And how to implement BIM in them
This text represents is the first part of the BIM-related buildings series. In this chapter, we are going to talk about implementing BIM within the different stages of production: from the built constructions to the technologies allowing to build houses up faster.
The Edge
What’s IoT in this?
So, The Edge is a business center located in the capital of the Netherlands, and also is a perfect showing off when talking about the advantages of BIM. While it was built in 2015, office center was seeking help out of the Internet of Things for it was its fundamental postulate. The usage of BIM in The Edge, however, is not the same as always: it more likely bringing to mind realization, that BIM techs allow The Edge to perform highly compared to the other BIMs. So, here are the crucial hallmarks: all of the energy communication within a building are vitalized and automatized; every instance of the structure being used is tracked, all the forecasting parties were affirmed, and finally every energy investigation got reported.
IoT put simple is a network of object communicating with each other. Deloitte, the owner of a building, collects the terabytes of data on a daily basis to comprehend the interactions between the structure and its employees. The various sorts of information are accumulated every second: food supplies, internet connection, lighting and its energy usage.
It is also important to notice: the amount of data collected via IoT provides the building maintenance with the info needed on sustainability matters: heating, cooling and other energy processes are entirely automatized and consume no energy.
Numbers, figures, technology
Talking about kinds of steadiness projection The Edge compiles all of the achievements. For example complete power neutrality. There is a cooperation between The Edge’s manufacturer OVG, and the two universities in Amsterdam — so universities provide an area of 4,100 square meters on their roofs and manufacturer fills them with solar panels — the south side of The Edge is also implemented with solar panels on all facades that are not windows.
And the energy goes to The Edge by a built-in aquifer thermic power storage located at 130m below the ground — it produces all electricity required for thermal regulations within the building.
The Edge takes up about 40 thousand square meters of smart communications. The structure in its entirety, however, is now wholly sustainable: its decent rate almost reaches 100 percent and stops and the number 96. It is still nonetheless the highest figure in the world.
Talking straight about the figures it is crucial to say that all that sustainability every employee and journalist is so proud about is not only an ecological matter (but this, too). But also a matter of economy — while all of the heating and electricity expenses are cut to none it is a lot cheaper — 40 to 50 percent to be exact — to maintain the building.
What’s BIM in this?
Users can summarize data chunks and also attach different values to every fragment at various periods of time: short-term — for exemplars lasting for days — weeks and long-term — for a year or season options — it is all operated within the BIM environment. Therefore, it allows you to produce and summarize and identify data and data sets. While making sense of those sets, it is crucial to maintaining precision on what we can presently do with the datasets at hand.
Nowadays it is essential to implement not only digital solutions but also proper aesthetics and functionality in the building environment. While The Edge was finished in 2015, the BIM helped it in the way of assisting the IoT implementation.
So, to monitor all of the processes, the builders must use IoT — this way all of the communications will be interconnected. But to achieve a decent level of connection, it is useful to have BIM by one’s side: not only will it help the construction, as mentioned in our previous texts, but also will it provide a proper way of IoT at work.
BROAD Sustainable Building
Gotta build fast!
The main thing to Broad technology is two compartments: large pre-manufactured parts are continually being in production — pieces of floors, steel columns, etc. While 90% of the building is transferred to the facility (ex. g. pipes, and columns), — all what is left to workers is to put the details just in place — like this making the construction easy and compared to assembling IKEA furniture or LEGO toys.
In a nutshell: all the sheets are fabricated at the factory and installed just at the construction site. For putting the building together, workers use the flanges and high-resistant bolts. The parts of the floor, lighting systems and walls are also made before the building process. It is also cleaner than usual constructing on site: the wastes produced are about 1 percent of a typical amount of garbage in general construction sites.
It may come as a surprise, but such structures can withstand the magnitude nine earthquake. For instance, eight magnitude earthquake can destroy the community within its epicenter. Plus, there is a number of economical solutions to these structures: they are energy efficient from 10 to 30 per cent compared to usual buildings.
Figures, cases, all-in-one
The Broad Sustainable Building’s chairman Zhang Yue is currently building the world’s highest construction — it is called Sky City and is located in Changsha. For, the building is being formed in the nearby factories as well as houses for those who build and maintain the construction process. The aforementioned house has a growth rate of 3 floors per day, planning to have 57 stories and 800 flats.
However, political reasons are keeping the chairman Zhang from building it as he wants it to be: the Sky City construction was stopped at the progress of 20 floors because the authorities decided to cut building’s plans 40 stories down. So, it was thought to be 97 stories and got reduced to 57, there is a hypothesis that the reason is the airport — the building too tall must have been disrupting some flights.
One of the crucial Sky City details is interior design: the critical space is called “Sku Street” — it connects the parts of the structure vertically. It is a total of 19 areas, three floors each and also in-between ramps connecting sections with each other. Slopes, however, are continuously in use by bikers and basketball players — it is like the streets within a house.
MX3D
What does Autodesk have to do with this?
Autodesk is providing the project with the cloud technologies that will supply the bridge’s data consumption and handling. One of the Autodesk’s partners are the reviewers from The Alan Turing Institute, and together they are trying to develop computer learning which would allow the bridge to understand the various type of signals and to respond on them sharply. Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions will realize new options to manage, reflect and compare the datasets which bridge collects to additional sources of surroundings data in the Metropolitan Area of Amsterdam.
Autodesk has decided to team up with MX3D to gain the advantages of its robotics and neurotechnologies. MX3D have also spoken up about their distinctive features such as 3D printing as it is clear from the name and fix every component with melting steel on the construction site.
“Building outside the box” is the primary construction principle MX3D have an ace in its sleeve. While using the 6-axis 3D printers the architects are no longer limited to the square shape in all of the cases — it is crucially important in matters such as construction.
The role of BIM
One of the first attempts to use 3D printers consisted of printing board minimized models for architecture bureaus. Those figures, while BIM was not so famous, assisted designers during the process and were mere instruments for marketing and outlining purposes in design firms. 3D printing allowed to reduce costs paid for minimized models, while it was still not time-saving to made copies by hand. However, such state of things remained the standard for a long time.
The further development of multidimensional BIM technologies sent traditional models to rest. Nonetheless, it is still the sign of prosperity for some bureaus to depict models in such an archaic way.
6-axis mentioned above robots have worked under BIM guidance and supplement. An overall BIM impact on the scheme is as usual — multi-layer projections of all the levels of construction. This construction has also contributed to all further 3D printing buildings — there are many facilities which implement the 3D printing on a much bigger scales.
Stay tuned for the second part!
