Thursday, December 27, 2012

Happy 2013

I would like to post some photos of my trip to the dreamy German city of Weimar last month as a belated Christmas blessing. Thanks to Fredrik Kopsch, we - a group of Ph.D. students from KTH's Department of Real Estate and Construction Management - made a short trip to Bauhaus University and participated in an amazing colloquium together with students from the corresponding department at the German university.

Weimar is a unique cultural venue in the sense that the city is rich in cultural monuments and memorials spanning over such a wide temporal period that encompasses Goethe and Schiller from the 17th century as well as the Bauhaus movement and modern art and architecture.

Bauhaus University - Mensa
Bauhaus University - Main building

The University Library


Weimar Schloss

Goethe and Schiller - Theaterplatz






Monday, December 24, 2012

BIM for FM


A presentation for the course Facility Management (AI2119) last month forced me to put together my results so far. The initial part was as usual a short summary on Building Information Modelling (BIM), its definitions and common applications. This was followed by an introduction to the Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) contract method as a business enabler in building industry. The necessity of BIM for this approach by underpinning informed work flows was then demonstrated in a couple of slides. The third  and last episode of this first part was a clarification of the need for a vendor-neutral all-inclusive implementation of BIM if it is truly aimed to be used for promoting an integrated approach. This is, as you may guess, the buildingSMART's initiative termed as open BIM.


The first part was a prelude to the second and the main part of the presentation on FM:BIM - BIM for facilities management. This was initiated with basics of facilities management with regard to the knowledge management tools and systems that are used in the field. Subsequently, problematic areas namely work flows, contracts and IT tools, a number of available standards (e.g. IFC and COBie) and tools (such as FMDesktop, ArchiFM and Bentley Facilities) were shortly introduced. The presentation was rounded off by some words on what I tend to call FM:BIM:BAS. Actually, not so many applications support simultaneous integration of the BIM model and the Building Automation Systems (BAS) into the FM application of the client. Onuma Systems and EcoDomus are two prominent examples.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Architectural Concept

Architects are mainly interested in form, engineers much more in technology and economy, and both groups are largely apt to fall into overpositioning in their assumptions. Construction managers, on the other hand, are more pragmatic and indulge themselves in communicating and planning their relationships. Architects often strongly deny that they follow some specific style, rather allege that they tend to adhere to a set of "guiding principles". 

These were conclusions of one of the students groups participating in the course "Architectural Concept" (AI2802). As part of the final session for project presentations, a number of construction projects were introduced mainly with regard to the relation among the designer and the construction manager. One of prominent examples was Aula: the 7-storey landmark at Karolinska Institute in Solna. The well-coordinated collaboration among the client (Akademiska Hus), the design firm (Wingårdh Arkitektkontor) and the contractor (NCC) has made it possible to bring the complex curvy mass of the building and its intricate glasswork detailings into reality. The students' conclusion was that the well-established and seamless oral communication among the two teams helped developing the trust required for underpinning a fruitful collaboration.


A number of mixed rental apartments and condominiums together with a number of public projects were also introduced with Rosenbergs and Vera consulting firms as the designer and Wallenstam as the contractor. All of these projects are located in Norra Djurgårdsstaden, the new sustainable district of Stockholm. Higher energy saving, better environmental performance, efficient rain water management and higher green building scores are some common goals in Norra Djurgårdsstaden; while economic hurdles of green roofs, structural difficulties with wide cantilevers of continuous balconies and conflicts with the Royal National City Park (Kungliga nationalstadsparken) on land exploitation are the main challenges.

The last presented project was The New Karolinska Complex (Nya Karolinska Solna - NKS) which I had briefly introduced in one of my previous posts: a mixed research, education and healthcare center located at the conjunction of and joining together the two municipal divisions of Solna and Stockholm. NKS will be the third but the foremost component of the planned lifecycle cluster encompassing Stockholm University (SU), The Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) and NKS. The major design firms - White and Tengboom - have aimed to provide equipped rooms, a combination of modern and light and brick-like materials, a handful of artworks and interior intricacies as well as uninterrupted machine pathways all around the building. These are devised respectively for a commendable integration with the existing urban context, a warm and hospitable atmosphere for patients and their visitors and robot-aided transportation of clothes and instruments. The major criticism against the design is though the lower number of beds maintained compared with existing facilities.

Initiatives such as the course "Architectural Concept" are valuable steps towards a more collaborative approach to education of building construction and design. The course was being held at the KTH School of Architecture aiming for exposing the construction managers of tomorrow to the atmosphere, mindsets and working contexts of design professionals of the future. The career is heavily dependent on an array of digital tools that over increasingly demand for more trans-disciplinary collaboration and converging workflows.

Sources:
http://www.ncc.se/sv/Byggnader/Offentliga-byggnader/aula-karolinska-institutet-solna/
http://stockholmprojekt.blogspot.se/2012/02/norra-djurgardsstaden-norra-2.html
http://www.nationalstadsparken.se/default.aspx?id=1777
http://www.nyakarolinskasolna.se/