Transition to BIM
The strategy for utilizing BIM on this Siska
mall project was developed by b.i.m.m. GmbH,
a European technology firm offering BIM
implementations services. “As an integrated
interdisciplinary design firm, ATP’s in-house
groups provide all the design services needed for
a project such as this,” explains Anton Gasteiger,
b.i.m.m.’s managing director. “Revit is an ideal tool
for integrated design because all different design
disciplines access a central Revit project model
that is shared between users. For example, the
architect works independently in a local copy of
the model and the software synchronizes changes
made to that local model back into the master
project file. In turn, the architect refreshes the
local copy with changes from other users in other
disciplines such as the structural engineer and
the building technician. In this manner, all the
project design teams work in the same model
simultaneously.”
Because everyone involved in the project uses the
same building data model and can constantly add
to it in the course of the project, design processes
can run in parallel. One discipline builds on
another without any loss of information. Everyone
is accessing and adding to this central design
model, resulting in designs that are naturally
integrated and therefore better coordinated. With
BIM processes and software, discipline-specific
design workflows that were performed largely in
isolation are now closely integrated.
“The ability to work in an integrated fashion
using the Revit family of products has greatly
accelerated our design process,” says Oberrauch.
“For example, an architect inadvertently models a
support structure using an undersized beam. Since
all of the disciplines are accessing a shared design
model, the structural engineer immediately sees
the architect’s choice and provides feedback that
the beam size should be stronger.”
“Before using Revit, our design teams had
to manually coordinate their efforts, which
greatly increased the chances of errors,” add
Werner Blunder, architect and the head of BIM
management at ATP. “Using intelligent Revit
models makes our project designs more consistent
and coordinated. And whether a change is made to
a model, a schedule, or a floor plan, the software
automatically reflects that change across all
affected drawings and views.”