Dallas City Performance Hall: Building Information Modeling as a Decision-Making Tool

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1 Dallas City Performance Hall: Building Information Modeling as a Decision-Making Tool Will Mitchell Corgan Associates, Inc. DL5395 Dallas City Performance Hall is a 750-seat theater facility scheduled for completion of construction in May of Located in the prestigious Dallas Arts District, it will provide a state-of-the-art performance venue for various musical, theater, and dance groups from the Dallas area. The project calls for a high level of design quality at a budget appropriate for publicly funded work. During the design process, the team used the 3D visualization capabilities of Building Information Modeling (BIM) to critique various components of the building, including exposed structural systems, exposed MEP services, miscellaneous metals, building finishes, and site work elements. Each investigation gave the design team and the owner the ability to rapidly evaluate a variety of solutions for their proportion, scale, and practicality. Learning Objectives At the end of this class, you will be able to: Identify opportunities within the design process to utilize the 3D capabilities of BIM for decision-making Maximize spatial and material efficiencies through 3D modeling exercises Quickly identify problematic details and resolve them through rapid prototyping Use BIM 3D views to effectively communicate design intent as part of your construction documents About the Speaker Will Mitchell, AIA is a Project Architect with Corgan Associates, Inc. in Dallas, Texas. He has experience in corporate, healthcare, mixed use, and entertainment project types, working in AutoCAD Revit and Autodesk Revit Architecture. Will has helped lead the transition from AutoCAD to Revit at Corgan, particularly in its corporate architecture studio. Will has also spent extensive time in construction administration, carrying his projects from the design phase through to completion.

2 Identify opportunities within the design process to utilize the 3D capabilities of BIM for decision-making Project Alternates In the case of Dallas City Performance Hall, a fixed budget (typical of publicly bonded work) and a volatile economic environment combined to create an unclear picture of the projects potential scope. How much building could the project budget afford? The answer would ultimately depend on the state of the economy at the project s bid date. The project team s strategic approach to this scenario was to provide a number of project alternates which could be accepted and implemented should bidding process afford it. Revit s design options function allowed a relatively small staff to model these alternates quickly. One could then ask, If I make this area an alternate, will I be left with a complete building? Or have I removed a critical component? Evaluations such as these were almost always more comprehensive and effective when viewed in 3 dimensions. Evaluating Scale and Views Lobby Ceiling For a public building such as City Performance Hall, Revit s 3D camera function is a way for us to continually critique the scale of spaces we create and their aesthetic impact. For this project, the decision was made to use a wood ceiling panel that mimicked the board-formed, articulated concrete within the performance hall. The 3D camera function proved critical to determining the correct size of panel, the dimension of projections, and the proper randomness of the ceiling in general. The height of the ceiling panels ( A.F.F.) made imagining these qualities from a human scale difficult without the use of 3D modeling. 2

3 Theater and Electrical Infrastructure One of the design concepts for DCPH was that much of the inner workings of the theater components in the building were to be exposed and celebrated. This included catwalks and lighting positions within the audience chamber. 3

4 Many theater devices, lighting locations, and power receptacles were located at these catwalks. A lot of devices means a lot of conduit in an area that s visible to the audience from certain vantage points. To verify that this conduit would look acceptable and wouldn t interfere with planned up-lighting, we roughly modeled the conduit s pathway. Not only did we confirm that the routing met the project s aesthetic design intent, we were able to use these working views to communicate the desired height and configuration of conduit with the contractor. Maximize spatial and material efficiencies through 3D modeling exercises ATTPAC Garage: Minimize Fill, Maximize Space for Theater Infrastructure As the DD phase came to a close on City Performance Hall, the design team was commissioned to design a one level underground parking structure beneath the building. This meant essentially designing a new foundation for both Phases I and II of City Performance Hall, as the garage footprint took up the entire block. Areas beneath the Phase II footprint would need to accommodate landscaping until that portion of the building receives funding. We would have to mold the garage roof structure to minimize backfill while providing enough depth for landscape planting. We also needed enough ceiling space within the garage to run theater plumbing lines the length of the building. In addition, the pressure was on to limit the depth of the garage to stay away from the water table and minimize excavation costs. How do we get from here to there? Mechanical Ductwork One of the design and construction teams greatest challenges on City Performance hall was the routing of supply and return ductwork around the stagehouse. The ductwork is large to minimize air speeds and thus the amount of noise created. The challenge was to get to the audience chamber without stealing too much 4

5 height from the tall side corridors. The solution was different on each side of the audience chamber. The 3D views we set up to monitor the detailing of the exit stairs proved critical in understanding where space was available for duct runs. Plumbing Infrastructure We undertook a similar exercise to evaluate storm and sanitary piping mains in the underground garage. These lines needed to travel the length of the building at an appropriate slope, while maintaining enough height for vehicles to pass beneath. 5

6 These plumbing lines were also designed to accept load from the future phases of the Performance Hall. In order to ensure this was feasible, we needed to locate sleeves in structural beams ahead of time. The piping model made locating these sleeves a much more intuitive task. Quickly identify problematic details and resolve them through rapid prototyping Knuckles We all know that joints are where assemblies tend to fail. A set of construction documents are also seem to falter in places where materials, building system components, or different disciplines come together. Monitoring a set of 3D views throughout the design process can help to identify conflicts or awkward confluences before the drawings make it to the builder. On DCPH, a major feature of the building s interior environment is its railing system. The system is a painted steel bar and mesh assembly that incorporates a variety of A/V, Theater, and Lighting components and there s lots of it. The team used everything from BIM to physical mockups to ensure that these components were both functional and aesthetically clean. This step light at the balcony level is an example of the iterative exercise needed to find a solution: Use BIM 3D views to effectively communicate design intent as part of your construction documents Provide contractors with conceptual guidance 6

7 Often, we as designers are eager to fully utilize BIM s 3D visualization capabilities to develop our vision for a project, making it easier to communicate that vision to consultants and clients. We sometimes neglect the opportunity that BIM affords to communicate design intent and conceptual principles to contractors as part of the construction documents. This is especially helpful in cases where sharing BIM files with the contractor is not possible due to contractual liability. This kind of 3D concept diagram has proven useful for discussions in the field when the model is not close at hand. If the information has been coordinated and modeled through your team s hard work, use it! For City Performance Hall, the mechanical engineer included colored isometric views depicting the routing of major ductwork. These views provided a perspective beyond that of our plans and sections which could be confusing, at first site, due to the complex nature of the routing. Corgan, Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, and McCarthy Building Company are still working to realize this exciting project. Dallas City Performance Hall is currently under construction, scheduled for completion in May of The facility will open to the public in the fall of next year. 7

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