The Integration of Bird-Friendly Design and LEED Credit Evaluation with BIM; The Development of Sensitivity Analysis as a Discipline

The technical research paper evaluates how bird-friendly design will be integrated with new technology that is building information modelling (BIM). Different ways that the power of BIM can be harnessed in order to simplify and encourage sustainable construction are addressed, as well as the next steps to developing BIM software that evaluates a building for bird safety. A look into the current software available in BIM, especially software that evaluates building for LEED credits, and a discussion on what is missing, in order to establish what next steps are necessary for the intersection of sustainable construction and BIM, will be addressed. The future of construction is virtual design and modelling, so quickly but accurately, aspects of construction must be adapted to software, whether that is integration with existing applications or development of new software that can interact with BIM file types. The social construction of technology will be useful as the number of BIM users, and applications available, expands. Iterations of software that combine sustainability analysis with built structure are necessary so that our natural world does not suffer as a consequence of powerful construction technology; without bird safe design, over a billion birds will continue to die annually due to collisions with buildings. That number would only increase as more structures are built, but with the power of bird-friendly design the outcome could be beneficial to humans and nature—more development of the built environment and less bird deaths. The social construction of technology and the actor network theory will be used to analyze the STS research, how sensitivity analysis will be developed as a distinct discipline. The combination of parameters and actors necessary for sensitivity analysis to be recognized as a complete and comprehensible discipline, and how they interact with each other through development is evaluated in this STS research. The development of a new technology, and how to properly integrate that with already existing technology, is evaluated in both the technical and STS paper. Though the technical application has a much more specific end goal, both developments will need to engage similar actors and parameters, to make sure that the technology is fairly integrated and helpful to the end user.

School of Engineering and Applied Science
Bachelor of Science in Engineering Science
Technical Advisor: Claire Culver
STS Advisor: Pedro Augusto Francisco