BIM Technology for Restoration Site Design

The paper presents some results of an ongoing research concerning the application of BIM (Building Information Modeling) technology to achieve a better workers’ health and safety on restoration construction site, which in Italy is quite a novelty. The building-lab used by the task group is a tall and geometrically complex building located in a tight square in the center of Milan. The building consists of offices and flats that will be occupied also during the execution phase. BIM has been applied to the façades restoration of the tower in order to evaluate the potential benefits of 3D analysis on: (i) the choice of the scaffolding structures mounting sequence, (ii) the study of workers position to make them safer, (iii) the assessment of works sequences, as well as prevention and protection devices, to reduce the site impact. The use of BIM applied to a restoration process, respect to a new construction intervention, underlines the exigency of a site prototype realization and it highlights the necessary construction site techniques. Furthermore, BIM, compared to a traditional way of design, demonstrates that it’s convenient a strong coordination between the different designers and that, through the ‘discretization’ of the site equipments and devices, it is possible not only to help the designers in facing some key design issues before the execution phase, but also to optimize the whole project investments.