BIM
Building Information Modelling (BIM) enables our project teams to collaborate and communicate seamlessly and efficiently.
While the benefits in relation to risk management, productivity, construction time scales and cost savings make a clear case for its use throughout the project lifecycle, BIM is also a powerful tool that can drive our industry towards achieving net-zero carbon targets and a circular economy in construction. It is an important catalyst for change in our efforts to understand how to do better things for the planet and encourage the use of sustainable materials and construction methods.
We are strategic partners of the UK BIM Alliance and also chair the Institute of Structural Engineers BIM Panel. Our in-house specialist BIM team provides the full range of services to allow project teams to make well-informed decisions faster, achieve more efficient and effective designs and deliver buildings that can be built and managed more sustainably.
What is BIM?
BIM helps you improve Design Team coordination by giving you the ability to model and share information in a 3D environment. To reduce the contractor’s risk, we recommend appointing a BIM Coordinator to review, clash detect models and develop a fully coordinated model at Tender.
With a coordinated BIM approach, you can easily produce walkthroughs of the federated model.
Going from flat objects to 3D gives you and the client a better understanding of the project, reducing late changes and ensuring time to make any necessary updates.
By creating videos to support the level of coordination reached, you can instil confidence in the design.
Carbon, reuse, and waste reduction are key considerations for your projects.
We use embedded data within the models to quantify materials, e.g. a 100mm blockwork wall will have a volume associated with it.
This data can be utilised to establish the quantity of materials for reuse or material volumes for purchasing purposes. It can also help generate carbon comparisons and promote the specification of sustainable materials.
BIM can capture and share a greater understanding of health and safety issues with both the Principal Designer and the Building Safety Regulator. This is particularly useful for information related to the Building Safety Act and fire.
In line with the ‘Golden Thread’ ethos, health and safety information should be able to be managed, validated, and traced throughout a project. With careful planning, all risks can be added to models, shown on drawings, and shared as required, with all risks generated and updated in the models.
3D models generate data as standard. How this data is utilised on a project will often depend on whether the building is going to be sold or managed by the client team.
With Asset Information Models and Digital Twins becoming commonplace, careful thought needs to be given to what data the client (and more importantly its facilities manager) will find valuable.
The OWO
A complex engineering project involving the ambitious refurbishment, extension and adaptive reuse of the former Old War Office building in Whitehall.
BIM