Building fires constitute a significant threat that affects property, the environment, and human health. The management of this risk requires an efficient fire evacuation system for buildings’ occupants. Therefore, a smart fire evacuation system that combines building information modeling (BIM) and smart technologies is proposed. The system provides the following capacities: (i) early fire detection; (ii) the evaluation of environmental data; (iii) the identification of the best evacuation path; and (iv) information for occupants about the best evacuation routes. The system was implemented in a research building at Lille University in France. The results show the system’s capacities and benefits, particularly for the identification of the best evacuation paths.

Building information modeling (BIM) is the geometric way to present a life cycle construction project including geographic information. Recently, the Internet of Things (IoT) has been progressively used smart buildings in order to enhance living comfort, work productivity and entertainment. However, studies addressing the combination of these two technologies (BIM and IoT) focused on the automatic diffusion of data through sensors to BIM models [1]. Based on American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM) a great portion of our time is spend inside buildings, in our offices, homes, schools, health care facilities, or in other private or public buildings. Hence the necessity to improve the basic human right to live in a healthy, safe and comfort environment is vital. This paper presents the use of BIM to support complex decisions concerning comfort conditions in buildings. This use is illustrated through a case study concerning a building of the AUST campus in Beirut.

Management of indoor hazards constitutes a great challenge for buildings design, construction and operating. The question is how to reduce both buildings vulnerability to indoor hazards and the impact of the latter on occupants and buildings integrity. Indoor hazards could result from different source such as fire, air pollution, water and gas leak, domestic accidents, appliances hazards, intrusion and break-out. Standards are already established for safety buildings design. However, in the operating phase, both occupants and buildings managers are subjected to serious indoor hazards, which could lead to significant human and material damages. The development of the digital technology such as Internet of Things (IoT), communication technology, indoor smart monitoring and Building Information Modeling (BIM) offers a great opportunity to improve indoor safety. This paper presents the indoor hazards and how the smart technology could help in improving the indoor hazard management.

This paper presents a comprehensive methodology for evaluating and improving the anti-Coronavirus (COVID-19) measures in higher education establishments. The methodology combines the use of: (1) Building Information Modeling (BIM) for the integration and control in a 3D graphic environment the anti-COVID-19 safety measures; (2) a questionnaire to collect the students’ commitment to safety measures and their suggestions to improve these measures; (3) data analysis to explore the impact of the students’ profiles on their commitment to safety measures. The proposed methodology is applied at the engineering school Polytech’Lille in the North of France. Results show that the BIM model provides valuable services to the administration by integrating the safety measures in a 3D environment and checking the compatibility of these measures and their improvement. The use of the questionnaire allows the administration to collect students’ feedback about their commitment to safety measures and their suggestions to improve these measures.

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