Building Information Modeling (Bim) And Digital Twin Technology For Smart Building Design And Facility Management: An Integrated Framework For Sustainable Institutional Buildings
Abstract
Existing institutional buildings represent a large, under-managed share of the global building stock, yet their operational information is typically fragmented across drawings, spreadsheets and the tacit knowledge of facility staff. This fragmentation constrains evidence-based facility management (FM), sustainability monitoring and lifecycle decision-making. This study develops and demonstrates an integrated Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Digital Twin (DT) framework termed the Sustainable Institutional Building Digital Twin (SIB-DT) that reframes conventional building-audit data as the structured information substrate of a continuously updated digital replica. In contrast to design-optimization approaches, the framework treats each building element as a semantically classified, standards-referenced digital asset whose operational performance can be monitored, maintained and reasoned across the asset lifecycle. A design-science research methodology is adopted, comprising existing-building investigation, federated BIM authoring at Level of Development (LOD) 300, asset classification and Industry Foundation Classes (IFC 4) mapping, Construction–Operations Building information exchange (Cobie) population, Common Data Environment (CDE) governance under ISO 19650, and a four-layer DT architecture linking the physical building, virtual model, integration layer and FM service layer. The framework is instantiated on a three-storey, 13,844.9 ft² architectural-engineering department building (constructed 2001) at UET Lahore. Audit data envelope U-values, façade-resolved window-to-wall ratios, thirteen lighting zones, water-fixture inventories and on-site generation potential are re-expressed as monitored key performance indicators (KPIs) within an operational-intelligence dashboard rather than as one-off retrofit savings. The demonstration shows how a BIM-linked asset register enables predictive-maintenance scheduling, energy and water KPI visualization, occupant-comfort tracking and scenario-based decision support, advancing the building from DT maturity Level 1 toward Level 3. The principal contribution is a transferable, standards-aligned pathway for converting static audit information into a living asset-information environment for resource-constrained institutional estates. The paper articulates the framework's theoretical basis, its data and information-exchange models, and its practical implications for smart-campus digitalization, and it delineates the boundary between demonstrated capability and the sensor-instrumented deployment required for full real-time synchronization.
Keywords: Building Information Modeling (BIM), Digital Twin, Facility Management, Asset Information Model (AIM), Institutional Buildings, Predictive Maintenance, Sustainable Building Management
