Disruptive Evolving, Engineering and Planning in Wood
The project refers to the future further development of the BIM maturity level 2 to 3 and faces the challenge of how the collaboration of several users can be realised simultaneously in a shared model.
Factsheet
- Schools involved School of Architecture, Wood and Civil Engineering
- Institute(s) Institute for Digital Construction and Wood Industry IDBH
- Funding organisation Innosuisse
- Duration (planned) 14.10.2019 - 27.03.2022
- Head of project Prof. Thomas Rohner
- Project staff Prof. Thomas Rohner
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Partner
Hochschule Luzern - Technik & Architektur
Timbatec Holzbauingenieure Schweiz AG
Helbling Technik AG
Dassault Systèmes Suisse SA
Stuber & Cie AG - Keywords BIM, planning, timber construction
Situation
To facilitate the collaboration of several users simultaneously in a single model, DeepWood uses an industry platform and its structures as an example. This allows new structures for future real-time-based, company-wide, collaborative planning in timber construction to be developed and tested in a Living Lab. A closed-BIM approach eliminates the ‘noise’ of the interface problems of current BIM projects. In parallel with this, a performance matrix was developed that provides guidance on how architects and planners manage project progress in prefabricated timber construction.
Course of action
The project team found the collaboration in the Living Labs challenging. Putting the logic of common architecture and construction software behind them, they built up know-how in modelling on an industry platform. The hope that no interface problems would be encountered did not altogether materialise. They found it difficult to build up know-how in practice for modelling on the industry platform. Nevertheless, in workshops they were able to identify added values in parameterised planning and the component-based design approach. This allows previously rigid project structures to be dissolved and in-depth variant studies to be carried out in parallel over a longer period. It is possible to make simple adjustments even very late in the process using this method. Armed with these insights, a second Living Lab was launched to better understand the methodology and develop a new disruptive planning structure.
Result
Living Lab 2 was designed by a design team from the two universities in conjunction with Timbatec Holzbauingenieure Schweiz AG, Helbling PLM Solutions and Dassault Systèmes, and proved to be a great success. The result is a new understanding of processes that gets by without rigid phases, and associated with this the new possibilities for making decisions in a project only when dependencies and effects are better understood. Despite the success in Living Lab 2, the transfer of the service model is still difficult to realise. More research is still needed on the technical side, for example. Also, the entry barrier for expert planners is very high; the lock-in effect presented a problem for the research team too; and building up qualified experts for modelling represents a further challenge. The project was supported by the Swiss Innovation Agency Innosuisse and implemented in collaboration with four business partners: Timbatec Holzbauingenieure Schweiz AG, Dassault Systèmes, Stuber Holz and Helbling PLM Solutions.
