Teaching co-creativity with building information modeling for sustainability analyses and engaged storytelling

Building Information Modeling (BIM) is becoming a central theme in the digital transformation of building design, con-struction and operation. Teaching strategies for the education of the cosmopolitan architect are challenging, as interdisci¬plinary collaboration skills are required. This paper presents a prototypic class designed to enable students to co-create buildings as co-creative-partners in interdisciplinary teams using BIM. The class used the openBIM method and focused on working with digital-building-models throughout the design- and planning phase, and collaborating and present¬ing the results using Virtual-Reality (VR). For this purpose, architecture and Building-Services-Engineering students participated in application-oriented workshops to first gain practical experience in 3D-modeling, co-creation and VR and then collaborate as interdisciplinary teams. This class was evaluated by surveying students before and after the class to explore their attitudes toward technology acceptance and how they deal with stereotypes in the context of design and construction. The results showed that the class was successful in improving students’ perceptions of the benefits of BIM and their self-efficacy in using it. Similarly, students had developed a more realistic understanding of the unique perspectives of the respective disciplines. These findings underscore that by using the hands-on and collaborative learning method, students’ readiness for working together in interdisciplinary projects was strength¬ened. Despite the challenges of communicating and integrating a variety of building-information into the BIM process, the class encouraged students to engage in compromise solutions in the design-process with other disciplines and to find workarounds together.