Redevelopment of St Bartholomews and The Royal London Hospitals AIA Technology in Architectural Practice Building Information Model Awards 2005 Contents Image generated from BIM model, rendered in MAX and finished in Photoshop. Page Section 1 Introduction.................................................................................. 3 Section 2 Project Summary........................................................................ 4 Section 3 Awards Criteria.......................................................................... 6 Section 4 Building Information Model Approach................... 11
Section 5 St. Bartholomews Hospital.................................................. 37 Section 6 The Royal London Hospital................................................. 39 Section 7 Submitters Contact Details.................................................. 42 2 AIA Technology in Architectural Practice Building Information Model Awards 2005 1 - Introduction Elevation generated from the BIM 3 In February 2002 the United Kingdom National Health Service (NHS) solicited proposals for the renovation and expansion of its Barts and The London campuses including the demolition of substaitial existing structures, the renovation of 65,000m2 in 72 existing structures, and the construction of 165,000m2 of new facilities, and the operation of both complexes for a period of 30 years. A consortium led by the Skanska construction company and the Innisfree infrastructure investment group was awarded a preferred bidder agreement in 2003 after a competitive process. HOK London, with support from other HOK US offices, participated in this proposal, which included a complete architectural schematic design package. The detailed design effort began in Autumn 2003 and is expected to continue through 2006/7, with construction expected to be completed in 2013. During this period, and continuing for a total 38-year concession period the consortium will also operate and maintain the facility. The very large size and long duration of the Barts and London Trust (BLT) project warrant a special effort in the planning of its CAD standards and procedures. In addition, the project is well suited to be a demonstration of how the London office, the Healthcare group, and HOK as a whole, advance their application of Building Information Modeling. AIA Technology in Architectural Practice Building Information Model Awards 2005 2 - Project Summary Shortly thereafter the complex multi-phase demolition/decanting/construction work should start. Size: The Royal London Hospital site has 44 buildings with new build totalling 126,500m 2 (1,361,000 ft 2 ) and 51,000m 2 (548,000 ft 2 ) refurbishment. The St Bartholomews Hospital site has 28 buildings with new build totaling 38,500m 2 (414,000 ft 2 ) and 14,000m2 (150,000 ft 2 ) of refurbishment. Lead design, office: HOK International, (European Region Headquarters) at 216 Oxford Street, London W1C 1DB Lead construction firm, office: Skanska - Barts and The London , 120 Aldersgate Street, London, EC1 4JQ Design Phase Design Partners: TB&A, DSSR, Skanska Technology and Yolles. Construction Supply Chain Partners: To be appointed by Skanska. The proposals for the St Bartholomew and the Royal London Hospitals are inevitably marked by superlatives this is the largest PFI procurement project in the UK, with capital costs currently estimated in the regoin of 700 million. As you will see in later sections of this document, we are not yet at working drawings for the construction phase, but already the contribution made by our HOK team is estimated at some 45 man-years. Our document control system Skandocs has registered electronic file transfers between all the design professionals some 5000 times. We presently have around 50 members of our staff working on-site (actually just off-site) in producing drawings and specifications. Project name: The name of the project is Barts and London Trust (cited as BLT). Barts, one of the hospitals being redeveloped, is properly St Bartholomews Hospital. The London is properly The Royal London Hospital. The Trust is The Barts and The London NHS Trust, one of the public authorities which runs groups of hospitals (and other healthcare facilities) within the UKs National Health Service (NHS). Project/facility type: The two sites are currently occupied by a mixture of general and specialist hospital buildings, and specialist medical schools. When work is finished, that will continue to be the case, but in a planned campus-style layout, with the division of the services co-located more efficiently than has been possible in the present sites which date from the mid 1700s with ad hoc additions and temporary structures over the proceeding 300 years. Location: Barts Hospital is on the eastern edge of the City of London, very close to the Citys financial district. The Royal London Hospital is further east, and in the borough of Tower Hamlets. The Royal London is also served by the London Emergency Air Ambulance service helicopters. The new Royal London will retain the helicopter facility, with rooftop landing pad. Client: HOKs client is Skanska Innisfree, and the ultimate user of the two campuses will be the Barts and London NHS Trust. Skanska/Innisfree will construct and then operate the complexes for 38 years. The NHS Trust will pay a unitary charge to Skanska Innisfree during that time. Date completed/occupied: With planning consents now granted for both sites and The London Mayors Office and the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) signed- off, the next stage (in progress now) is for the Skanska Innisfree consortium to complete their financing package. That is expected to be completed in July 2005. 4 AIA Technology in Architectural Practice Building Information Model Awards 2005 A development consortium provides the facility, having raised the finance, takes on the financing and construction risks, leases the building to the occupier (here, the Barts and Royal London NHS Trust), operates, maintains and facility-manages the building for the occupier, and at the end of a prescribed period, transfers the property to the occupier. The objective of PFI is to transfer the financing of such buildings from the UK public sector, and transfer the risks involved in constructing and running the building (including cost and time overruns). The costs of it all are unitised over the prescribed period. The PFI consortium will be made up of a number of component companies (usually it will always be construction and finance led - developer and financier/investor) who have the inhouse skills or outside consultants to provide an integrated delivery to the end-user As Simon Hipperson, president of Skanska BOT (Build, Operate and Transfer) has said: The consortium has taken the issues of design quality very seriously, and in HOK we have a partner who will deliver a scheme truly worthy of the global reputation of Skanska and The Barts and The London NHS Trust. The structure of the PFI process directs that the Architects Client is the PFI consortium and not the end user although the brief, design development and signoff is as a result of direct interfacing with the Trust administrators and the clinicians. The skill in managing the design process is to deliver an affordable design with low maintenance using materials with efficient cost in use profiles which will satisfy the clinical operating needs of a 21st century hospital The project is made even more complex for the team by a requirement of The Trust that the two existing hospital complexes and their services remain in operation throughout demolition and construction. There is, therefore, a complex plan of phasing which includes demolition, decanting and construction throughout the project period. The project has accommodation in excess of 160 departments, 900 in-patient beds and 10,000 rooms with over 300,000 items of equpment that will be to be loaded into the BIM.
The two existing hospital campuses are both part of the estate of The Barts and The London NHS Trust, are both with historic properties at their core, with a long history of being at the forefront of medical research, hospital practice and patient care. They both serve dense urban areas to the east of the City of London, and are held in high esteem by their local populations. The local populations have a history of fighting any proposals which they perceive might diminish local services, with active media support. Part of the development proposals outlined in this submission has been to win over their support, and the support of the many regulators which have become involved regulators of architecture standards Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment and the London Mayors Office, as well as the two local authorities which give or deny planning consent. As part of the local consultation process, a community helpline telephone system was established, as well as regular newsletters for local residents and a website (www.Bartsand thelondon.nhs.uk/newhospitals). The development consortium also has a community relations manager and support staff, dedicated to the community understanding the project. In addition, the project has been subjected to regular interest from specialist architectural and construction press, as the design has emerged, not least because of the size and complexity of the project, the novelty and ongoing controversy of the use of PFI to provide public facilities. The route being used to procure the two new campuses requires some explanation. The Private Finance Initiative, PFI, has been adopted by the UK government as a preferred alternative for providing public facilities, like hospitals, government offices, prisons and schools. PFI has now been in operation in the UK for about 10 years 2 - Project Summary 5 AIA Technology in Architectural Practice Building Information Model Awards 2005 3 - Awards Criteria - Process Change Elevation generated from the 3D BIM - linework for adjacent buildings drawn as 2D linework 6 Both process and cultural changes were needed in advance of utilising a BIM approach; and working with the BIM has resulted in additional changes that were not fully foreseen. To begin with, an entirely new role, the BIM Specialist, has been added to the project team. Such individuals are responsible for the integrity of the model, and divide the work according to building systems (curtain wall, core, etc.) rather than by sheet as in conventional drafting. These positions require staff who are relatively knowledgeable about the construction of the building, as well as very capable in using the software, skills which are not always easily found in the same person. On the other hand, the need for pure drafting staff has been greatly reduced. During the early phases of design, the team management was concerned about the rate of progress of the work, and needed to be reassured that developing styles and other background BIM activities was truly sufficient progress, since the usual 2D drawings were not visibly underway. They also needed to be convinced that the views that would ultimately be created would be sufficiently finished, again without seeing the progress that they were accustomed to. As they experienced the results, which were generated automatically from the model, they became much more comfortable but needed to adjust their work planning to reflect the new way of working. The highly integrated nature of the model has required better coordination and communication. Changes in the model often related to systems in the model, and are often manifested in multiple drawing views. Of course this communication as the design changes were occurring, negated the need for much of the redmarking and drafting changes that would have been typical in a non-BIM project. (The approach to achieving this team coordination is expanded in a section which follows.) AIA Technology in Architectural Practice Building Information Model Awards 2005 3 - Awards Criteria - Process Change Photograph of Paul Jonker CAD/Database Coordinator 7 The architectural project managers were not fully prepared for some of the BIM- related tasks. New issues, such as contractual commitments by consultants to provide BIM model elements, procedures for studying interdisciplinary coordination in a single model, planning for exchange and update of the model components, and so on, have needed to be defined as they have arisen. The need for database skills has greatly increased. The team is confronting new concepts such as data normalisation and data integrity. It has become necessary to develop an overall schema for the data components, and these are not tasks that are normally associated with architectural practice. Whatever the difficulties, there has been a very high level of employee satisfaction with the process. HOK typically employs architecturally trained staff, even at the junior levels, and their career development and level of personal interest is much higher as a result of working on the BIM model, rather than doing the 2D drafting that they would have done in the past. AIA Technology in Architectural Practice Building Information Model Awards 2005 3 - Awards Criteria - Benefits Achieved Young architects working on BIM 8 One of the primary motivations for using a BIM approach was to reduce the effort during the design phase by eliminating the 3D Studio models that would otherwise need to be created in order to study the design. Certainly hundreds of hours have been saved, especially considering the many design iterations that were needed as the design progressed through the community review process. What is perhaps more significant, however, has been the fact that the design model continues to be available during production; a separate design-only model would normally be abandoned at this point. No truly quantifiable benefits of efficiency gained production are available because of there is really no comparable project for comparison. There are, however, many anecdotal examples that are compelling. Many of these have arisen from the need to count building elements for costing and energy analysis, including room areas, wall types and extents, doors, glass, and so on, which can be done almost instantly, but which would have required many hours of tedious work without a BIM. The integration with the medical planning team and the owners equipment requirements would have been orders of magnitude more expensive without the database automation. In many cases the most impressive savings come from the high degree of accuracy that the BIM provides. The contractual commitments that the consortium has made are very specific, including all of the medical equipment, even at the design phase, so any inaccuracy exposes the design team to a high degree of risk. Without a BIM it is very difficult to measure or count with 100% accuracy and the effort required to achieve the last 1% of accuracy is very expensive. With the BIM, these numbers can be maintained accurately at all times. AIA Technology in Architectural Practice Building Information Model Awards 2005 3 - Awards Criteria - Effective Team Collabouration Joao Paulo Cota Healthcare CAD Coordinator and Medical Planner 9 The start of the project coincided with a firmwide effort to promote collabouration between the worldwide HOK offices in order to reduce costs and share expertise. The team has been very effective in this respect, including healthcare and other technical staff from many other HOK locations in other countries. The current technology of BIM, however, has made it much more difficult to accomplish this level of coordination through the virtual collabouration of people at different locations, as is done with 2D drawing exchange. Although an elabourate, and effective protocol makes it possible for the separate disciplines to issue and receive building elements, it is much simpler to manage the architectural BIM model if it is located on a single server. For this, and other reasons, the client chose to locate the entire interdisciplinary design team at a single new location. This has been very effective in terms of promoting collabouration and has helped to build a positive team spirit, but has come at the expense of having some members relocate, and has tended to isolate the BIM experience from the rest of the office. AIA Technology in Architectural Practice Building Information Model Awards 2005 Several different technological approaches, including the use of the IFC exchange format defined by the International Alliance for Interoperability (IAI) are being explored. The most effective strategy to date has been to simply require that all of the participants use ADT-based software. Although the ADT based model elements are fully compatible, the ADT model is not always the best environment to study the geometry. Particularly for interference checking, the Navisworks software has been an effective way to coordinate the work from different models. The Structural Engineers Skanska Technology and Yolles were soon to produce and share their CSC 3D+ structural concrete and steelwork 3D object models that they delivered translated to ADT. HOK created a customised application that would split their single DWG file into separate floor levels and create DWG and XML files to rapidly bring them across to the Architectural Design Team. The medical team chose Codebook as the database tool to help them digest the complex NHS Trust brief and provide a linkage to rooms produced in the CAD drawings to allow room area information to be scheduled from ADT Area Objects via the database. This link provided us with a mechanism to synchronise our CAD drawings with the Codebook database, being able to push and pull centric data. This Codebook hook with ADT required us to commission Autodesk and the Codebook developers to create this new feature to the Codebook software which is now available for other Architects and Medcial Planners in the Construction Industry to use. As this project moves towards the construction drawings phase we are looking at enriching the objects like walls, doors, windows etc to embed them with Property Set Data. HOK has created a customised link to the CAD drawings which pushes the data to an access database without the need to open CAD drawings. This has had the benefit of scheduling 95,000 database records in less than 2 minutes. This now gives us the potential to reverse this and drive the drawings from the database. Our object model has been issued to our Services consultants and they have for produced daylighting studies utilising IES analysis software. 10 3 - Awards Criteria - Software Interoperability AIA Technology in Architectural Practice Building Information Model Awards 2005 4 - BIM Approach - Capability ADT Project Navigation provides a good data structure for BIM 11 The approach to the structure of the BIM is very closely tied to the software design. Autodesk Architectural Desktop (ADT) is fundamentally an enhanced version of the non-object based AutoCAD software and achieves its BIM capability through a carefully structured system of folders, files and xref relationships between the files. Some of this structure is implicit in the software design, particularly the Project Navigator functionality, but other aspects have been developed by HOK. The project was fortuitous in that it provided an opportunity for HOK to develop Firmwide BIM standards that are capable of handling a very complex project, since it can be assumed that they will then be capable of handling simpler ones. (Incidentally, the Firmwide HOK CAD group has defined good standards for this approach and has committed to sharing them with an industry-wide BIM standard effort.) AIA Technology in Architectural Practice Building Information Model Awards 2005 The file-based nature of ADT essentially creates containers of information that are, in effect, the worksets of the team sharing the model. They can be joined together and interact to some degree, but generally an individual works on one, and only one, file at a given time. This has led to a strategy of granularity that uses more, separate files, than are strictly required, but permits very flexible patterns of working and encourages a very structured approach to information management. The folder and file structure is based on an ordered hierarchy: Building: each building is a separate BIM. Model Role: the model files are separated from the view and sheet files; Discipline: each design discipline has separate files; Level: the primary geometric division is by floor level; Theme; within a level, building systems such as cores, stairs, shell, equipment, and so on, are given their own drawing. Within views, the various kinds of sheets utilise separate views. This structure has not been as limiting as one might suppose. The majority of the effort in a hospital can be associated with a floor level, so it is natural to want to divide tasks up in this way anyway. The subdivisions by theme create a large number of files in proportion to the number of people working on the project, which tends to minimize the conflicts of more than one person wanting to use the same file at the same time. 4 - BIM Approach - Overall Structure 12 AIA Technology in Architectural Practice Building Information Model Awards 2005 The cross-referencing between the files (external reference or xref in AutoCAD) is carefully controlled so that only the required model elements are included in each view. This has greatly diminished the need for layers, and their function has been restricted primarily to controlling graphic appearance. Since the layer settings are almost entirely pre-defined by the ADT objects or the HOK menu customisations, the team is generally unaware of the layers, and this once-contentious subject has become much less of a topic of concern (much to everyones relief.) The illustrations on the next five pages illustrate how this works in practice. The first one on Page 14 illustrates the division of the model by component and shows that an individual level is actually composed of several sub-files, which can be combined temporarily while the model is being worked on, but included separately with specific views. The next illustration on Page 15 shows the division of the model by floor plates. This subdivision of content make it possible to create special-purpose working views, as shown on Page 16 that shows how a particular theme like a core or stair, for example, spans across multiple levels. The final illustration on Page 17 demonstrates the products that the Building Information Model can produce. The placement of the building skin in this system has been one of the most difficult issues. The software supports two approaches: either a strip of the skin can be created at each level, and stacked to create the whole building; or, a spanning construct can be used to define it across several levels. Both approaches have their merits, both in terms of how the software functions, and in terms of how the design is understood; and both approaches have been used in the project. Uncertainty about which approach to use has resulted in additional work to convert the skin from one set of model elements to the other, and this issue is not fully resolved. 4 - BIM Approach - Data File Division 13 AIA Technology in Architectural Practice Building Information Model Awards 2005 Structural Slabs Filename: BNB-S-SL-04 Structural Columns & Core Walls Filename: BNB-S-SL-04 Architectural Columns Filename: BNB-A-CL-04 Architectural Cores Filename: BNB-A-CO-04 Architectural Shell Filename: BNB-A-SH-04 Clinical Fit-out Filename: BNB-C-FP-04 4 - BIM Approach - Division of the Model by Component 14 AIA Technology in Architectural Practice Building Information Model Awards 2005 Basement Level Filename: BNB-A-FP-B1 Ground Level Filename: BNB-A-FP-00 Level 5 Filename: BNB-A-FP-05 Level 7 Filename: BNB-A-FP-07 Roof Level Filename: BNB-A-FP-RF 4 - BIM Approach - Division of the Model by Level 15 AIA Technology in Architectural Practice Building Information Model Awards 2005 Structural Slabs Filename: BNB-S-SL-3D-VW Structural Columns, Cores & Piling Filename: BNB-S-SL-3D-VW Architectural Columns Filename: BNB-A-CL-3D-VW Architectural Cores Filename: BNB-A-CO-3D-VW Architectural Shell Filename: BNB-A-SH-3D-VW Clinical Fit-out Filename: BNB-C-FP-3D-VW 4 - BIM Approach - Division of the Model by Theme 16 AIA Technology in Architectural Practice Building Information Model Awards 2005 4 - BIM Approach - Products of the Model 17 Sections Design Studies Plans Analysis The BIM Model Elevations Studies Visuals Data AIA Technology in Architectural Practice Building Information Model Awards 2005 An important component of the BIM strategy is the distinction between elements that are modelled in 3D, and elements that are drawn only in 2D. The use of 2D is not viewed as a compromise, but as a feature of BIM that respects the history of orthographic drawing as a means to architecture. It has been important to draw that line carefully, however. Initially, the elevations were based on a background derived from the model, but drawn as linework in order to better control the placement of detail such as the joints in the curtain wall. As the teams modelling skills have increased, however, they have been able to use the live view of the model. Details will continue to be 2D since it is not efficient to create detailed model elements that appear in relatively few locations in the documents, and many details will be derived from the firms libraries and other projects. 4 - BIM Approach - 2D and 3D Distinction Section generated from our BIM with added people and linework to adjacent building 18 AIA Technology in Architectural Practice Building Information Model Awards 2005 4 - BIM Approach - Elevations Elevation generated from BIM Model that contains materials (trees, people, adjacent buildings, sky added in manually) 20 AIA Technology in Architectural Practice Building Information Model Awards 2005 The 1:200 plans were used to establish the major functional areas and overall programme compliance. ADT area objects were linked to the CodeBook medical planning database through some special utilities developed by the CodeBook developers. This allowed the area object data to be synchronised with the external database and has made it possible to continuously review the area totals. The ADT display functionality makes it possible for the 1:200 views to utilise the same model elements as the 1:50 plans but display in less detail. This avoids the need to create separate drawings and reduces the clutter of the sheets. 4 - BIM Approach - 1:200 Process 1:200 plans containing Wall, Door and Area Objects created by our Medical Planners 21 AIA Technology in Architectural Practice Building Information Model Awards 2005 The placement of non-graphic data is another important component of the BIM design. The CodeBook medical planning software, for example, is organised to reduce the amount of data that is stored in the drawings in favour of data in a separate, but linked, database. This reflects an historical facility management approach that has sought to minimise the need to use CAD where data is not geometric. It uses a simple symbol in the CAD drawing to define location, but stores other equipment attributes in tables of the database. This is a very efficient approach for generating programme information and reporting on costs, etc. It is also useful from a facility owners point of view, because they are integrating that data with other enterprise databases for purchasing, asset management, and so on. However, this structure is somewhat at odds with the goal of the BIM functioning as a repository for building information that exists over the life-cycle of the building. The CodeBook software developers have worked with the team to integrate the database with the ADT object property sets, however this has tended to create duplicate information in both environments. This issue is not fully resolved and is the subject of some current development. It will ultimately have to address the long-term goals of the facility operators, which are still being defined. HOK worked with Autodesk, Excitech and Codebook to develop a link from ADT to Codebook utilising the Area Object, previously Codebook only recognised the humble Polyline and we did not want to draw room boundaries twice. So the customisation allowed us to use the Area objects to push the room area to Codebook, meanwhile we are now able to pull data from the Codebook database and attach it as Property Set Data to the area objects. Using this approach we can display brief data into our drawings. 4 - BIM Approach - Database Relationships 22 DATABASE DRAWINGS Views Sheets Elements Constructs Equipment Equipment Views\Q\Floors LNB-Q-FP-01 1:50 Equipment Sheets (Sketches) Sheets\Q\Sketches Equipment Construct BY DEPT. Construct\Q\Floors LNB-Q-FP-01-00_00-000 Notes: How are Departments shown? Room Types not consistently named Door brief needs to be added to Codebook so that it shows up in RDS BLT Codebook Relationships - Revision B 25 March 2005 Area Tag Views\C\Area Tag LNB-C-AT-01 AreaAndTag Construct BY DEPT. Construct\C\Floors LNB-C-AT-01-00_00-000 Clinical Floor Plan Views\C\2 Floor Plans LNB-C-FP-01 Clinical 1:200 Sheets Sheets\C\2 Floor Plans Clinical Walls & Doors Construct Construct\C\Floors LNB-C-FP-01 CODEBOOK DATABASE BRIEF EQUIPMENT DESIGNED EQUIPMENT BRIEF TRUST BRIEF Format? SCHEDULE OF ACCOMMODATION BY HCP Format? BRIEF ROOM NAME/BRIEF AREA m2 DESIGN AREA m2 Site Department Code Department Name Room Number Room Types (Unique to Dept) TRUST SIGN OFF TRUST SIGN OFF TRUST SIGN OFF ROOM DATA SHEETS ARCHITECTURAL MEDICAL ENVIRONMENT M+E DOORS DESIGNED DOOR BRIEF DOOR BRIEF COMPARISON REPORTS BRIEF V DESIGNED DEPARTMENTS ROOMS EQUIPMENT DOORS MEDICAL CONNECTIONS (Each instance of rooms are linked to database using ADB) SINGLE ISSUE ONLY FREQUENT UPDATES TO BRIEF From Trust etc MANUAL UPDATE CODEBOOK REMOTE BY OTHERS SERVICES UPDATE UPDATE AIA Technology in Architectural Practice Building Information Model Awards 2005 At 1:50 scale, the plans show the actual equipment layouts, since this level of detail has been included in the design package. The CodeBook database is designed to allow the medical planners to define equipment needs as a database activity, and allow the architecture team to place the equipment on the plans through an automated process. At this scale, the ADT display system was used to show more detail, but made use of some common annotation, such as room names, for example. 4 - BIM Approach - Database Relationships A small sample of Medical Equipment Loading utilising the Codebook Database ADT Clinical Rooms showing Required/Proposed Areas Codebook/ADT Equipment Loading from Codebook Database Client Room Equipment Requirement Designed Room Data Proposed 23 AIA Technology in Architectural Practice Building Information Model Awards 2005 The details of the BIM implementation in ADT have formed the basis of a Firmwide HOK standard for BIM. While these consist of fairly prosaic technical details about file naming and the like, they actually define an organisation of information that is much more profound. Fundamentally, the BIM is used to produce documents, and the relationship between the sheets of the document sets and the model elements is determined by the xref relationships between the files. This is partially controlled by the software design, but has also required a rigid standardization to be manageable. It has required some effort and learning to create the granular division of the data into files, and the highly structured reference relationships, but the resulted is a extremely versatile system of information management. Since this file organisation is thus truly a data organisation, and because the files contain data and links to separate databases, the structure as a whole can be viewed as a data schema. Although it has arisen in a somewhat ad-hoc way, and suffers from some inherent ambiguities as a result, this schema is evolving into a very comprehensive solution that includes all of the space and equipment information for the hospital, as well as construction data on the building itself. 4 - BIM Approach - Firmwide Implementation Example of Xref structure to generate our deliveravbles CLINICAL ARCHITECTURE Views Sheets Elements ` CLINICAL EQUIPMENT ARCHITECTURAL Architectural Floor Plan (A) Views\A\2 Floor Plans LNB-A-FP-01-VW Architectural 1:200 Sheets Sheets\A\2 Floor Plans ?? Area Tag Views\C\Area Tag LNB-C-AT-01 Equipment Views\Q\Floors LNB-Q-FP-01 1:50 Equipment Sheets (Sketches) Sheets\Q\Sketches ?? FIRE Fire Construct Construct\F\Fire LNB-A-FR-01 Fire View Views\F\2 Floor Plans LNB-A-FR-01-VW Fire Strategy 1:200 Sheets Sheets\F\2 Floor Plans ?? Equipment Construct BY DEPT. Construct\Q\Floors LNB-Q-FP-01-00_00-000 Cores ..\A\Cores\LNB-A-CO-01 Shell ..\A\Cores\LNB-A-SH-01 .Columns ..\A\Columns\LNB-A-CL-01 Struc Columns ..\S\Columns\LNB-A-CL-01 AreaAndTag Construct BY DEPT. Construct\C\Floors LNB-C-AT-01-00_00-000 Clinical Floor Plan Views\C\2 Floor Plans LNB-C-FP-01 Clinical 1:200 Sheets Sheets\C\2 Floor Plans ?? Clinical Walls & Doors Construct Construct\C\Floors LNB-C-FP-01 DEPARTMENT Department Area ?? ?? 1:200 Department Sheets Sheets\?\?? ?? Department Area Construct Construct\C\Department ?? ?? Clinical Sign Off ?? ?? Clinical Sign Off 1:200 Sheets Sheets\?\?? ?? Note: LNB First Floor Example used Pre Financial Close XREF structure for LNB/BNB - Revision C 24 March 2005 Architectural Floor Plan (C) Views\A\2 Floor Plans_C LNB-A-FPC01-VW Clinical Floor Plan (A) Views\C\2 Floor Plans_A LNB-C-FPA01 1:200 Equipment Sheets Sheets\Q\2 Floor Plans ?? 25 AIA Technology in Architectural Practice Building Information Model Awards 2005 HOK uses a standard folder structure for all project work and the BIM model is a component within that. Because of the way ADT is organised, a separate folder tree is used for each building. By HOK convention, internal paths are always relative so the folder structure is not dependent on the server location. Folder and file naming follows a rigid convention, based on the building location, type of file, and so on, that guarantees unique file names and make it possible to identify the general contents of each container of information by its name. These conventions are somewhat arbitrary and anachronistic in terms of current BIM theory and the capabilities of the ADT Project Navigator, but are useful for managing data through the backdoor of the ADT interface. The ability to manage data in this way is a significant aspect of ADT, as compared with other BIM software. While somewhat old fashioned, and sometimes labour intensive, it is very flexible. It also lends itself well to customization and HOK uses a variety of specially written software (primarily VBA) for pushing information into the ADT BIM environment. 4 - BIM Approach - Data Organisation HOK CAD Standards have had a major revision to provide for BIM approach 26 AIA Technology in Architectural Practice Building Information Model Awards 2005 Another important component of the folder and file structure is that it provides a platform for synchronising the architectural BIM model with the models of consultants and other members of the design team. This federation of purpose- built models is necessary, given the state-of-the-art of the software industry, in order to truly collabourate between disciplines. It is generally not desirable that the disciplines, or even the various specialties within HOK, view each others work live. Rather, each group publishes their parts of the model according to a carefully controlled schedule, and then imports the related components of the other parties. This distinction occurs both within the local instance of the model on HOKs server, and between the distributed copies of the model maintained by the different design organisations. This structure can also accommodate alternatives and phasing. Through a system of file naming the alternatives can be kept distinct from one another. They are combined at the view level with the appropriate phase or alternative defined by the xref pointer. 4 - BIM Approach - File Structure 27 AIA Technology in Architectural Practice Building Information Model Awards 2005 The BIM is also used as a purely geometric 3D model for design study. The most difficult task has been using the ADT model objects in a way that meets the visualization needs of the designers. While it is fairly easy to create 3D views in ADT that are adequate for in-house study, the very sensitive nature of the public review required that fully rendered 3D Studio images be created as well. There is quite a bit of art to this because the way in which the objects are created, in terms of their geometry, layering, colours, materials, and so on, has a significant effect on how easily they can be exported to 3D Studio. The organisation of the files has been very beneficial in this respect, because it made it easier to limit the scope of what was exported, which helped to reduce the size of the rendered models. Having the BIM model has encouraged the use of more interesting design views. It is much easier to create section-perspectives, for example, and these have proven to be a very effective way to communicate. The BIM model has also made it easier to create temporary views to enable study of the design. As the building designers worked with the medical planners and the client, it was often convenient to create a view of just the circulation elements, or to cut a temporary section, for example. 4 - BIM Approach - Design Iteration New proposal generated from BIM and rendered in 3D Studio and finished in Photoshop. 28 AIA Technology in Architectural Practice Building Information Model Awards 2005 Hand Sketching (As required) ADT Sketching (As required) ADT Model Full Modelling incl, Basic Materials Viz Render Quick Visaul Checks 3D Studio Lights, Camera & Final Materials Photoshop Final Image Montage 4 - BIM Approach - Design/Modelling/Visualisation The same ADT Obejects have been used for the final image allowing us to draw 3D objects only once and reuse them 29 AIA Technology in Architectural Practice Building Information Model Awards 2005 A major element of the design is a random-appearing patterned curtain wall that is achieved with different kinds of glass. The specifics of this pattern were influenced not only by the appearance of the building, but by the locations of interior walls, which changed as the interior design evolved. The glass selection, in turn, affected the cost and energy performance of the building. By maintaining the curtain wall as objects, and scheduling the individual glass panes, it was possible to do this design with immediate visualisation of the decisions, and quantitative feedback on the results. The ability to rapidly change complex Curtain Wall objects throughout 20 floor levels coordinated on plans, sections, elevations and visualisation with individual glazed panels identified enabled us to schedule 29,000 Curtain Wall Units on the The Royal London Hospital with ease sufficient for us to verify Thermal Calculations to comply with Part L2 of the UK Building Regulations as shown on Page 31. 4 - BIM Approach - Curtain Wall Design Examples of ADT studies of Curtain Wall System 30 AIA Technology in Architectural Practice Building Information Model Awards 2005 An early commitment by the structural engineers to use 3D-Plus software made it easy to integrate structural elements into the model. This is because it uses ADT objects for its model elements and so no translation was necessary. Conceptually, it was agreed that the structural engineers own the structural elements, and that the representation of structure in the architectural model is based on a published copy of the structural model. This has been effective, and the process of managing the concurrent models has worked very well. There are some theoretical limitations to this approach however, since it is not really possible in ADT to define an object, such as a wall, that contains elements from two different models. Consequently, the architectural walls were generally not defined to the component level, but simply represent a zone between two finished surfaces. When the structural and architectural models are combined, the structural elements appear to be contained within the architectural walls and horizontal slabs. This is very effective for maintaining coordination, but less so for deriving detailed section views from the model. Accepting the principle that as Architect we show our own columns as finishes only (the outer ring) we Xref the structure into our drawings so that the structure (the inner ring) is displayed on our drawings at 1:50 scale. 4 - BIM Approach - Structural Integration Structural model divided integrated into the Architectural design 34 AIA Technology in Architectural Practice Building Information Model Awards 2005 The building systems engineers are not yet participating in the BIM model. This is not from an unwillingness or lack of appreciation of the value, but because these systems are being provided on a design-build basis. Ultimately, the design of the ductwork and major equipment will be done in the context of the supply chain (similar to shop drawings in the US.) It is hoped that these entities will be able to utilise the BIM at that time. The architectural team is exploring the idea of studying the space requirements for this future design work by defining a building systems zone as a non-specific, 3D element, that defines the physical limits of the future work, and can be used for interference checking in the current model. 4 - BIM Approach - Building Services Our design studio at Skanska offices 35 AIA Technology in Architectural Practice Building Information Model Awards 2005 The database potential of the BIM is only beginning to be realised but holds a great deal of potential. As described earlier, the fundamental organisation of the data has come from the file organisation. This makes it slightly less usable until it is combined into a more conventional database environment so it is typically exported to Microsoft Access or Excel. Currently, the team is developing custom applications to further access the data at the object level and to automate the extraction process. In this way, the overall organisation can be linked to a specific object type, such as a piece of equipment, and attribute data of the object, such as its heat generation, to produce aggregate data in terms of the BIM, such as cooling load by room. The initial focus of this effort is to insure data integrity, since there is a large amount of complex requirements for a hospital. In the next phases this capability will have to be made more adaptive, since the equipment requirements of a hospital can change significantly during the time it takes to design and construct the facility. Ultimately, these tools will be used to force data into the BIM. This is being done for the medical equipment with the CodeBook software but is not currently possible with the other kinds of objects. The team foresees a need to do certain kinds of data manipulation outside of the BIM and then update the model attributes. This will help the facility operators to coordinate equipment data with their other enterprise databases, for example. 4 - BIM Approach - Databases Carla Spencer our Document Controller for revisable documents 36 AIA Technology in Architectural Practice Building Information Model Awards 2005 7 - Submitters Contact Information HOK International Limited 216 Oxford Street, London, W1C 1DB, United Kingdom +44 (0) 207 636 2006 First contact miles.walker@hok.com +(44)207 898 5182 Mario Guttman AIA CAD Director Miles Walker MSc CAD Manager, Project CAD Manager Rich Drozd AIA Director of Operations Larry Malcic AIA Director of Design Chuck Siconolfi AIA Director of Healthcare Andrew Barraclough RIBA Project Director, Director of Public & Institutional Elizabeth Niedzwiecki AIA Project Manager Healthcare Jim Pennel Project Designer They all can be contacted at HOK International, Oxford Street as above. 42 11 April 2005