Behind the virtual Baba House
In order to bring together disparate information about various facets of the Baba House, NUS Baba House partnered with the Urban Redevelopment Agency (URA), and technology partner Twinlogic Pte Ltd, utilising Building Information Modelling (BIM) to document and map the property. This is the first time BIM has been used for the management of heritage conservation in Singapore, to archive, document, identify, assess and mitigate intervention risks. BIM is currently used by some real estate developers to market properties, and as part of a requirement by the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) for new building projects.
Behind the scenes, BIM preserves critical information about the Baba House, ranging from the immovable assets of the built infrastructure, research work on different areas of the house, condition checks and conservation mitigations on the property itself. BIM enables Baba House staff to track a wider range of information tied to specific items or locations in the Baba House, as well as operational tasks such as facility management. For example, staff are able to record any restoration work done on a particular wall, or segment of flooring, detailing the traditional materials and methods used in conservation and restoration, as well as intervention risks and mitigation measures. The record is not limited to static content such as text and images, but can also be linked to videos.
