Collaboration par excellence

Example: Hasselt City Hall, Belgium — The building of the new municipal administration center in Hasselt, Belgium, demonstrates how seamless collaboration in building projects can minimize risks and save costs from the design phase all the way to commissioning.
A joint project of several brands of the Nemetschek Group.
Nemetschek brands involved: Allplan, GRAPHISOFT, Solibri

Pioneering planning and project execution with Open BIM

“The end-to-end use of BIM solutions constitutes genuine added value for all stakeholders in the building process
because it enables seamless and efficient collboration”
Steven Hendrickx, Head Architect in Hasselt

Large-scale, highly complex building projects in particular require ongoing, reliable and efficient coodination between all stakeholders – both internal and external – across disciplines and between companies. Therefore, in association with other market players, the Nemetschek Group is promoting the Open BIM data standard. This is a universal, collaborative approach to designing, constructing and operating buildings based on open standards and workflows It makes it possible for project stakeholders to collaborate, even if the type of software varies from user to user. The Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) interface has established itself as an open standard and is therefore of central significance.

Sharing and evaluating data throughout the entire product life cycle saves time and money and improves quality. The administration of data is key to this digital transformation, for it is only possible to take full advantage of the potential if each stakeholder can access the data that he or she needs at any given time. This begins with a realistic BIM building model, which is an essential prerequisite for a genuine 5D workflo. This model is no longer limited to just 3D construction data; it also includes data concerning the dimensions of time and costs.

Seamless collaboration exemplified by the Hasselt City Hall

Under the management of the architect team comprising Jaspers-Eyers, MASS Architects and Michel Janssen, a new municipal administration center is being built in Hasselt. The complex, consisting of a renovated building section and a new building, provides approx. 17,000 m2 for the city administration and social services as well as offices. The architects and their most important partners are using Open BIM software solutions for the entire construction process. Three Nemetschek solutions are being implemented for this project: Archicad from Graphisoft for the design and planning of the architects, Allplan Engineering for civil engineering, and the Solibri Model Checker for the BIM quality control carried out by the construction company.

From the beginning, all information concerning the building project is contained in the digital building model – from the draft to implementation – including all design details, desired materials, fire protection requirements, acoustic properties, insulation and building structures, and administration. This constitutes considerable added value for all stakeholders compared to the old standard model, which was purely 3D. Thus, this improvement ensures more than just seamless collaboration between all those involved. The complex project can be turned over to the municipality – the proud building owner – with the required quality, on time and within the specified budget.

Hasselt City Hall is groundbreaking – in terms of design, planning and project implementation.

Independent and yet consistent

Steven Hendrickx, the head architect in Hasselt, recognized four decisive factors with Open BIM over the course of the successful project:

  • Individual partners design their model with their preferred BIM software, and with their own templates. Outstanding collaboration is ensured, though, thanks to a common, uniform standard which is specified in advance.
  • The division of labor is defined at the beginning of the project. Data on statics, for instance, have an essential impact on the architecture and structural design. Data on heating, ventilation and air-conditioning, on the other hand, are also important but don’t generally flow directly into the architecture. These data, for example, can be sufficiently analyzed with the BIM solution for quality assurance from Solibri.
  • Design changes in one area don’t necessarily affect the plans of all the others involved in the project. The architecture and the building stage are inherently the most closely linked.
  • The expertise of the staff, i.e., extensive holistic knowledge of the various building disciplines, is also critical for the success of the project.

Two examples of the advantage of precise planning

In Hasselt, the construction company was commissioned with excavation, among other tasks. An assessment of the amount of sand that needed to be removed was done based on a cal culation using conventional 2D planning methods, which yielded a result of 800 cubic meters. The engineers used the Solibri Model Checker based on Open BIM and the data provided by the architects and arrived at a figue that was just half this amount, i.e., 400 cubic meters of sand. This shows how exact the work with Open BIM solutions can be.

The steel struts to be installed are another example: With the interface function IFC Exports from Allplan, it was possible to use the BIM model to automatically calculate which steel struts needed fieproofing. All it took was a mouse click to obtain precise results, right down to the running meter. In projects that don’t use Open BIM solutions, these calculations are made by manually entering the data from 2D drawings in Excel or some other software and then recalculating and evaluating the data for use in quotations and planning, a process that is susceptible to error and one that leaves a lot of room for interpretation. These errors often go undetected until the actual cost planning is already completed. In the case of the Hasselt City Hall,  it was possible to avoid such errors from the outset.

Converting to Open BIM pays off

As is the case with any change, it takes a certain amount of time for companies and employees to accept BIM as the norm. The best way, according to Steven Hendrickx, is to start out by planning smaller projects using BIM. The experience thereby gained will make it possible to complete successively larger BIM projects. The advantages of collaborating through Open BIM are obvious: The entire workflow is much simpler for all project stakeholders, and building projects are completed within time and cost budgets.

CONCLUSION

Consistent standards and open interfaces in par-ticular are essential for successful building projects. Stakeholders need solutions that can “work together” for all and any individual tasks being performed. Seamless collaboration between humans and machines: This is ensured with Open BIM, and backed by the brands of the Nemetschek Group.

Reference projects on this topic:

Better planning: Allplan and BIMobject join forces

Allplan Brand News News Company News

  • Allplan users benefit from the integration of vendor-checked data in BIM workflows
  • BIM objects now also available in Allplan file format

Munich/Malmö, November 2, 2016 – Allplan, one of the leading European providers of architecture, engineering, facility management and collaboration solutions, and BIMobject, provider of BIM objects, are embarking on a close partnership. The two companies announced today in Munich and Malmö that, in future, architects and engineers who work with Allplan will be even better able to exploit the advantages of Building Information Modeling (BIM).

“Our customers will benefit directly from the partnership with BIMobject. In future, architects and engineers will be able to integrate BIM objects of original products directly in their BIM workflows. As a result, the process of planning, constructing and managing buildings will be far more efficient and will add value,” says Markus Tretheway, Vice President Product Management at Allplan.

“The cooperation is very important for us. We regularly receive inquiries from architects and engineers who need vendor-checked content in Allplan format. Now, we can finally meet this requirement. The Allplan support also closes an important gap for building suppliers, as it will result in an increase in users from the Allplan world,” adds Johannes Reischböck, Chief Operating Officer and executive board member at BIMobject.

Integrated planning, construction and management

In the cooperation agreement, both companies have agreed that BIMobject will in future provide BIM objects in Allplan format on its cloud-based platform BIMobject.com. The object data that is provided directly by product vendors contains detailed material and product specifications. In future, Allplan users will be able to integrate the BIM objects easily in their plans, which will greatly simplify day-to-day work and in conjunction with the cloud-based BIM collaboration platform bim+ will extend the possibilities of web-based collaboration. In initial joint projects, BIMobject will publish vendor-specific BIM objects in native Allplan format as well as general objects.

About BIMobject

BIMobject® Corporation, acknowledged by investors with a Global Red Herring 100 award, and a public company on Nasdaq Stockholm First North: ticker BIM. BIMobject® is a game changer for the construction industry worldwide with its cloud based digital content management system for BIM objects. BIMobject as a disruptive technology corporation is at the forefront of the digitalisation of building products and materials, enabling the information to be turned into know-how earlier in the BIM processes. The BIMobject Cloud is a digital platform, where BIM professionals can reach and download BIM files from brands, from both Europe and US. This will enable industrialisation of the construction industry and also have a huge impact on design, product selection, constructability, waste, energy, cost, quality and logistics. Our unique solutions for Building Product Manufacturers provide development, hosting, maintenance, syndication and publication of the digital replicas of the manufacturers’ products – BIM objects. The marketing and pre-sales services associated with the BIMobject Cloud are channeled and integrated, through Apps, into CAD/BIM applications to create a business-to-business communication across the globe. Manufacturers use BIMobject® to promote and deliver their products directly into BIM processes enabling their products to be selected and generate a real improvement in sales. For more information: www.bimobject.com

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