Simulation modelling in a BIM environment: The case of school re-opening during Covid-19 pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic influenced the way that buildings are used and experienced. In particular, educational facilities were among the most affected by the pandemic in terms of use processes. This paper presents a methodology developed to reorganise spaces in a school building, a real case study, to allow safe reopening. Social distancing and availability of learning spaces were taken into account to simulate the use of the educational facility according to the emergency protocols. Based on a digital survey of the existing building, a building information model was generated and used as a basis for spatial analysis and crowd and agent-based simulations. Additionally, interactive games and training videos were developed as communication tools to inform end users about the new rules to be respected inside the building. The digital approach adopted for the analysis of use processes as well as for communicating the results to the end users allowed them to experience the school fruition processes within a virtual environment before the school reopening. Future works could deal with the application of the same methodology in other schools, as well as in different contexts, going beyond the specificity of the pandemic emergency, and for other types of buildings. © 2023 ICE Publishing: All rights reserved.

A Hybrid Agent-Based Model to Simulate and Re-Think Post-COVID-19 Use Processes in Educational Facilities

The paper presents the development and application of a hybrid multi-agent system to simulate people’s behavior in educational facilities, to support decisions and strategies related to the post-COVID-19 scenarios. Complex use phenomena as the ones occurring in schools and educational facilities, required mixed, hybrid simulation models where the agent-based component, usually controlling single users/bots, is combined with a process-driven engine that ensures correspondence of the users’ behaviors to the general scenario. In our case, hybridization includes also the direct interaction of the intended users through a virtual reality 3D game, to further increase accuracy and adherence to the reality of the simulated phenomena. This paper also presents the application of the simulation model to a real case study, a school in Italy, where use processes have been simulated and currently under assessment during the school opening. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.