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:

GRAPHISOFT announces the release of ARCHICAD 23

Graphisoft Brand News News

ARCHICAD 23 sets new benchmarks in BIM software responsiveness, improves interoperability with enhanced modeling capabilities

Budapest, May, 14, 2019 – GRAPHISOFT®, the leading Building Information Modeling (BIM) software solution provider for architects and designers, has announced the release of ARCHICAD 23, the latest version of its award-winning BIM software solution. ARCHICAD 23 vastly improves perceived performance of essential processes such as software startup, file opening, working in multi-project environments and switching between different views of the BIM project. The brand-new Opening, Column and Beam tools increase modeling accuracy and interoperability with engineering disciplines.
“Everyday tasks such as firing up your software and switching between projects or views in a specific project may end up being the very roadblocks to achieving the flow, which is the ideal state for architectural design,” says Peter Temesvari, Director, Product Management at GRAPHISOFT. “We removed these roadblocks, putting the architect more firmly in the driver’s seat, with the software responding to the way architects think and work. ARCHICAD 23’s increased responsiveness is truly remarkable!”

What’s new in ARCHICAD 23:
Performance improvements: ARCHICAD 23 puts a special emphasis on offering an uninterrupted flow starting from launching the software, accessing project data and navigating one’s way through the Building Information Model. This is achieved through a combination of raw performance optimization, streamlined workflows and reduced file sizes.

Re-engineered Column and Beam tools: ARCHICAD 23 enables architects to model faster and create accurate construction details and quantity estimations for reinforced concrete, complex steel, timber, and composite beams and columns. Complex columns and curved, haunched and castellated beams can now be modeled and documented to meet graphic and representation standards. Beams and columns can be displayed using various projected and symbolic views and cover fills.

Voids, Niches, and Recesses: ARCHICAD 23 introduces a new Opening tool dedicated to model and coordinate project design voids, recesses and niches — as horizontal, vertical or slanted openings across elements, element groups or even across stories. Such openings are important for project coordination as they are equally relevant for architects, engineers and consultants and must be documented by architects and by engineers. Openings can be modeled, scheduled, and documented using intuitive tools, and shared using open IFC standards.

Renewed Solibri connection: ARCHICAD 23 enables seamless code- and constructability checking at any stage of the design. The updated add-on automatically detects and sends only those elements that are changed in the ARCHICAD model, resulting in faster round-trip collaboration.

Enhanced dRofus connection: ARCHICAD 23 allows architects to capture and organize client planning requirements and use these to validate and propose design alternatives. The dRofus database enables designers to collect and handle planning rules and design data with ease, even when working on large and complex projects, like hospitals, airports and universities.

Rhino-Grasshopper-ARCHICAD live connection: The new Grasshopper Deconstruct Component can be used to extract ARCHICAD element surface data as a design reference. With the help of this function, changes to the core design scheme in BIM will automatically update all linked design details generated via design algorithms in Grasshopper.

To learn more about ARCHICAD 23, sign up for the online streaming of ARCHICAD 23’s world premiere on June 4 at www.graphisoft.com/archicad.

 

About GRAPHISOFT

GRAPHISOFT® ignited the BIM revolution in 1984 with ARCHICAD®, the industry-first BIM software for architects.  GRAPHISOFT continues to lead the industry with innovative solutions such as its revolutionary BIMcloud®, the world’s first real-time BIM collaboration environment; and BIMx®, the world’s leading mobile app for lightweight access to BIM for non-professionals.  GRAPHISOFT is part of the Nemetschek Group. To learn more, please visit www.graphisoft.com or follow us on Twitter at @GRAPHISOFT.

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