A building life-cycle information system for tracking building performance metrics

Buildings often do not perform as well in practice as expected during pre-design planning, nor as intended at the design stage. While this statement is generally considered to be true, it is difficult to quantify the impacts and long-term economic implications of a building in which performance does not meet expectations. This leads to a building process that is devoid of quantitative feedback that could be used to detect and correct problems both in an individual building and in the building process itself. One key element in this situation is the lack of a standardized method for documenting and communicating information about the intended performance of a building. This paper describes the Building Life-cycle Information System (BLISS); designed to manage a wide range of building related information across the life cycle of a building project. BLISS is based on the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) developed by the International Alliance for Interoperability. A BLISS extension to the IFC that adds classes for building performance metrics is described. Metracker, a prototype tool for tracking performance metrics across the building life cycle, is presented.