Architects for Architects

It was the first time I participated in "Architects for Architects" seminar (Arkitekter för Arkitekter) which was held last week at ABF building in Stockholm. The balanced combination of lectures on modelling technologies and architectural works was gratifying. Robert Priller opened the event by an introductory talk which was followed by a brief explanation of the design for a treatment plant in Lidköpimng by Anna Hultén from Mächs Hultén Arkitekter. She then elaborated on their modelling procedure, mentioned their empirical findings on a more smooth management of their building models, and shared some experiences of the modelling team on how to efficiently exchange models and collaborate with other firms, Nyréns and WSP in this case.


Jorma Ehrnrooth talked about the new possibilities in Solibri Model Checker for area calculation in conformity with Swedish regulations. He clarified how the tool can facilitate optimizing the workflow process for extracting GFA, GIA, NIA, etc. The benefits of using vendor-neutral standard formats such as IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) and BCF (BIM Collaboration Format) for a more streamlined exchange of building information and models among disciplinary companies and actors were also emphasized. Torbjörn Kjellström then introduced new possibilities in ArchiCAD 17 including provisions for energy simulation already within the software's environment. He also showcased Graphisoft's novel initiative for navigating through building models on smart phones and tablet, BIMx.

Marco Folke Testa presented a distinguished example of a 3D-property: the Scandinavian Office Buildings. This office complex is owned by Fabege property company, designed by Reflex architectural firm, and being constructed by Peab. Its glass-clad volume accommodating 42000 sqm. (GLA) starts at the second floor of Mall of Scandinavia and protrudes 25 meters above its surrounding structure. The building is located at the heart of the new district in Stockholm, Arenastaden. 5D modelling routines, the overall structure of the CAD manual, the policy for dividing the building to several parts for avoiding problems with large model files, outsourcing parts of the model in the form raw free-hand models to future tenants for further development with regard to their spatial requirements, regular collision controls, assiduous exchange of disciplinary models and synchronising databases with Mal of Scandinavia, weekly collaboration meetings with team members and subcontractors, and routines for submitting updated models by all actors every other week were some of the topics covered by the speaker.

Even though I had previously attended a live demo presentation of these new alternatives for capturing existing building stock in BIM formats a couple of month ago, it was worth a second look since this is currently a very hot topic. Peter Olsson from cadpillar showcased two methods for this purpose. The conventional routine at the time is accurately scanning interior and exterior of the building with a total station, transforming the resulting point cloud to DWG or DXF files, importing them into a BIM software, overlying the scanned geometry with BIM elements, and complementing the model with additional information from surveys and miscellaneous documents. This method is allegedly very time-consuming and results in large-size models. The first alternative workflow presented was using a Flexijet4architects camera to capture building elements' geometry directly in ArchiCAD. By using a remote control, it will be possible to assure whether reference points are registered accurately when it is not handy to adjust the pointer from a distance. The models will however still require editing and manually adding non-geometric information. The other solution, Points4BIM, is a plug-in for ArchiCAD that enables the user to incrementally import an available point-cloud into the BIM tool. The required base point-cloud models are 360°-pictures in which each pixel contains XYZ coordinates of the point together together with its RGB color value. The advantages are: there is no need to import the entire large-size point cloud file to the BIM tool all at once; the modelling procedure can be carried out off-site and in a more accurate way (for example by zooming into the picture). The problem here is the possibility that not all geometries are captured in available point clouds and again, the need for further input of non-geometric data - which seems to be a permanent issue with all buildings designed in the pre-BIM era.

Ola Broms Wessel presented a mesmerizing lecture on a number of their designs at Spridd architectural firm which was a boost to the whole event in my opinion. Many of their projects have been located in areas rife with, or at the verge of segregation, poverty, and identity problems amplified by low-quality Million Programme buildings. This has led them towards a design methodology primarily focusing on social aspects of their projects and day-to-day problems of current or future dwellers. The overwhelming necessity for counterbalancing needs of the past and the future, reproducing the prevalent identity and promoting new values, and requirements of environmental, social and economic sustainability made the design team prioritize the process over the outcome in their proposal for Fittja People's Palace.

The winning proposal for Fittja People's Palace by Spridd and NCC 

The very last talk was given by Patrik Mälarholm on capabilities realized by Vico software for a 5D BIM-based construction. His speech touched upon a variety of topics including recent purchases of the new owner of the company, Trimble, in the fields of modelling and surveying, more widespread implementation of Vico in construction projects of varied sizes, prospects of drawing-free construction projects, and remaining issues such as different LODs of the models originating from different actors.

P.S. I just came across a Revit-compatible software for capturing as-built BIMs, EdgeWisw BIM Suit. I can however not judge its efficiency based on the descriptions in their page. 

Building Products Specifications of Tomorrow

One can not but pity those who resist an evidently overwhelming and inevitable change. It was not the first time that one of the audience at a professional meeting questioned if Building Information Modelling was really so widespread among Swedish construction firms that other actors should alter their routines accordingly. It was nevertheless less unexpected to hear such comments this time, since the session was mainly about the future of provision of building material specification.

Lecturers presented results of a preliminary survey carried out by the association for building material industries (Byggmaterialindustrierna) and financed by SBUF, SIVL, and WSP. The topic was how currently prevailing BVD (byggvarodeklaration) format should be enhanced so as to keep up with global developments in building information exchange and environmental evaluation policies. At an international level, concepts such as EPD (Environmental Product Declaration) and PCR (Product Category Rules) are gaining more popularity and being deployed more frequently by manufacturers for providing LCA-inclusive specifications of their products. 

However, ambiguities about which concepts to be used and how to interpret the terminology of each concept are escalated even further by the variety of applications that could be conceived for it: from Life Cycle Analysis of the building as a whole, through evaluation against building's environmental performance certification systems such as LEED, BREEAM, Miljöbyggnad, etc. to examination of social aspect of sustainability in construction.

Among the three categories of respondents to the questionnaires i.e suppliers, contractors, and property owners, the first group seemed to be the most negative to more widespread and obligatory supply of information on building products in digital formats; which sounds rational, since suppliers are the ones who should take the greatest endeavors for this purpose. Moreover, people quite often express their concern about how fair the venture is considering the fact that those who do not participate probably stay on the safer side.

It was concluded in the report that voluntary declaration of building products information without any auditing by some third party was still preferred, whereas provision of an improved template and more instruction were recommended. There was no final say in the report about whether to continue using separate databases or devising a central repository for accumulating information over time. A suggestion raised by one of the audience was though allowing use of own databases while leveraging and promoting a common approved standard format. The necessity for adopting digital formats and relinquishing all paper forms and hard-coded formats such as PDF was also highly emphasized.

The dominant theme of the talks after the pause was the urge for benefiting from the capabilities realized by BIM technologies for automation and acceleration of building information acquisition and exchange. This will facilitate swiftly executing realistic evaluation of multiple design alternatives and automated environmental certification of buildings at later stages. There are nevertheless a number of issues in the field to be tackled such as whether to use XML or IFC as the standard building information modeling format or how to converge the two separate areas of GIS and BIM.

This diagram demonstrates how BIM-based building product specifications helps realistic environmental evaluation of design alternatives and automated environmental certification of buildings (Image courtesy of WSP Environmental) 

Miscellaneous updates

In this post, I will briefly report on some recent events of different scales in a reverse chronological order:

1.

Magnus Svantegård clarifies how data queries on properties
is facilitated by an integrated web interface

Last Wednesday, Väino, Hannes, and me had a visit to Datscha company who procure information and analytic tools on commercial properties mainly in Sweden.

Magnus Svantegård explained their business plan for gathering, developing, packaging, and fitting data into user-friendly and customer-specific interfaces. Their business is mainly grounded on the demand of the actors in the Swedish real estate market for certified, customized, and easy-to-retrieve data on properties. It was then discussed how knowledge management systems implemented at urban and regional scales could be integrated with their counterparts at building level so as to maintain a holistic approach towards knowledge management of the built environment.

2.

Prof. Väino Tarandi intoduces an effort for extending use of IFC to
urban and regional scale

Last week, one more step was taken towards establishment of BIM Alliance Sweden. OpenBIM's meeting that was held at KTH main campus also included a visit to XPRESS lab and a presentation by us from the BIM Collaboration Lab about our latest research activities and interests. Väino, Örjan, and me briefly showcased two proposed solutions for life-cycle-support, and integrated knowledge management of the built environment:

The first example demonstrated a basic renovation project where the original model of the building was retrieved from an open format BIM repository (Share-A-space) possessing versioning functionality at building elements' level. Planned changes were made to the retrieved model in open standard (IFC) using a proprietary modelling software (ArchiCAD) and the output was sent back to the BIM repository again in IFC format. The information system proved to be capable of recognizing modified elements (here four walls) as newer versions of the elements already existing in the database. This approach will facilitate further use of previously-created building models in future projects inasmuch as it obviates the need for iterative transfer of sizable building models for the purpose of minor renovation and alteration projects.

The second example showcased a methodology for also capturing urban and regional features such as properties, infrastructure, and roads in the same data format as that of the buildings (here IFC). Such an approach can facilitate executing all-inclsive data queries at large spatial scales while having access to detailed elements that eventually constitute the building environment far beyond building blocks and residential units.

3.

Design team of White Architects explain their plan for
"moving" the city center of Kiruna

Finally, I would like to provide a summary of a one of the sessions at the Business Arena held at Stockholm Waterfront Congress on 17th and 18th September. The topic for this session was Collaboration among the municipality, construction firms, companies, and energy experts.

Representatives from Vattenfall, Sweco, Fortum, Siemens, and The City of Stockholm discussed how environmental concerns should be dealt with in a close collaboration among public and private actors at different levels. Collaboration among politicians, construction firms, consulting companies, and people, the importance of visualization of energy consumption for customers, and the significance of the soft aspects of the problem were among the topics that were raised. What makes the soft (behavioral) aspects of energy consumption optimization even more important is the fact that despite availability of the required technology for minimizing energy consumption, no major change is realized yet. Devising great visions that do not clearly specify how to achieve their articulated objectives was one of inefficient environmental policies that was criticized by the speakers.

BIM Alliance Sweden

1.

I have just come back from this year's jubilant education and research seminar of the KTH Department of Real Estate and Construction Management in a spectacular venue in Skåvsjöholm. All the staff including researchers and doctoral students embraced this timely opportunity to get to know each other and exchange their experiences in a relaxed atmosphere with lots of fun and sweets. I too managed to give my first short speech in Swedish for colleagues at the department and swim in the chilly though refreshing waters of the Baltic Sea perhaps for the very last time this year.

2.

Kalle, Alex, me, and Mount Kebnekaise

Two weeks ago, I managed to step on the highest peak in Sweden, Mount Kebnekaise. It took us 16 hours on the railroad to arrive at the country's northernmost city, Kiruna. One more extra hour was needed for the bus trip from Kiruna train station to the furthest place that could be reached by car, Nikkaluokta. Our three-member team then went through the hiking route and settled in the base camp (Fjällstation) after seven hours. Finally, we did the last part the day after and made it to the peak through the West route (Västraleden) in a relaxed 14-hour-long pace.

Despite all rain and drizzle of the first day, we were more than lucky to enjoy a fully sunny day and moderate temperatures during our ascending and descending. Our trip was rounded up by an informative tour to the LKAB's largest underground iron mines around the globe and a short visit to the exquisite church of Kiruna. This is one of the few buildings od the city that will be preserved and intactly transferred to a new location during dislocation of the city center for further excavation operations.

3.

The long Swedish summer vacation period is now almost over and I am finally putting together my notes from the annual OpenBIM conference that was held in Arlanda Airport on 22nd April 2013. The central theme for this round of the conference was the clinents' and practitioners' requirements on BIM. 

Prior to presenting a brief history of evolution of building information modelling (BIM), the first speaker of the day, Professor Arto Kiviniemi from University of Salford paid tribute to Professor Chuck Eastman as the father of the BIM who introduced the basics of the concept as early as the year 1957. He then blamed the conservative mindset of the practitioners in the building industry for their resistance to change which has largely hampered a widespread implementation of BIM after all these years. Yet, the ever-increasing passion of such sizable real-estate and facility management firms as the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), Senate Properties in Finland, and Statsbygg in Norway envisions a bright future for the building industry as a whole.

Arto addressed a remarkable fact that was also echoed in several keynote talks at the CIB conference in Brisbane a month later: the relatively ample level of technological proficiency in BIM at the time and the more urgent need for handling social and organizational bottlenecks of the technology. This issue was also raised by the second speaker of the day, Dr. Calvin Kam from Stanford University when he addressed the inevitably intertwined applications of sociology and technology. 

BIM technology now experiences the Plateau of Productivity phase of its Gartner Hyper Cycle according to Arto. More than 150'000 companies and 3'000'000 people around the world are using BIM. The major problem is, however, the uneven implementation of BIM across sectors, life cycle stages, and actors. This has, in turn, led to dramatically diverse maturity levels across different individuals, organizations, and projects. 

In order to realize the full business value of BIM in practice, there is a need for widespread implementation of such novel initiatives as new procurement and insurance models. Large-scale initiatives such as COBIM in Finland, BIM Task Group in the UK, and IPD method (Integrated Project Delivery) in the US will help drive the industry in this direction. Talking about BIM for FM, it is crucial to understand that only what information that is truly needed (mainly consisting of non-graphical information) should be transferred to the FM sector. Arto's speech was followed by a panel discussion among him and representatives from Coor, Tyréns, Skanska, and the Swedish Transport Administration (Trafikverket):

• Per Bjälness from Coor Service Management emphasized the urge for more user-centric cyber services and provision of structured and measurable information for users of buildings. He also clarified some of the requirements for the BIM material to be delivered to the user such as a clear structure, relevance, and accuracy.
• Tomas Alsmarker from Tyréns criticized the project-based mindsets in the building industry that hampers a user-oriented integrated approach to building as a product.
• Rikard Espling from Skanska noticed the importance of early involvement of actors from different disciplines.
• Arto mentioned the importance of an integrated approach to modelling different components of the built environment including buildings, infrastructure, and industrial plants. He also referred to the significant role of quality assurance processes of information in sieving suitable and reliable information.
• Mikael Malmkvist from Trafikverket addressed, among all, the necessity of implementing standard solutions and shifting towards web-based knowledge centers for building operation.

Dr. Calvin Kam's speech covered a variety of topics including more efficient model-checking approaches, schema extensibility in building data modelling, the importance of collaborative open-BIM projects and yet the substantial role of proprietary tools and formats, the annual BIM award of AIA since 2003, and the ever-increasing implementation of BIM in China and Hong Kong.

The first speaker of the afternoon session, Professor Thomas Olofsson from Luleå University of Technology presented a chronological account of building modelling and its applications for visualization, integration, and automation. He demonstrated a development pyramid, starting with Technology at the top, passing through Methodology and Process, and ending up to Organization at the base where - again - the importance of social and organizational aspects of building information modelling was declared.

Rogier Jongeling, technical director at Open BIM, was the next speaker who talked about, among all, model-driven data analysis and the consequent need for integrated models for carrying out such analyses, the new PLM approach to building information management (Product Life Cycle Management), and model-driven visualization and coordination. He summed up his talk with a real-time display of an augmented reality tool implemented by Locum for conjuring up 3D models out of existing 2D drawings.

Anders Moberg (CAD-Q) and Väino Tarandi 
(buildingSMART and KTH)

Lars Lidén from Specialfastigheter presented the joint initiative by five major public Swedish facility owner firms including Akademiska hus, Sveriges Riksdagsförvaltningen, Fortifikationsverket, Statens Fastighetsverk, and Specialfastigheter for developing a common strategy for asset information management. Energy efficiency in building operations, facilitating knowledge transfer and recruitment of new FM&O staff, tackling the problem of efficient use of existing building stock and implications of an open data format approach for early involvement of the FM representatives were some of areas that were covered in this presentation.

Before the news about the upcoming birth of the BIM Alliance Sweden were announced, Håkan Blom provided an overarching presentation about ongoing and planned research activities around building information modelling as defined by the the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda for Bygginnovationen. Design visualization and coordination, education, jurisdiction and contracts, optimization of industrial processes, life cycle approach to building information management, facility management and operations, customer engagement, and customer satisfaction were the most significant headlines in Håkan's speech.

Finally, Rikard Espling, Mats Broman, and Väino Tarandi, respectively from Open BIM, Föreningen för förvaltningsinformation (fi2), and buildingSMART stepped on the stage to publicly declare the decision made by their corresponding organizations for merging together and forming the BIM Alliance Sweden that will get a head start on January 2014. BAS envisions a closer collaboration and more coordinated and aligned efforts for standardization which will eventually facilitate an unbroken total-life-cycle flow of information for the Swedish building industry.

7th Nordic Conference on Construction Economics and Organization

Mingle following the conference dinner at Rockheim – the National museum of Norwegian Rock history

The rocky landscape of Trondheim graced with multifarious vegetation and tree types was an astonishing sight to me since my eyes are now rather accustomed to relatively flat topography of Sweden. There was actually not so much time left for us for sight-seeing, yet I was highly thrilled by spectacular views of Nidaros Cathedral, splendid bridges over the river, and the elevated green lands of NTNU campus on my way to the conference venue. We were first gratified with two sunny days in a row, but were not as lucky utill the end and left the city in a yet fine misty drizzle.

It was a tremendous delight for me to meet Professor Keith Hampson from QUT one more time after talking to him last year in Gutenberg and being among the audience of his intriguing and inspiring keynote speech last month in Brisbane. I was actually rather confused by noticing the word "Norway" in front of his name in the attendants' list; something that he then partly clarified in his talk by showing the map of the world as perceived by Australians (upside-down compared with our conventional maps) which was supposed to prove that Australians had always been Nordic!

Keith's speech mainly depicted accomplished, ongoing, and planned research programs and activities for promoting a manifold sustainable construction practice within the Australian building industry. Solving current problems, exploring contemporary trends, and shaping the future are different levels and scopes of research according to him. He referred to - among others - the dramatic increase in private investment in building research compared with public funding; something that reflects the need for a more industry-oriented approach among research institutions to stay competitive.

It was also thrilling to meet Professor Kalle Kähkönen from Tampere University of Technology again. I met Kalle in Brisbane when he had revealed Tampere's ambitious plan for hosting the following occasion of the CIB conferences during a social dinner session in a fantastic Italian restaurant in the South Banc. In Trondheim, Kalle introduced their Quality Progress Model for construction where, above all, technical quality criteria were balanced against customer satisfaction. The presentation included amazing pieces of literature namely incremental evolution of the concept of quality control to quality management, and then total quality management over time. The notion of various categories of customers namely detracting, passive, and promoter types and how to manage and benefit them towards the highest quality for the product was another sub-topic raised in Kalle's presentation.

The Quality Progress Model (Savolainen et. al, 2013)

Sessions were opened up on Wednesday morning by Ole Jonny Klakegg from NTNU emphasizing the urge for green urbanization and value creation in the building industry. He mentioned the fragmented state of the industry as the most prominent obstacle to more profitability. Professor Anne Grete Hestnes from NTNU then discussed some other aspects of sustainable construction together with a variety of examples from Nordic countries and around the world, though focused on Norwegian construction society which enjoys a high rate of GDP and a stable economy. Stepwise development towards zero-energy and zero-emission buildings (ZEB's), evaluation of energy-efficiency at measurable scales such as buildings and building blocks, the increasing urge for provisions for cooling, implementation of active and passive solar technologies, integrated approach towards solar architecture, taking embodied energy in transportation of material, construction work, and operation phase into consideration in energy performance analyses, the need for a holistic approach for shifting from smart buildings towards smart cities, and finally energy-plus buildings were some headlines in her speech.

Keith Hampson's opening talk for the second day of the conference was followed by announcement of Statsbygg's awards for best papers by Ole Jonny Klakegg from NTNU. Anita Moum then talked on impacts of buildings on people's quality of life and the undeniable importance of knowledge and experience sharing in building and construction. The third speaker of the day was Peter Eiken who introduced the Bygg21 initiative. He articulated some interesting facts in his talk: the best average performance of construction works among Nordic countries belongs to Finland; Norway has the worst performance statistics in infrastructure construction; while Danish construction society is the worst in collaboration and has the highest rate of conflicts. Eiken also referred to the decisive role of a few construction managers whose modern way of thinking, humbleness, proactive attitude, and respected personalities helped overcoming problems in practice and drove the project forward. He then mentioned a multitude of challenges facing more efficient construction practices, namely demotivating public procurement legal structures.

Below, a summary of a selection of the works presented in the conference is put together and grouped in a number of subject categories:

a) Sustainability

As this could have been expected, a great number of articles dealt with sustainability and green construction. Dr. Hedley Smyth from Bartlett School of Construction and Project Management (UCL) explained how discussions on green building had matured over time by also including social aspects such as green marketing, health, and safety. Nonetheless, problems such as silo thinking, lack of cooperation among actors, reactive rather than proactive actions, and the mismatch between rhetoric and practice are major hindrances to a real and manifold green building industry according to him.

Filip Elland from Fastighets AB Briggen addressed the importance of a more widespread and active participation from owners and end-users' side in design and construction as a prerequisite for swiftly proceeding beyond mere acquisition of "green" terminology as a fashion statement.

Taking on a socio-economic approach towards sustainability, Ruth Woods from Norwegian organization of SINTEF shed some light on the challenge associated with constructing low-cost and low-energy houses for struggling with social disadvantages and environmental hazards, and at the same time avoiding segregation and its social consequences.

Stakeholders financial relations for eco-city (Yao, 2013)

Yao Yao from the Royal Institute of Technology presented their research team's methodologies and results for cost-benefit analysis of eco-cities. This work was in fact one of the most relevant ones to the main theme of the conference: constructioon economics and organization. It was partly based on financial relations maps, took a number of Chinese sustainable cities as case studies, and eventually deemed construction of eco-cities to be a profitable business.

Ruth Woods' presentation was a historical review of the transitory role of British shopping centers in developing a more sustainable built environment; from outdoors traditional markets and arcaded buildings, through the first generation of department stores with their large concrete structures of the 60's, to more luxurious malls of the 80's and to their more environmental-aware contemporary successors.

b) Success and Efficiency in Construction Projects

Some authors had set their focus on specific building materials and products in their discussions around efficiency in construction. Aberto JR. Lordsleem from the Polytechnique School of Pernambuco University in Brazil talked about his studies on losses of material in construction of concrete building elements. His work did however not cover losses incurred by rework and delay in time. Bjørn Petter Jelle from NTNU presented how they evaluated expected required life time of building products and materials in their laboratory as a clue to problems such as erosion and decay. Such an approach can help saving time and money and enhancing the construction firms' reputation in the long term. The major challenges to overcome are, nevertheless, volatile and unpredictable climate situations, and unknown traits and behaviors of the newly-developed materials and products.

Accelerated climate ageing of wooden samples (Jelle, 2013)

Others had acquired a more holistic approach towards efficiency in construction. Micael Thunberg from Linköpings University, for instance, introduced his methodology for supply chain management (SCM) through business process re-engineering, benchmarking best practices, and analysing process reference models. Coordination is a crucial factor in any supply change management practice according to him. 

A number of  researchers had an even taken a broader perspective in their work. Hallgrim Hjelmbrekke from NTNU contemplated on what success meant to different actors and how this affected strategic goals of the project. Aligning the overall goals of the entire building project with incremental goals of participants and disciplinary teams at each stage is quite often dampened by the fragmented state of the industry and practical difficulties with project requirement management. Balancing diverse criteria such as time, cost, and quality is another challenge in formulation and evaluation of success in a project.

Terttu Vainio from the Technical Research Centre of Finland introduced a case project where several forces of financial crisis, EU directives, and environmental concerns were acquired and translated into the program for a renovation project in Finland. There were even more focused research projects among presented works: Gunnar Lucko from the Catholic University of America presented his proposal for using singularity functions for integrating temporal and financial constraint model of construction projects.

c) Collaboration and Communication

A fraction of contributions tackled collaboration and communication as a major criteria for both defining and achieving success in the project. Siri Blakstad presented a survey on interactions among two internal teams engaged in a design and construction work. She touched upon a very common problem in joint construction projects: diverging terminologies, interests and objectives of the participant groups despite the fact that they were all working towards a mutual goal i.e. creating a well-functioning piece of built environment. Difficulties with describing the required outcomes in business terms, varied and sometimes conflicting priorities of different teams (e.g. energy efficiency vs. construction time), problems in translating spatial demands into physical elements, and mismatch among supplies of one group and demands of the other group were just examples of the negative consequences.

Yao Yao, Micael Thunberg, Susanna Vass, Gunnar Lucko, and me facing towards NTNU

World Building Congress 2013 - 2

As I had promised in an earlier post, here comes a synopsis of the works presented at a selection of the sessions I attended during the World Building Congress 2013. Summaries are grouped according to their subject area rather than the chronological order of presentations:

a) Briefing

Peter Johansson from Jönköping University in Sweden touched on the value of use of IT in the briefing phase. His suggested solutions were DRofus and PTS applications which are based on the concepts of standard rooms and functional requirements. Visualizing and discussing a set of devised solutions early in the design process are essential parts of any efficient briefing process according to him.

b) Design

Bob Giddings from Northumbria University in the UK lectured on architectural design quality evaluation with an example from sheltered houses in North East England. One of the most important issues that he raised was that performance aspects of design alternatives could easily be documented and evaluated, while more qualitative measures such as atmosphere, comfort, and aesthetics cannot be captured with normal tools. In line with this, the lecture by Sebastian Macmillan from Cambridge was focused on evaluating an entire building design project. He presented a report on outcomes of implementation of the method, critical success factor framework, for gauging successfulness of students’ design projects at the Royal College of Art.

c) Procurement & Green Building

WLC minimisation with integrated procurement vs
conventional methods (Murray et all., 2013)

Moving on to the in-between phase in the construction procedure, Alex Murray from the University College London articulated why he believed that an integrated procurement should be considered as a substantial enabler of any whole-life-cost (WLC) estimation approach. He presented the outcomes of his studies on a number of benchmarking methods for evaluating the procurement phase, namely Capex and Opex. Robin Hardy from the University of Canberra looked into procurement from another perspective: in her interpretation, procurement is not merely confined to the stage between design and construction; rather it prevails, in one way or another, during the building’s entire life cycle. There were some amazingly controversial citations in her presentation such as “Sustainable procurement is dependent on skills and competence of the staff rather than established universal routines”; or “Even though procurement is an important stage, it may quite often be a barrier to sustainability”!

This was not the only occasion where the key to a genuine sustainable building practice was traced back to sustainable procurement (also termed as green procurement). Robert Crawford, from the University of Melbourne talked about environmental impacts of the construction supply chain. He put forward an alleged set of tiers of supply chain among which the highest amount of direct energy consumption was asserted to be associated with onsite construction activities. Manufacturing of structural elements, concrete, ceramic, and metal and wood building elements exhibit the biggest potentials for energy optimizing according to Crawford.

In a broader context, Scott Kelting (California Polytechnic State University) notified how global decision-making procedures influenced ubiquity and efficiency of green buildings. His studies encompassed key influences, central visions, and guidelines for green building around the world. A major global challenge is maintaining a satisfactory balance between functionality and environmental friendliness, according to him. Limits to mitigating negative impacts of natural light such as glare and heat is an example. Joseph Lai from Hong Kong Polytechnic University talked about another aspect of green building practices: mandatory reporting of greenhouse gas emissions from buildings. He provided an account of the guidelines for the FM sector in Hong Kong for reporting their CO2 emissions. In this case, reporting was limited to residential and institutional buildings and even this was implemented on a voluntary basis.

d) Building Knowledge Management

BIM Execution Plan Cube (Mitchell, 2013)

As expected, a good number of papers including mine were focused on building knowledge management. Not all of those works had been submitted to the AMIDDS track (Architectural Management and Integrated Design and Delivery Solutions); which was held during the two last days of the congress in the Plaza Hall. Lonny Simonian, for example, presented his research on challenges ahead of implementation of BIM in electrical engineering for producing prefabricated assemblies. A key factor in a more widespread use of such models was more suitability of such models for contractors and more willingness of the owners, he contended. The finding seems to also prevail in other domains of the industry.

Among the papers included in the AMIDDS track, David Mitchell talked about the requirements for a successful 5D BIM practice and emphasized the roe of early implementation of BIM in a design-driven approach. In his second presentation in the form of an exploratory dialogue together with Scott Lambert, Mitchel accentuated advantages of effective involvement of subcontractors in the construction procedure in an appealing. Many things should be made clear in the kick-off meeting of the project including terminology, tools that people use, and how to share savings realized by using BIM, in their opinion.

Will BIM technology be also profitable for small enterprises? This is in fact a very frequent question among AEC practitioners. Matthijs Prins from Delft University of Technology shed some light on this topic. Declaring the fact that 60% of the architectural firms in the Netherlands consist of one or two people, he explained the results of their research on implementation of BIM at small architectural firms. They had based their survey on a level-0-to-4 scale for implementation of BIM. Those who had accomplished more than four projects in BIM were considered as experienced cases. He concluded that the usefulness of BIM for small architectural firms was actually not as low as it was quite often perceived.

Iva Kovacic from Vienna University of Technology also pointed out that construction is an SME-dominated industry with 95 % of firms being constituted of up to five employees. She criticized insufficient education time for AEC practitioners (a two-hour-per-year average education time), expensive software licenses, expensive skilled BIM staff, lack of standards for BIM-oriented planning (in Austria), fees being set for linear processes rather than collaborative methods, and multifarious applications at use. According to her results, there is still extensive need for face-to-face contacts among team members despite all technological progresses.

Information in the Mirror World, with services
for the Real World (Tarandi, 2013)

Tarja Mäkelänien from VTT emphasized the importance of roles such as BIM champion and the need for re-engineering processes for getting the most out of BIM. Geoffrey Booth from Texas A&M University described their sustainable real estate development practice using quadruple net value analysis and BIM. Väino Tarandi (my advisor) introduced the proof-of-concept system for a sustainable urban collaboration hub (SUCH) developed at BIM Collaboration Lab. The system envisions a holistic trans-sectorial, trans-scalar, trans-phasic, and trans-disciplinary spatial knowledge management by means of open-standard life-cycle-support data formats. This offers a wide range of desired functions such as version management and loss-free data transaction across actors and corporations, according to Tarandi.

In search of an understanding of the affordances of BIM in the construction phase, Christoph Merschbrock from the University of Agder in Norway had tapped into tacit knowledge of the practitioners. This was in fact a worthy and detailed report on how diverse capabilities of BIM technologies are met, attained, or dismissed by different AEC actors and firms. Among the multitude of the works on automated building-permit procedure, Eilif Hjelseth from the Norwegian Building Authority explained a recent Norwegian initiative, Byggnett. The paper presented by Johannes Dimyadi from the University of Auckland in New Zealand dealt more or less with the same topic. The key to a fully-automated code-compliance checking practice is developing a standard legal data exchange protocol, according to him.

e) Safety

Among numerous works on safety at construction sites, Helen Lingard from RMIT University talked about methods and indexes for measuring health and safety in construction, in general, as well as their own initiative, multi-level measurement. In another presentation, Kristina Sulankivi from VTT introduced a BIM-based automated safety-checking tool developed jointly with scholars at the Georgia Institute of Technology. The proof-of-concept tool is based on a ruleset that controls the building model for the most common safety issue i.e. falls from height. The approach can be propagated to other sources of risk, according to her. 

Millesgården

"Angel Musician" by Carl Milles

Indian Head

Carl Milles' hearty desire was to bring his works of art to the public realm and to bring people to his art. This is evident all around Millesgården where sculptures are all integrated elements of a whole. The united sequence of chambers of different sizes, forms, colors, and atmospheres are subtly settled in a sublime public garden delicately enriched with a plethora of heavenly figures. Columns, the beloved elements of Milles, are present allaround the garden together with other reminders of Roman art and architecture. Paintings of Carl's wife, Olga Milles are also on display at Millesgården, located in Lidingö north of Stockholm.

God's Hand

There are two major characteristics that differentiate Milles' work from his contemporary artists: firstly, they have been designed and articulated as installations to be placed in specific locations either in the garden or in the outside world. Those not installed in their intended settings, for any reason, have been assigned a new location and role in the domestic constellation of Milles' works in Millesgården. Moreover, Milles hardly believed in any virtue for originality and uniqueness of the works of art. He used to produce his works in numbers and shrewdly marketed and sold them. Some of his most well-known works have not even been made by himself. "God our Father on the Rainbow" installed in Nacka Strand, for example, was crafted by one of his pupils years after the original bronze model eventually failed to be developed into the monument for peace for the United Nations building.

The last crystal clear and sunny Saturday in Stockholm was a timely opportunity for us to make a visit to Millesgården together with a number of members of SIRAP. An informative guided tour around the garden by Katja Stemme and an exhibition of the impressionist collection, "Painters in Normandy" complemented our visit.

World Building Congress 2013

During my thirty-hour rail trip from Brisbane to Cairns, I came across more roof solar panels than any other local Australian feature. I would now prefer to associate this country first and foremost with its vibrant social atmosphere, good wine, good food, sunny days, and welcoming, friendly, and easygoing people rather than kangaroos and koalas! Yet, those exotic ibises with their iconic long curved beaks freely wandering around the city were reminders of the unique flora and fauna of the continent.  

The alluring city of Brisbane hosted this year’s World Building Congress. The event was somehow overshadowed and influenced by recent natural disasters around the world, namely floods in Queensland and New York City and earthquakes as well as the financial crisis. The most concurrent topics among the works presented were resilience, sustainability, safety and security, offsite manufacturing, integrated design and planning, and smart building knowledge management. More or less similar topics have been introduced and discussed in the first series of CIB Research Roadmaps. 

The major theme of the congress, construction and society, was brought up, emphasized, and clarified in concrete terms by the Minister for Housing and Public Works of the Queensland Government, Tim Mander. The eventual goal is to add value to buildings through – among all - innovation, PPP constructs, and whole-life cost analysis, according to him. 

The first keynote speaker, Prof. Martin Fischer from Stanford University communicated their most recent findings on how to simulate numerous possibilities of a construction project before actual construction. The answer to the question “why we come up short in projects?”, in his opinion, can be traced back to organization and prediction. Here comes a list on some other topics Professor Fischer touched on in his talk: the importance of the stage following the design phase and prior to construction, clear-cut clarification of the goals of the project, elimination of uncertainties, on-budget, on-schedule, and quality projects, staff working for the project rather than for the company, continual evaluation and redefinition of the process, manufacturing building elements based on digital models, deployment of laser scanning for post-construction determination of discrepancies, implementing Multidisciplinary Design Optimization method (MDO) for balancing carbon footprint against life cycle costs, using Space Constraint Method (SCM) for evaluating efficiency of use of construction space, and integrating subcontractors in the design team. 

During the afternoon keynote speech of the first day of the congress, Peter Verwer, head of the Property Council of Australia expressed an enthusiastic appraisal of the cities and their pioneering role in our modern societies. Urbanized and connected living areas nurture productivity, he asserted. Urbanization, IT, and globalization are three major contemporary driving forces that should be benefited for creating flourishing and evolving cities, he believed. Nonetheless, bringing the language of technology and that of business closer to each other is an essential requirement for more efficient urban services. 

Later on, during the panel discussion of the first day of the congress, a number of global challenges ahead of the building industry were put forward: 

• Still 30% of construction work is done onsite (on average). 
• Building Information Modeling is quite often comprehended as a technology that customers are reluctant to use. 
• Basic requirements and strategic guidelines for creating economic shelters and modernized settlements seem to diverge extensively. 
• Costs of building are increasing because of the higher costs of the newer technologies. This poses a serious threat to small construction firms. In the Netherlands, for example, 60% of the construction firms of today will vanish away by 2050 
• Costs of operating and maintaining public welfare equipment will double by 2040 due to increasing costs of technologies. 
• Green buildings should be replaced by resilient buildings. 

During the second day’s panel discussion, Carol Le Gall, chief executive director of the Centre Scientifique et Technique du Bâtiment (CSTB) notified contemporary challenges in the building industry with regard to optimization of production and consumption of energy, carbon, water, and waste. She continued with a comprehensive report on CSTB’s project for analyzing real-time indoor air quality; LUM’AIR. Prof. Peter Barrett from the University of Salford concluded the session with an inspiring talk to remind a neglected matter of course: what the overall role of the entire building industry is. Research activities in the field, in his opinion, may follow educational, economic, social, or environmental concerns; but they should eventually have a holistic impact and relate to how the buildings affect people. At the same time as agents in the FM sector neglect the impacts of their possessions on the lives of the mankind and simply regard their profession as a business similar to any other profitable affair, our built environment either contributes to health hazards such as Alzheimer, anxiety, and vision problems, or nurtures healthy and thriving societies. Finally, Lyn Beazley shed some light on recent technological achievements realized in the far western Australian port of Perth and Curtain University. The initiative for transforming non-visible parts of the light into energy by using photovoltaic cells and nanotechnology is an outstanding example of their cutting-edge research projects. 

The afternoon keynote speaker of the second day, Brian Krause from Turner BIM gave a ravishing lecture on their most recent developments in the field of BIM technology seasoned with demonstrations of a software solution for BIM-enabled facility management and operations developed at the University of Columbia. He touched on a variety of topics and issues in the field of use of IT for construction including authoring BIM execution plans, evaluation of total cost of ownership (TCO), turning SketchUp into an object-based modeling tool by means of plug-ins, pushing legislative boundaries forward by submitting a 3D safety model to NYC municipality, optimizing clash detection functions of existing applications, use of barcodes for more automated maintenance routines, and promoting lean BIM processes. 

The third day’s keynote speakers, Dr. Wim Bakens and Dr. Shyam Sunder depicted, among all, the CIB’s general research roadmap. Dr. Wim Bakens clarified the necessity of a research roadmap as a glossary of agreed-upon definitions and an overall conceptual model. Contemporary construction research institutes, namely CSIRO, VTT, TNO, bre, and CSTB need to be able to demonstrate that their concerns are relevant, they have access to all members of the community, and are capable of efficient and effective knowledge exchange and  collaboration. Implementation of research in practice is also momentous which calls for a closer contact with the society, industry, and government. He then noticed the fact that there is a tipping point for the percentage of investment in construction out of GNP to secure a positive contribution to development of the society. This could be termed as the built environment’s caring capacity; a concept that is closely intertwined with decline of building and the optimal peak of new construction. He articulated his proposed remedy as, among all, implementing different types of business models for overcoming the declining market, more efficient risk management, and future-oriented, sustainable, resilient, affordable, and adaptive buildings... I will probably provide a summary of other contributions in a separate post later on. 

David Mitchell, Christoph Merschbrock, Eilif Hjelseth, and me got together in a bar in Brisbane's South Bank before the last night congress dinner

BIM-boost

As agreed a while ago, today I made a rather concise presentation as part of WSP consulting Group's BIM-boost event held at Visualisation Center in Norrköping. The first part was a brief introduction of Building Information Modeling (BIM), BIM repositories, and the universal concept of open BIM. After the break, definitions and categories of activities within the facility management and operation phase of building were reviewed. Finally, implications, impediments, and empirical examples of informed facility management and operation routines were briefly presented.

As far as I knew, other speakers were more focused either on the status quo of implementation of BIM in the construction market, or detailed instructions on use of specific software. I tried to take a different approach by departing from the literature available on building data modeling and life-cycle perspective on building data management. Yet, each section was rounded up with introducing capabilities of several prominent commercialized solutions in each area. Definitions and common applications of BIM, aggregate data models, BIM repositories, introduction of buildingSMART, IFC (Industry Foundation Classes), facility operations and maintenance, Computerized Maintenance and Management Systems (CMMS), Building Condition Index (BCI) and Key Performance Indicators (KPI), COBie (Construction Operations information exchange), and FM:BIM:BAS loosely coupled constellations were the minor topics covered in my lecture.

Visualisation Center in Norrköping

Who earns from BIM?

On Friday, 15th February, people from different firms and disciplines within Swedish building industry gathered at Clarion Hotel in Stockholm to hear more about BIM (Building Information Modeling), this time with a focus on the financial gains of the technology. The seminar was jointly organized by WSB consulting company and Byggindustri magazine. Here comes an elective summary:

The session was initiated by Mats Lindgren's report on the actual situation of implementation of BIM around the world: Adoption of BIM in the United States is, in brief, broad but not mature enough. In Scandinavia, Finland, Norway, and the Netherlands are more advanced. Mandating BIM deliverables for public projects is planed to be enforced by 2016 in the UK. South Korea, Singapore, and Hong Kong are the pioneers among the east Asian countries, while there is no accurate evaluation of the situation in China. Australia and New Zealand are fairly progressive, while AEC firms in the Middle East, India, and Africa have stepped in, but with a slow pace in comparison.

Facility managers, who where not that interested in BIM technologies in 2009, are now more avid according to studies on perceived usefulness of BIM across actors and disciplines. PEAB has a considerable rate of BIM implementation in the design phase, but their construction sector yet largely relies on previous work flow configurations.

Ewa Hedberg presented an interesting report on results of surveys on the perception of BIM by Swedish AEC/FM companies. Attitudes span over a wide variety of standpoints and strategies from a total indifference, through implementation but no engagement at managerial levels, to some type of strategic agenda with no actual manifestation. An amazing conclusion was that a great number of actors believe that this is the owners and facility operators who can get the most out of BIM. There will thus be no incentive for design and construction crew in providing elaborate BIM's, if the eventual end-users are not willing to pay for their efforts.

Some positive views around BIM are as followed: problems are more easily discovered during the design phase rather than construction using BIM; BIM is definitely a time-saving tool; BIM tools are modern and cool! BIM helps attracting smart people to firms. Fewer errors, higher quality, and efficient use of resources are undoubted gains in the construction phase. According to Rikard Espling from Skanska, the profits gained by BIM are measured according to effective material use, reduction of accidents, quick preparation of quantity take-offs, and discovery of mistakes from design.

Perceived obstacles, on the other hand, are: organizational problems, staff engagement, and lack of expertise; many prefer to continue with prevailing traditional routines that they are accustomed to; specially the older generation find BIM only an unnecessary pushing force with no considerable positive effect; small firms can not afford rather high expenditures of establishing BIM systems; there are numerous uncertainties on what exactly BIM is, how exactly it should be implemented, what types of information it requires and from which resources should such data be obtained, and is it only confined to new construction?

Despite a unanimous positive view of all actors, not sufficient thorough studies have yet been conducted on indicators for usefulness of BIM in facility management. People are often bewildered about how to translate visions into concrete outcomes and scale down the concepts to tangible daily applications. Nonetheless, some advantages are now being more clearly pronounced and comprehended: enhanced computerized problem reporting, quickly articulating optimal solutions, fast and accurate area calculation for commissioning and ordering commitments, provision of detailed information for operational decision making, etc.

The event was concluded with a intriguing panel discussion among Staffan Åkerlund (Byggindustrin), Malin Lösjögård (Svensk Betong), Anne-Therese Albertsson (Trafikverket), Rikard Espling (Skanska), and Pontus Bengtsson (WSP). One of the audience suggested a thoughtful explanation on why the building industry is always lagging behind others in application of new information technologies such as BIM: what is missing here is the global market pressure and competition that other disciplines such as car industry are constantly exposed to.

The uncomfortable truth, at the end of the day, is that almost a decade after advent of Building Information Modeling tools, there is still need for introductory clarifications for the industry. Moreover, as almost all speakers declared, there are not fully established methodologies for quantifying the gains brought about by BIM. Participants mentioned however some approximate figures ranging from one to 15 percent as the ROI incurred by implementation of BIM. One aperture of hope is that more light has recently been shed on the importance and profitability of BIM for facility owners and managers, meaning that a higher demand from the real end-customers of building information models could be conceived and expected in the near future. This means stronger motives for the authors of BIM content and shiny prospects for an efficient, informed, and collaborative equilibrium for building industry.

A more social and cooperative living milieu

Around three decades have now passed since the first collective houses were constructed in Sweden. The main principle behind the initiative is buying or renting out an apartment, and mutually possessing and undertaking the responsibility for administrating the common areas of the building through consensus and cooperation. As a compensation for the generously spacious and quality shared spaces such as kitchen, dining hall, gym, sauna, guest apartment, and library, buyers and tenants have to pay for a slightly higher surface area than their own unit. One who rents out a 37 sq.m. apartment, for example, pays the rent for 44 sq.m. 

Yesterday, I showed up for a visit to Dunderbacken collective housing complex which was built in 2010 in Hägersten (Stockholm). The visit was organized by the Swedish Museum of Architecture. General information about the community and administrative routines by the head of the association (föreing) were followed by explanations from the building's designer, Thomas Hultegård, from the Architects' House (Arkitekthuset) in Jönköping. According to him, the core idea was to create a number of inner yards, keep a distance from the excavated rocky hills in the vicinity, and provide residential units with numerous and various views through a crooked layout for the building's footprint (in the southern side). This helped  Shrewd choice of material and detailing has been made to prevent formation of algae, mosses, and fungi on façades. Balconies (the very popular elements!) were contrived for as many units as possible within spatial and economic restrictions. 

Collective housing is now much more popular than its early times in Sweden, when it was mainly the way of living some intellectuals had acquired as a way to challenge the ever-increasing consumerism, alleges Dick Urban Vestbro, professor at KTH and the chairperson of the "Collective Housing Now" (Kollektivhus Nu) association. This form of living is not specific to Sweden and is also practiced in Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, United States, and Italy. There are however also some drawbacks with this approach: quite often, it becomes rather difficult to maintain the gender balance among residents and women take the majority; besides that, housing shortage causes that even people who have no genuine interest for such a life style end up in collective houses barely in search of accommodation.

Sources:
http://www.arkitekturmuseet.se/program/
http://dunderbacken.dinstudio.se/
http://www.familjebostader.com/Ny-bostad/Bogemenskap/Ett-satt-att-bo-och-leva/
http://www.svd.se/naringsliv/livsstil/bo-tillsammans-har-blivit-inne-igen_7921410.svd