2Beginning with BIM. Axiom Architects

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1 2Beginning with BIM Axiom Architects jonathan reeves city perspectives

2 24 Chapter 2 the practice Since Axiom Architects was founded in 1986, the practice has grown from its origins in Lewes, East Sussex, to become a well-established company with experience in a wide range of sectors with projects across the uk and abroad. In 2006 we opened our South West office in Exeter, and in 2013 we opened a London office. With staff at our various offices bringing different levels of cad ability, and with our projects ranging from large new-build commercial schemes to more bespoke jobs and building conversions, it was immediately apparent that bim was not something that could be brought in for everyone, everywhere, overnight. We needed to take small steps, gradually developing our understanding of bim and how we could make it useful for everyone and an advantage for the practice as a whole. As a first step, we set out to trial a bim workflow using a small number of staff, and selected suitable projects as wayfinders to develop our understanding, gradually bringing other co-workers along through regular training. Innovative Vectorworks bim practice Axiom Architects llp author Luke Bray location Lewes, East Sussex; London, Exeter, Devon employees 35 (32 architectural staff, 3 administration) founded 1986 contact lb@axiomarchitects.co.uk website partners Andy Rowe, Rob Tunna, Paul Morris, Richard Hollis, Alex Bailey technology Vectorworks Architect, Cinema 4d, V Ray, Adobe Photoshop sectors Hotel and leisure, commercial, residential, education With experience across a variety of sectors from hotels, bars and restaurants to offices, residential schemes and educa tional projects we have worked with a wide range of clients, including multi national organisations as well as small companies and individual private clients. Vectorworks Architect has been our primary cad application since its origins as MiniCAD, although it is only over the last two years that the practice has begun to adopt a 3d working method and started to explore the benefits that Vectorworks provides as a building information modelling (bim) tool. Our practice has expanded fairly quickly in recent years, with more staff working on a larger number of projects across three offices. Making more efficient use of our cad software and exploiting the benefits of bim offered some great opportunities, but also presented a few challenges. How could Vectorworks bim be used to improve the consistency and accuracy of our design output? How could it save us time and improve efficiency, rather than increasing workload? How would we implement a bim working method for all staff across three offices? How could bim be used to improve the information provided to contractors and clients, and how would it meet future client needs? project 1/2 small Premier Inn Hotel, Clacton The construction of a new Premier Inn at Clacton represented our first use of bim on a live project. The proposed scheme was a three-storey new-build hotel comprising 66 bedrooms with a ground-floor reception and restaurant and associated staff facilities. The building followed a relatively simple rectilinear form and had a limited number of room variations based on a standardised layout. Over the years, Axiom has developed a strong working relationship with Premier Inn as the keeper of their design manual and as architects for new self-build Premier Inn schemes across London and the south of England. Given this experience, we already had an in-depth knowledge of the brand, its supply chain and the standard components. The modest size of the scheme and the high degree of standardisation and repetition meant that the proposed hotel was ideally suited to a bim test. As a model design to some extent, this project also offered potential for bim components used to be refined and developed for later jobs, offering future efficiency savings.

3 Premier Inn Clacton Showing proposed room layouts hub by Premier Inn cgi generated from bim model Completed project Top: photograph of Premier Inn Clacton as built bim model Above: cgi from early bim model of Premier Inn Clacton

4 26 Chapter 2 Innovative Vectorworks bim hub by Premier Inn, King s Cross Bedrooms feature smart technology

5 Beginning with bim 27 Timescale was also a key consideration. The intended programme allowed 16 months from the start of riba Work Stage 4 to completion on site. The scheme followed a traditional procurement route, with a 12-month construction programme, allowing only four months to complete the production information, a fairly typical timescale for this type of project. While not overly long, this did allow us to develop a limited bim workflow within a focused but not too pressured timescale. In this instance, we used 3d working and bim tools to a very limited extent, working non-collaboratively in 3d to create general arrangement plans, sections and elevations to a 1:50 scale while using Vectorworks Architect s scheduling capabilities to generate door and window schedules alongside traditionally drawn two-dimensional 1:10 or 1:5 construction details. Early planning for bim can increase a project s front-end workload: the library of information must be built up, and the organisational structure set out, while the scheme may still be at risk of not going ahead. In this instance, planning permission had already been obtained before our decision to adopt a bim workflow, although the scheme had previously been drawn using 2d methods without any bim content. Although this meant that we were unable to maximise the benefits of working in 3d from the outset, the later adoption of bim gave us certainty that it would not be time wasted. Creating a library of bim objects, symbols and wall styles for the project provided a set of tools suitable for a number With three offices, staff at different levels of cad ability and a wide variety of projects, it was apparent that bim was not something that could be brought in for everyone, everywhere, overnight. We needed to take small steps, developing our understanding of others, as well as providing a means to quickly update information as the hub brand developed and changes were instructed. The use of a bim model to generate the elevations and sections also ensured co-ordination between drawings and reduced time spent amending them. The Clacton project progressed fairly smoothly on a basis of co-ordinating information with the rest of the design team in a standard 2d format. Internally, however, we had to make sure that those working on the project were all aware of how the scheme was organised and were fully up to speed with the use of the various 3d tools and scheduling. Initially, this worked well with the two project team members who were involved in the process throughout, but did limit the potential for other staff unfamiliar with the bim working method to assist on the project. It became apparent that resourcing and responsibilities for co-ordinating the model needed to be carefully managed, especially during times of peak workload. results and findings Following construction over the past year, the hotel is now open to the public and trading well, delivered on programme and within budget. Time spent on the scheme remained comparable to that spent on projects of a similar scale that had been drawn traditionally. Although more time was spent starting the production information package, later design amendments became slightly quicker. Overall, the project took a little more drafting time than previous schemes but was still profitable. Given that this was our first bim project, we had anticipated that it would take more time than if traditionally drawn, allowing for us to adapt to a different workflow and learn the new tools. After the successful use of a limited bim workflow on this project, other schemes, such as the Premier Inn at Eltham, have also been carried out using much of the same library of information, making the most of the initial development that we carried out for Clacton. In this way, real projects have been used to develop a centralised library of components and bim tools that can be expanded on through subsequent projects, accessed via the Vectorworks Resource Browser. project 2/2 large hub by Premier Inn, King s Cross Following the success of Premier Inn across the uk, November 2014 saw the public launch of hub by Premier Inn with the chain s first opening in the West End of London. This hotel became the first in the uk to achieve a breeam Outstanding rating. The hub concept is based on an affordable compact bedroom, designed for city-centre locations, with hightech features planned in from the start. High-speed Wi-Fi is provided, and the installed lighting, air conditioning and smart tv sets can be operated by mobile apps. Making the most of the space available, the compact room design features fitted components to maximise functionality within an area of 11 sq m. Given the compact footprint and the extensive level of fit-out to each room, accuracy of construction and furniture specification was key to delivering a successful product. After we had worked on this project and developed the prototype design in a traditional 2d manner, the similar standardised layouts, bespoke fitted components and innovative high-tech room design were well suited to a bim approach. Using Vectorworks 2d and 3d capabilities, a bim library could be developed from the original 2d information. The relative infancy of the hub brand also offered us the opportunity to develop a bim approach to the overall brand design manual, a forward-thinking design method for an innovative product. After earlier small-scale trials of 3d working and bim at Clacton and other sites, a bim approach was adopted for the much larger proposed hub project at King s Cross, a new-build, mixed-use scheme comprising a 389-bedroom hotel with associated restaurant, meeting rooms and support facilities plus three separate retail units, all spread across nine stories, including two basement levels.

6 28 Chapter 2 The scheme would occupy a brownfield site close to King s Cross station and Regent s Canal. Surrounding design constraints, such as rights of light and differences in building scale across frontages, led us to a complex stepped building form around two light-wells, with changes in building section at various points. 3d working allowed us to provide a range of accurate sections through the different parts of the building. Following on from a 2d traditionally drawn planning design, detailed designs were developed in a 3d bim format from riba Work Stage 3 onwards. Given the relative newness of the hub brand, there was still a great deal of design development within the model room design. In adopting a bim method, we needed to follow an approach that would allow design changes to be easily incorporated while design progressed. Further planning amendments also had to be accommodated in parallel with the creation of production information. managing a consolidated model With a more developed understanding of 3d working in Vectorworks Architect, our initial bim development for the project sought to develop a project resource library of building elements and symbols for key components and room types and establish an organisational framework for the project. This was based on a central building model set, from which specific drawings could be referenced. Working in 3d and developing bim information substantially increased file sizes beyond those we had previously been dealing with. Accordingly, learning from previous trial projects, it became essential to plan out how the model was constructed, both to limit file size and to enable more than one person to work on the project at a time. Even with this separation achieved, we had to interrogate what information was really needed in the central model. Keeping furniture and fittings in 2d, and leaving detailed design items to other drawings, helped to keep file sizes manageable and avoid bogging down older computer hardware. For standardised information that did not need to be in the model, the project resource library allowed us to call upon a common kit of parts. breeam benefits Another benefit in using a Vectorworks Architect bim workflow was that information such as materials quantities for building elements could be quickly Bedroom fitting Efficient use of space was key and accurately scheduled for key breeam credits. The use of Spaces allowed floor finishes and areas to be easily calculated. Floors, walls, roofs and partitions were scheduled to allow the environmental ratings of the various elements to be quantified. dealing with design changes Over the course of design development, various aspects of the scheme and the hub brand, such as bedroom dimensions, layouts and components, were changed. Through the use of a 3d model and project symbol library, such changes could be easily and quickly accommodated, with changes in plan automatically updated in elevations, sections and other drawings referencing these key sources. Vectorworks Architect s ability to filter out construction component information quickly and easily also meant that the same construction model could be used for planning applications without the need to draw separate schemes in parallel, simply using the viewport controls to turn off wall components and other unwanted classes and layers. exporting 3d information We have yet to use bim collaboratively to co-ordinate structural design, civil engineering and building services information, but already this project involved some limited exports of 3d information. The 3d model was used to generate Cinema 4d computer visualisations, involving a great deal less visual modelling time than would have been the case if separate models had been required purely for visualisation purposes. Illustrating the capacity of bim to satisfy more technical project requirements, the model was also exported for the purposes of rights-of-light negotiations, helping to accurately establish the daylight and sunlight impacts of proposals upon surrounding properties. Innovative Vectorworks bim To enable streamlined working, general model co-ordination was managed by the project leader. This model was then referenced, using Vectorworks Design Layer Viewport Referencing, to enable detailed sections, schedules and room layouts to be worked on by others in parallel. Separating shell and core elements from internal fit-out also enabled parallel working while reducing the file sizes of the separate model parts. Design constraints led us to a complex building form, with changes in section and differences in building scale across frontages. 3d working allowed us to provide a range of accurate sections through the different parts of the building At tender stage, an ifc 2x3-format model was also exported, allowing tendering contractors to call off materials quantities and obtain more accurate pricing information. Although our clients have yet to request the use of collaborative bim on any projects, the possibility has been mentioned by some of them, and we anticipate using it in the near future.

7 Beginning with bim 29 With the King s Cross site now clear, construction work is imminent at the time of writing. As it progresses, we will be interested to see how the accuracy of the modelled information has benefited our further work on the project as well as works on site. Conclusions While we are only taking our first few steps into the world of bim, Vectorworks Architect s bim capabilities have allowed us to progress fairly smoothly from our previous 2d working methods into 3d without the need to learn new software packages or suffer problems of compatibility moving from one cad platform to another. It has still been a learning curve, but using familiar software has smoothed the process and meant that bim has come as less of a shock to the system. Other benefits include flexibility (the ability to proceed one step at a time) and versatility (the ability to deliver 3d and tabular information in a variety of formats). Jumping to 3d and developing a bim workflow takes up a little more time early on in a project, but we have already found that when bim is employed on the right job, time spent in up-front planning is quickly paid back in savings down the line. We have already seen savings in subsequent project workflows as a result of this initial investment, where resources have been recycled from one project to the next. Establishing what projects are right for bim and deciding on the level of information a model needs have been key factors: it is only worth putting in the information you intend to get out. There is little point in modelling all the furniture, for example, if you are never going to schedule it or show it off. If you need to provide more information later, on the other hand, it can always be added. Taking small steps from one project to the next has been very helpful. Trialling a bim workflow for the first time on a small project, and setting out manageable goals for information, allowed problems to be worked out and a best way found before we jumped in with full-scale bim on bim model in layers Exploded view of floors showing model structure all projects. Although it may be best to test the basics in the first instance, testing on a real project was a good way to keep the momentum going without spending too much time on theoretical exercises, which will often get pushed back when resources for non-fee-earning work are limited. As a medium-sized architectural practice working for very large, demanding clients, we have found the ability to re-use tools and resources from one project to another, and make the computer do the work for us, has made subsequent jobs quicker, giving us more time to spend thinking and designing rather than co-ordinating 2d information. One result of this is that a streamlined bim workflow has increased our overall capacity for work, allowing us to keep up with the demands of our clients and provide more and better information at the same time. As we now take on a greater number of projects within the practice, it is a testament to the efficiencies of bim that we can manage an increased workload without clients seeing a reduction in productivity. the pitfalls There have been a few hiccups along the way. Some interesting early challenges included managing the training of staff to follow the stricter requirements of a bim workflow and working out how best to structure a project model. If the whole practice does not yet have the necessary skills to work with bim, care needs to be taken in selecting the right design team and/or investing in a programme of staff training so that the project can be appropriately resourced. Because bim is still fairly new and unfamiliar to many, workload pressures on those trialling it have, at times, proved difficult to manage without a wider pool of experience to call upon. This problem will reduce as time goes by and training continues. Finding new ways to use bim collaboratively, both within an office and among the wider consultant team, will help to relieve individual workload pressures. We look forward to taking that next step. key lessons The use of bim doesn t have to be all or nothing. The level of use can be tailored to suit the resources available and the information needed. Training and organisation are essential. Plan ahead and take care to ensure a project can be sufficiently resourced throughout, and make sure that staff have the necessary skills to manage a bim workflow effectively. Creating a centralised library is a good way to make the most of generic information for use across a number of projects, as well as maintaining efficient control over cad standards and helping to maintain consistency of information across the office.