BIM application will sooner or later be adopted by building owners, this should be no doubt.

With the technology developing fast, more and more designers begin to concentrate on the digital ways of controlling the shape of architecture. While in the process of practice, designers always find that real situation and the original assumption are out of sync when using digital ways. It's easy to get stuck in specific things and lose sight of the overall aim. In order to solve this problem, we have worked out the integrity of digital construction method with logic optimization model based on designers'thinking.

With technological development and specialization of social work, traditional design mode is transferring to complicated systems that are multi-disciplinary, multi-domain and collaborative. Collaborative design has become inevitable for today's development in facing the increasingly complex design and construction systems. This article focuses on the optimization of design collaboration under the design institute system. Based on practical application and summery, it analyzes the importance of collaborative design to the integral control of building design. With the project of Lishan Building as an example, the article shows how to operate and control collaborative design during the application process as well as how to simplify problems and increase efficiency.

A crucial factor in construction safety planning is to properly identify all possible hazards before they occur. BIM 3D visualization and 4D simulation allow construction shareholders to visually assess jobsite conditions and recognize hazards, and it provides them with sufficient time to develop adequate hazard mitigation plans. This article reports an in-progress research project where BIM technology is utilized to perform safety planning and management for an on-going construction project located on the campus of Auburn University, Alabama, U.S.A. This study presents and validates the potential of 4D BIM in project safety management and planning.

This article introduces the latest progress of BIM in the United States, which is the forthcoming publication of the National BIM Standard-United States (NBIMS-US) Version 3. The expanded NBIMS-US contents for Version 3 include information exchanges, reference standards, standard practice submissions, and terminology/glossary submissions. New for Version 3, an introductory narrative and wayfinding section is added to make the standard more accessible and readable. In the end, the authors look into the future of the facility industry and NBIMS-US, believing that NBIMS-US will become a means to lead the A/E/C/O/O industry as it moves forward to adopt BIM technologies and processes.