The 1st Place Winner from Autodesk’s Excellence in Infrastructure Competition this past fall was HNTB, for the Expansion of Denver International Airport, originally built in 1995. The project was started in 2008-09, and includes 519-room hotel, a rail line from downtown to a hotel, which was part of the original master plan of the airport when it was originally built. The expansion includes the integration of a rail line, new baggage handling system, and the new airport is being prefabbed with a new entry way, security checkpoints, baggage screening – all of that being developed with the hotel.
rendering courtesy of Gensler.
Denver International Airport embodies an “airport city” concept.
“You can see where the rail line comes in and the glass wave shape at the top is the new hotel project,” said Eddy Krygiel, architect at HNTB. “It’s all attaching to the south side of the airport. We moved over 1 million cubic feet of earth in excavation.”
Eric Carpenter of Rand Secure Data, a division of Rand Worldwide, the parent of IMAGINiT, talked recently at Autodesk University about secure archiving of data and the increased need for AEC solutions in this field. Secure archiving of data has been prevalent in the enterprise of banking and other industries. AEC is now subject to increasingly external regulations, and data must be regulated carefully. Changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) have stressed that proper management of electronically stored information is essential when working with partners and multiple internal departments on a project. The size and special requirements of data such as point cloud data and files related to each other such as occur in a BIM model have to be taken into consideration. In response to this need, Rand Secure Data has released a comprehensive the Data Governance Solution that provides AEC firms with the tools for eDiscovery, email backup and archiving.
“An example is Newforma for point cloud data, it only shares what the users have time to enter. With our Data Governance Solution, it captures all the information and catalogues it. It also compresses data down to a fraction and uses Rand’s Data Center to store it,” said Carpenter.
Josh Lowe, senior innovation advisor and Mike Whaley, president of TURIS Systems,spoke at Autodesk University during the session entitled, “BuildX: Construction Site of the Future.” Lowe and Whaley talked about the scanning revolution, or “reality capture” as it is now called. TURIS develops and implements project-specific Building Innovation Systems that utilize a technology-based modular approach for knowledge management. Laser scanning or reality capture has become more accessible, portable and more applicable.
Last year’s predictions for the year, Top AEC Predictions for 2013 – AECCafe Voice, were somewhat different from this year’s. Although those predictions are still useful to note this year, I am focusing on some product directions and initiatives since there is a continuing, pressing need to address critical infrastructure, fueled largely by climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, and failing infrastructure and economy. Products developed and industries becoming more collaborative all shape the predictions of the year 2014.
In a session held at Autodesk University 2013, entitled “BuildX: Construction Site of the Future,” the future of building was explored by industry experts.
Senior vice president, Building Information Modeling, Amar Hanspal, said that construction employs the most number of people around the world (with the exception of health care). $7 trillion is tied up in the world of construction.
Iconic buildings are built in much the same way as they have always been built. Examples are the Empire State in 30s the Gherkin recently. They are labor intensive, and involve masses of blueprints. “Over the last 80 years, the jobsite hasn’t changed dramatically,” said Hanspal. “We may talk about design and engineering changing, but the world of construction has more evolution to do.”
He added that the economists bash this industry a bit. “Every industry except construction has increased in productivity in the past fifty years.”
Construction companies are very pragmatic, yet they were the earliest adopters of cell phones, for people on jobsites. All GPS systems and location systems have been used in construction.
How does someone manage complex logistic in construction process?
Hannu Lindberg,Technology Manager, VPR Construction, talked on the topic, “Managing a Construction Supply Chain and Quality.”
“We’re seeing more schedules, and witnessing prefab and modular assemblies, which are becoming critical to projects,” said Lindberg.
This process is required to deliver product much earlier on, but also opens up possibilities to track these components much earlier on in the supply chain process.
Lindberg said “Lightspeed is too slow. We’ll have to go to right to ludicruous speed. We’re beginning to fabricate more products off site in order to make lead times. We want to install building blocks as they arrive onsite.”
Global sourcing materials are becoming global as well. “We have a process in place and have procurement lead time earlier in process. Parts are being brought from various parts of the world, preassembled in the factory, tagged with a barcode, put in storage, then delivered to the site.”
What if we integrated quality process into the process? Asks Lindberg. At the factory level QA inspections? “There is currently no transparency into that process from the perspective of the general contractor. If we build checkpoints for quality throughout the supply chain, starting at manufacturing level, with checking and enforcing this quality, the chances of poor quality showing up on jobsite is significantly lower.”
The system is still primarily paper-based. To improve communications between the subcontractors and the general contractor we can replace paper based systems with mobile, barcode scanners, and all the technology to simplify and improve the process.
In an interview with president of Trelligence, Larry Ciscon, Ph. D., he talked about Affinity 8.1, their Autodesk partnership and Revit integration, the available modules, and more.
Affinity Program and Room Dragged and Dropped into Revit Architecture Room (with furnishings) dragged/dropped from Affinity Program Toolbar into Revit floorplan view.
In a conversation with Carl Sterner, senior product marketing manager for Sefaira, he talked about the recent announcement of Sefaira for Revit plug-in at Autodesk University 2013. The company had announced Sefaira for SketchUp in the past couple of months, which Sterner said is very different from Sefaira for Revit. (more…)
Robots for the future jobsite, flying drones for delivering packages and reality capture were all part of the show at Tuesday morning’s Mainstage presentation at Autodesk University 2013. The event kicked off with a short little skit by Penn & Teller, who will apparently provide an entire show for AU attendees on Thursday.
Dan Philbrick, senior product line manager in the infrastructure division at Autodesk, spoke with AECWeekly regarding the company’s new Autodesk Vehicle Tracking 2014 software for vehicle simulation, based on field-proven technology assets recently acquired from Savoy Computing Services in the UK.
The winner of the “Innovation in Building” Category in the Bentley Be Inspired Awards held in London during the “Year in Infrastructure 2013” event this month was the Cancer Treatment Centre for Guy’s and St. Thomas Hospitals, London.
