BIM-Forum

The concluding talk by Prof. Thomas Kalbro

Department of Real Estatae and Construction Management of KTH had its two-day kick-off gathering after the summer on Thursday and Friday last week. The sessions were composed of reports and group discussions on the two main themes of research and education as well as current and expected performance of the department and emerging fields in research and education. The venue was Djurönäset which is located in the far west of Stockholm's archipelago and almost at the verge of Baltic Sea. This was a timely opportunity for exchange of experience and knowledge in a relaxed environment, socializing with others at the department and breeding grounds for more collaboration and synergy in the coming year.

Division wise meeting of Project Communication; right to left:
Hannes Lindblad, Tina Karrbom Gustavsson and Prof. Väino Tarandi

The main motivation for this post is, however, presenting a delayed report on BIM-Forum organized by Cad-Q last May. The event was a thorough complement to an earlier seminar by Cad-Q elaborating on BIM 360 Glue and BIM 360 Field. The seminar was opened by a role play that simulated the building information flow through a complete reconstruction/addition process from the initial requirements management phase to operation. Participants in the demonstration represented different roles in a reconstruction/addition project e.g. the owner and the architect.

The role play simulating the building information flow
through a complete reconstruction/addition process

The point of departure was submitting a request by the owner for access to the drawings of the site and the existing facilities on the site. Currently, drawings are mostly in DWG or raster formats and deposited in digital archives of the FM firms such as HyperDoc. Interaxo (previously projektnavet) is Cad-Q's new web-based solution for archiving building drawings and models in more intelligent formats; while another product, BIMeye, serves as a requirements repository. BIMeye is composed of a variety of modules such as Door Manager, Room Manager, Audit Trail, etc. A useful functionality in this application - which is also available in other requirements management software such as dRofus - is creation and re-use of semi-standard room types. Customization of existing room types, classification of requirements according to different disciplines and export to popular formats such as Excel are some other functionalities of BIMeye.

The architect then opens the model in his/her BIM authoring software, in this example Revit, and uses the mass-modelling tool to create room objects based on the requirements imported from BIMeye. The newly planned or modified parts and elements of the building are modelled within Revit and exported as IFC through Naviate functionalities. Room objects and other essential parts could, in turn, be imported to MEP applications. Further disciplinary requirements such as heat transfer, glow and light intensity are then imported from BIMeye and added to corresponding building elements. Components are modified when required so as to fulfill the new requirements. The outcome is channeled back to other actors as the base for further development and the design is incrementally formed by all disciplinary actors in an iterative manner.

The BIM coordinator deploys Navite to guarantee that correct information is included in the exported IFC models. Simplebim - which operates in the background of Naviate - also controls for compliance with a host of measures such as availability of required information for energy, ingress and igress analysis, accessibility and other Swedish building codes. Similar to Solibri Model Checker, the results could be reported in a multitude of formats such as PDF, PPT and BCF (BIM Collaboration Format). The BCF file is then sent to relevant actors via email, project's repository or Naviate BCF Manager. New BCF files could be consecutively created and shared.

When the design is finalised, detailed information on new rooms such as wall and floor finishes are registered by BIMeye in the form of searchable Room Data Sheets (RDS) including intelligent fields for different parameters. BIMeye also enables synchronising RDS's with the BIM model and querying the database based on desired values for specific parameters.

In the second session, I participated in the facility management track due to my research interests. The three other tracks were for architects, structural engineers and MEP engineers. Anne Ellingbö provided a brief introduction on Interaxio and its functionalities namely archiving drawings, revision management and administrating the approval procedure. This file repository is in principle comprised of a folder structure. A specific type of folder, called "smart folder", provides some advanced possibilities such as facilitated grouping of files, batch property assignment to files, export to Excel sheets, etc.

The next speaker was Anders Moberg, manager of CAD Quality AB. He briefly presented the latest advances in implementation of BIM for facility management and the state-of-the-art of deploying new tools and technologies for propelling the sector through the consecutive stages of BIM-maturity. Moberg mentioned a number of initiatives throughout Sweden for converting legacy drawings of existing buildings to object-based models and complementing them with techniques such as laser scanning. Projects by Region Skåne, Locum, Fortifikationsverket, Riksdagsförvaltningen and Falu Kommun were among the examples mentioned by Moberg.

The final presentation was an introduction of the new version of HyperDoc. Security measures for acess of different groups of users, versioning at the object and field level, customized views to the central object-based model and the possibility for importing IFC and fi2 files were some of the new features introduced. Even though the FM&O sector has traditionally been lagging behind other actors in the building industry in embracing new information technologies, recent political ambitions and technological advances demonstrate signs of accelerating the progress in the field. Lack of universal standards and mismatch among current FM&O workflow procedures and the ones required for a BIM-based practice are two main obstacles on the way to be tackled.

CIB Facilities Management Conference

Copenhagen Town Hall

Per Anker Jensen at the welcome reception

It was a delight to talk to Professor Per Anker Jensen in the Town Hall of Trondheim last summer and hear about their Centre for Facilities Management (CFM) at DTU. I was there for presenting my work on life cycle support information systems in the 7th Nordic Conference on Construction Economics and Organization. I did however not have the faintest idea that I will submit my next working paper to the CIB FM Conference and meet Per again in the Town Hall of Copenhagen a year later. The CIB Facilities Management Conference was organised by the CIB Working Commission W070 (Facilities Management) in collaboration with W111 (Usability) and W118 (Clients and Users) at Technical University of Denmark in the dreamy city of Copenhagen 21st to 23rd May.

Søren Salomo, head of department of DTU Management Engineering, welcomed the audience to the conference. He briefly adressed the central theme of the conference, "using facilities in an open world and creating value for all stakeholders" as wel as related challenges including energy efficiency and new materials. Professor Danny Then (representing W070) explained how challenges such as the need for provision of social housing and efficient resource management bear on FM research and practice. He also clarified how asset management and maintenance have recently been more closely linked to other areas such as workplace design and Building Information Modelling (BIM). This was followed by Professor Geir Hansen's speech about W111 and Dr. Kim Haugbølle's presentation on the role of users and clients and the urge for a closer collaboration and mutual understanding among various actors within the sector.

The very first keynote speaker of the first day was Jacob Steen Møller, director of facilities of DTU Campus Service. He provided a brief history of the previous and current campus buildings of DTU and as well as the structure, business model and business strategy of the FM organization. The business model of the FM section is basically outlined by the university's overall business goals and missions. In contrast to the initial designer-centric top-down layout of the campus area, current strategic plan of DTU facilities is mainly derived from the needs of the users and therefore allows a more flexible planning and a broader variety of architectural styles and construction materials.

The overall goal of the plan is to fulfill the requirements of co-locating, growth and efficiency; while the main principles of the contemporary planning strategy of DTU are as followed:

• Maintaining the initial axial structure
• Hierarchical order of outer and inner spaces for a clearer sense of location
• Park and landscape (the campus is considered as the edge of the woods)
• More free forms in the design of buildings and facades
• Car, bike and prospective light rail traffic

Campus area of The Technical University of Denmark (Source)

In line with the central theme of the conference, Jacob notified the importance of educating users and clients about the construction procedure, the briefing phase and when and how they can influence the process, opening up the spaces around the campus and letting different user groups from the society to use them, make facilities and information on facilities available for research, developing business cases for leasing, involving students and professors in design and operation, and integrating FM into value creation strategies.

The first speaker of the first track (FM performance and industry maturity) was Sarel Lavy from Texas A&M University who contemplated on key performance indicators, the relation among the organizational goals and the facility goals and critical success factors. The major categories of benchmarking indexes, according to him, are financial, physical, functional and survey-based. In the following presentation, Professor Danny Then introduced his proposal for measuring FM maturity across organizations via an integrated feeder factors framework.

Then, Tuuli Jylhä from Aalto University presented an intriguing study on how unplanned activities (so called "making-do" activities) precipitated by insufficient or missing information impede value creation in FM organizations. It is nevertheless always a tricky job to maintain the balance between timely decision-making and waiting for complete information.

In the afternoon session (Track 4: Clients and users), Pieter Eisma from TU Delft presented a literature review on public clients in construction. Together with Leentje Volker, they had queried Scopus and JSTORE databases and through qualitative and quantitative analyses concluded that the majority of issues were associated with organizing and setting up the project. Rikke Brinkø reviewed some theoretical and practical grounds of sharing spaces and Mohammad Mayouf talked about incorporating BIM into facilities management.

A number of useful tips on how to get published were provided by Emma Steele, Sarel Lavy and Joseph Lai from the journal Facilities. Choosing topics of importance, focusing on areas with little existing knowledge, basing papers on rigorous research work, use of evidences, objectivity and the importance of the keywords were some of their hints.

Nyhavn, Copenhagen

Liselotte Panduro from the Danish Facilities Management Association (DFM) opened the second day with introducing their organization with 150 members including real estate companies and providers. She then addressed the ten top FM trends articulated by the International Facility Management Association (IFMA), which could be shortlisted as sustainability, complex building systems, aging building stock, business continuity, information management, attracting top talents, improving the recognition of the profession, strategic thinking, contributing to the well being of the society and changing work styles.

The keynote speaker of the second day, Juriaan van Meel from CFM, contemplated on the challenges ahead of and the possibilities envisioned by living in an open world. In practice, gated communities and secured spaces still do exist. The risks of working at open and shared spaces such as cafes in comparison to the closed and fully managed offices are, nevertheless, being gradually outweighed by their benefits. Flexibility with time and location, lower costs and cozy milieus are some examples. Juriaan then introduced the concept of "cowork spaces" which implies a spatial and temporal superimposition of office spaces and public spaces. Contemporary cowork spaces are, in essence, grounded on sharing both spaces and values. Cowork spaces are, however, still marginal and more popular among hipsters and IT savvy entrepreneurs.

I was the first speaker of the practice track one "invited speakers and case studies" which was a joint session together with representatives from the industry chaired by Poul Henrik Due, the chief advisor at Grontmij. The idea of this work was incepted last year when Johannes Dimyadi approached me after my presentation at CIB2013 in Brisbane and briefly explained the development process and architecture of the BIM-integrated information management system that he and his colleagues had designed and implemented in two campus areas of Unitec Institute of Technology in Auckland, New Zealand. I found it an appropriate case for my research and during the ensuing year, we were constantly in contact from the two opposite sides of the planet. In a nutshell, our paper takes Unitec's FM system as a purposive-sampling case and reports on how a number of technical issues prevailing in other BIM-based FM systems have been dealt with in this example.

Statistics by Signal Architects showing
underused educational spaces

The second speaker, Per Feldthaus from Signal Architects, presented their performance-based approach to design of interior spaces. Performance matrices provide designers with statistical analytic tools to reconfigure spatial layouts of workplaces and optimize the firms' use of space. The research presented by Marit Støre was a study for benchmarking FM departments of a number of hospitals in Nordic countries. Data on logistics, cleaning, catering and other FM services had been collected with the aim of quantitatively outlining the perception of a "best practice" in FM using the Balance Score Card methodology. The overall aim of such studies is to investigate how to adjust FM strategies to be better aligned with the core strategies of the firms. The results show that there is no strong corelation among FM competences and FM services of firms. Swedish hospitals possess higher FM competency than their Danish and Norwegian counterparts. Swedish hospitals also have the highest amount of outsourcing FM services.

Siri Blakstad from Reinertsen presented her study on workplace management. Flexibility for better compliance with the fast pace of development of new technologies, reducing operational costs and area efficiency were the major themes of her presentation. She also addressed the required qualifications associated with different operational roles in FM firms: strategic understanding for the top management, timely and informed decision making for the operational staff and the optimum ways of working for the staff.

The first speaker of the afternoon session of the second day was Søren S. Prahl from Novozymes. An interesting part of Søren's presentation was the risk assessment tables that they had developed for clients demonstrating - both in numbers and colors - the estimated costliness of different decisions for maintenance or replacement of equipment and spaces. He also elaborated on the three major categories of FM goals (strategic, tactical and operational) and various features of a successful FM practice such as the importance of personal competencies and leadership and communication skills. 

Conference dinner at SSI; left to right: Frédéric Bougrain,
Tuuli Jylhä, me, Marleen Hermans and Manish Dixit

Poul Henrik Due outlined his proposal for FM screening logs to be implemented at early stages of feasibility and briefing of construction projects. The core idea is to inform the client about the FM consequences of each design alternative based on in-depth analyses and earlier experiences. The "logs" will be maintained, completed and retrieved for the purpose of quality insurance and benchmarking during the consecutive stages. Michael Zobl from the Vienna University of Technology (TU-Wien) reported the outcomes of their research survey on 500 firms using the Mixed Method Approach (qualitative and quantitative). According to the results, there is no correlation among outsourcing facility services (or more accurately increasing the number of the external service providers) and reducing the costs. Outsourcing may reduce the costs of the firm, but at the same time, increases the risks. The authors conclude that there is a tendency to overestimate the advantages of outsourcing.

The second day of the conference was wrapped up with an inspiring visit to the new headquarter building of ISS, the prominent facility services company where Caspar Isager Hansen, the PMO Manager, explained their services and the location procedure from their old building. His talk was followed by a guided tour around the building and the joint conference dinner.

Workstations layout at ISS headquarters

In the first research track of the third day, Christopher Heywood from the University of Melbourne described a case of relocation of educational facilities. The focus of the study was on the psycho-social factors that impact individual users' experiences during the relocation process. Data were collected through interviews, diaries and observation. The findings show that the way different people experience relocation is not homogeneous rather it is individual and in principle different from one person to another.

Sari Tähtinen from Aalto University presented a study on user experiences of a creative class district in Helsinki using the 6T model. According to the 6T model, tune, tempo, task, ties, tales and theme are the six major factors that shape the experience of a place for the user.

The research track 10 (FM innovation and technology) was opened with a presentation by Nils Olsson from Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) on the use of Big Data for evaluation of buildings. Big Data is defined as a huge amount of data that can not be analyzed by traditional database tools. Volume, velocity and variety are the features that differentiate Big Data from normal data. Availability, applicability, relevance and privacy are some of challenges ahead of implementing Big Data more ubiquitously.

Giulia Nardelli from DTU provided an overview of the tools for including stakeholders in FM service design. In this approach, clients, customers and end users are also considered as co-creators and resources for innovation in the FM firm. Stakeholders could be involved in a variety of traditional and ICT-based as well as direct and indirect ways. It is recommended to accurately plan stakeholder participation in the areas of strategic decision making. The very last presentation was given by Poul Ebbesen from DTU about implementation of Information Technology in facilities management. I met Poul in March during the bSI conference in Stockholm for the first time. While my studies are focused on implementing object-oriented technologies and database management systems in FM, long experience in the FM sector has provided him a broader insight to see the full picture. He is therefore determined not to limit himself to any of the pertaining epistemological fields of innovation management, organizational theories, implementation or socio-technical theories; rather to focus on value creation and to embrace a variety of conceptual frameworks in pursuit of a more realistic solution.

Finally, during the closing session, Professor Keith Jones from Anglia Ruskin University presented his report on prevailing and emerging subject areas in the field of facilities management and usability derived from a Delphi survey before Per Anker Jensen made the final remarks. As evidenced in the majority of the works presented, the importance of scientific facilities management has recently gained greater recognition and the shift from a practice-based profession overwhelmed with short-term strategies and ad-hoc solutions to a fully coordinated discipline is gaining momentum.

BIM 360 Glue/Field

It was towards the end of March when I attended a seminar about Autodesk's recent flagship products, BIM 360 Glue and BIM 360 Field. This event was arranged by the Scandinavian provider of modelling and drawing software, Cad-Q, at their headquarters in Stockholm. In principle, these two product are an effort for promoting a cloud-based building information storage and management. BIM 360 Glue is in principle developed as a design tool, while BIM 360 Field will be used in the construction site.

BIM 360 Glue is aimed to be integrated to the Revit/Navisworks workflow and manage multidisciplinary model coordination, clash/conflict control and communication via web applications, tablets and smart phones. Coordination issues can be marked and reported via email. By running the software on tablets, it would be possible to benefit from the immersive capacity of the package, physically navigating around the space and measuring distances for controlling clearances. The clash detection function is however not active on tablets. BIM Glue seems to have maintained a strong focus on issue management based on specific templates for different types of issues (issues related to quality, security, constructability etc.) and a centralized web-based issue repository. Issues are attached to and handled at the object's level. BIM Glue strives to integrate the information repository, the model-checking tool and the communication environment into the design software all provided in-house at the convenience of Autodesk customers. It is possible to import and merge models in a variety of formats (dwg, dxf, ifc etc).

BIM 360 Field is actually a data management system for construction sights with in-built functionalities for commissioning and hand over. BIM Field allows importing varous types of building information from a variety of databases and applications such as MSProject. Inspection checklists and legal documents can be imported and integrated to BIM Field. Both BIM Glue and BIM Field can be synchronized with Navisworks Manage.

What seems to be still missing is an automated link for infomation transfer between Glue and Field. Apparently, information should be imported from Glue to Field (say from the design database to the construction database) almost manually. This glitch is in fact not specific to Autodesk's flagship products rather should be attributed to the fragmentation and shortsightedness still prevailing in the construction industry which is naturally also reflected in their tools, workflows and information management routines.

Miscellaneous Diary

Time flies and my posts become more sporadic. Having some hours to spend at Helsinki Airport on my way back from a short trip to Budapest, it is perhaps the right time for writing a summarized retrospective diary comprising the highlights since I wrote about Stockholm Student Fair:

On 7th February, I made a visit to the conceptual exhibition, Light Houses, at the Museum of Architecture in Stockholm. Thirty two young architectural firms from Sweden, Norway and Finland presented their ideologies and methodologies through "objects" and "words". Works were ranging from utterly abstract and conceptual ones to building models and even a book of technical drawings. My favorites were the works by the Finnish firm, Lundén Wikar Österlund and the Mirror Cube by the Swedish firm, Tham & Videgård.

In the afternoon of the 9th February, I joined the introduction ceremony for foreign students in Sweden held at the City Hall. The event was opened by Margareta Björk, the chair of Stockholm Municipality. Then, it was time for talks by the head of education, the CEO of Stockholm Business Region Development, director of Staf (Maria Fogelström) and the vice president of SSCO (the central student union organization in Stockholm). Maria left a 2-minute portion of Staf's time to me for introducing our NGO, SIRAP, and its activities.

This is now a while that I have been participating in information management meetings of a construction project for building an educational facility in the campus which is located just a hundred meters from my office. This exquisite building is designed by the Danish architectural firm, Cco, and is a unique project from different aspects: the building itself is a study object by making parts of its structural, mechanical and electrical components visible to the users; it accommodates flexible education and exhibition spaces with an interior layout that allows quick shift between different education modes. The building will be ready for use by 2016.

Something even more important about this project for us at the Division for Project Communication is that we will be able to use all digital models of the building for educational and research activities. In order to get updated about information management and digital modelling status of the project, I will be participating in two categories of the meetings: BIM-coordination sessions and BIM-development session. On 11th February, the very first occasions of the two meetings were held, BIM-representatives of all participating firms as well as the participants from KTH research group were introduced to eachother, and the overall principles of information management for the project were announced by the BIM-consultant firm, Plan B. In the following BIM-coordination meetings on 25th February and 11th March, more details about modelling routines, information sharing and exchange formats were discussed.

Lunch seminars are part of a share-and-discussion tradition at the Department for Real Estate and Construction Management. On 12th February, Prof. Hans Lind presented his new book together with Prof. Thomas Kalbro and Prof. Göran Cars, "New regulations for increased residential construction and better infrastructure". The book is mainly a critical overview of prevailing planning autonomy of municipalities in Sweden which, in the absence of efficient and sufficient motivations and incentives, has resulted in an increasing gap between the supply and demand of residential buildings is Sweden. Authors also propose new legislative approaches with a stronger role for both the central government (forcing municipalities to plan) and also a stronger role for the developers when it concerns the details of the plans and buildings as a remedy for this problem.

14th February, I had an stimulating conversation with Sara Eriksson, planner at KTH, as part of an ongoing study on requirement management. It was amazing to hear about the way the client (here Akademiska Hus) and the prospective tenant (KTH) collaborate in jointly providing the consultants with descriptions, criteria and measures of the building they will operate and use.

During the previous session of a series of discussions on qualitative methods at our department, I shared my recent experiences from a paper submission with others on 17th February. First, I went through different sections of my work (now submitted to CIB W070, W111 & W11 in Copenhagen) and asked the audience about their opinions on the overall layout and structure of the paper. Then, we discussed the comments I had received from the reviewers and how things could be enhanced prior to the final submission.

My afterwork session in the evening of the 28th February was a talk on intercultural communication and Swedish culture organized by us at SIRAP and given by Karin Knutsson. The talk was followed by a broad contribution and challenging questions from the audience mostly trying to better comprehend complicated social codes and norms of the Swedish society.

On 28th February, after months of correspondence and constructive discussions with the co-author, Johannes Dimyadi, I finally submitted the final version of our paper to the CIB conference for facility management. Our work is an analytic description of a progressive example of implementation of BIM-based applications for administering FM&O activities. The project was executed in Auckland (new Zealand) for a campus area. Johannes is the system architect of the BIM-FM solution.

On Sunday 2nd March, I watched "Wolf of Wall Street" which I did honestly not find as splendid as I had heard it to be. There is no doubt that the acts were great and the extravagant and flashy scenes were compelling; but it was really difficult to believe that the movie served in the first place an edifying purpose and was actually not a glorification and celebration of power, wealth and American life as common to the mainstream of cinema in the US.

On 4th and 5th March, our department hosted a Ph.D. workshop with participants (both Ph.D. students and supervisors) from the Swedish universities of Chalmers, Lund and Luleå. Discussions on theories, methodologies and research structure raised during the workshop were greatly instructive and informative.

From 12th to 14th March, I attended an intensive training course on "Enhanced Personal Leadership & Effectiveness" in Norrtälje (North of Stockholm). Other than useful lectures and experiments on presentation skills, advocacy and enquiry techniques, inter-cultural communication, etc. the course was a timely opportunity for self-reflection and self-evaluation. The course was organized by departments of transport and computer science of KTH.

During the last week, a lot happened here in Stockholm in the subject area of standardization of information modelling and management of the built environment. The plenary sessions of the buildingSMART week were held at Stockholm City Conference Center and KTH main campus 17th to 19th March bringing together the world's highest-level experts from academia, industry and national and international organizations. The main conference session was held on 20th March. This was in fact the very first international presence of the newly-born BIM Alliance Sweden. I will hopefully write more about this event in a separate post soon.

Stockholm Student Housing Fair 2017

The physical model of the planned developments located
at KTH huset 

Last week, I dropped by an exhibition of the proposals for the detailed project plans of the new student housing areas at KTH main campus. I could have in fact not skipped it, firstly because the plan was about the development in the immediate vicinity of where my workplace is located; and secondly, since the exhibition was being held at the Administrative building (KTH huset) which is less than fifty meters away from my office!

Proposals had been procured by the City Planning Office of Stockholm (Stadsbyggnadskontoret). When accomplished, the buildings will accommodate around 630 student apartments and administrative rooms with a total surface area (GFA) of 13250 sq.m. Representatives from SBK, the client (Akademiska Hus), and the consulting firms who had developed the suggestions namely Utopia Architects and 2BK Architects were present to provide information to visitors.

This is in fact part of a larger plan for creating a more lively and attractive atmosphere in the campus and, at the same time, meeting the ever-increasing demand for student accommodation in Stockholm. The construction phase of the currently-presented plans will not start before 2016; though some other buildings of high architectural merits within the same initiative, such as the new School of Architecture and the Teaching House (Undervisningshuset) are already under construction.

The proposal by Utopia Architects for student housing
at KTH main Campus 

Utopia Architects' proposal for student accommodation alongside Drottning Kristinas street (just next to our building) consists of two building blocks in nine and five stories and slanted roofs. In contrast with the majority of red-brick façades typical to KTH main campus, these two buildings are suggested to be covered with corrugated cladding sheets in golden and silvery tones on both façades and rooftops. The same wavy pattern of the sheets is also extended to façades of the ground floor where concrete and wood are predominant materials. The apartments will comprise of two 25-sq.m. and 40-sq.m. types. The ground floor will accommodate public spaces and study rooms. The two new buildings together with ours (L-building) will almost fully encompass the currently semi-detached green area and create a warmer and cozier court-yard atmosphere in it.

Utopia has also suggested a setting made up of two student residence buildings with ten and six stories to be placed between Teknikringen and the Red Cross park. The façades are clad in a grayish ochre brick and the roofs are steeply pitched. The buildings will accommodate around 140 apartments ranging from 20 to 25 sq.m. as well as common rooms.

The proposal by Archus for student housing 

Archus Architects's proposal is composed of three tower blocks for student residences. The uniformity of the entire complex is maintained by devising openings of the same size in all brick facades; while window frames are carved in different forms. Altogether, around 135 apartments with a surface area of 23 to 30 sq.m. each will be located in the three buildings.

The forth part of the planned developments presented at the exhibition was an assembly of 270 apartments in two buildings of five and six storeys, called "The Rocks". The proposal is developed by Semrén & Månsson Architects and resembles a lump of rock. The façades are made up of concrete elements with delicate nuances of color. The slope of the roofs towards south-west facilitates installation of solar panels.

Student housing projects at KTH Campus are part of a broader project, "Student Housing Fair 2017" (Studentbostadsmässan 2017). The goal is to overcome the shortage of student housing and decrease the waiting time for new students to one semester. The objective is to produce at least 6000 new student housing units by 2017 in Stockholm County which will increase the existing stock by 50 percents. The project is considered as a contribution to Stockholm as a world class academic destination.

Source: Information leaflet distributed at the exhibition (Samrådsmötet 2014-01-30, KTH huset)

Conversation in the Cathedral

"It is the best thing that can happen to someone, Ambrosio," Santiago says."Believing in what he says, liking what he does."

Santiago is desperately looking back into his life in search of that very determining moment that ruined his entire existence and drained his being of all the meaningful and the worthwhile. He puts a devastating effort into a frame-to-frame investigation of his life through a spontaneous conversation with an old mate in order to come up with a legitimate explanation and alleviate the bitterness of his mortifying thoughts...

Recently, I had a great time reading Vargas Llosa's astonishing work, "Conversation in the Cathedral". What is perhaps of a lesser importance in his novel is Santiago's disquieting answer to his agonizing question which is revealed at the end. In the meanwhile, his mind-twisting story is progressively and cumulatively depicted and constructed through people's initially diffused and eventually converging narratives. It is actually through those numerous intertwining narratives that a myriads of apertures are opened up to Santiago's critical self-contemplation and, at the same time, social structures of power.

"It's been a long time since I've known what was proper or improper." He smiled. "Only whether it suits me or not."

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