For its Gen Zero project, Bond Bryan Digital were initially engaged by the Department for Education (through the Centre for Digital Built Britain) to develop a set of appointing party information management resources aligned to the UK BIM Framework and ISO19650 suite of standards.
This research and development project involved the design of two schools, one on an urban site and one on a rural site, to look at the delivery of new ultra-low carbon building standards. As information managers, Bond Bryan Digital took a fresh look at using building information models (BIM) and best practice information management to support the carbon assessment and determine the cost uplift for designing these ultra-low carbon schools.
Bond Bryan Digital developed the information requirements collaboratively with the Department for Education, which included the need to deliver information to support carbon analysis, quantification (to support cost analysis), visualisation, linking to cloud-based specifications and data for transfer to the operational phase (COBie) to manage the buildings post-handover.
All of the information requirements were documented in an information management platform, which was made up of a combination of technology solutions, primarily including Notion, Airtable and Whimsical. Collectively this approach was referred to as the project’s Information Hub.
The information management platform also integrated other cloud-based technology, such as 3D Repo (cloud-based model viewer) and linked to other technology used on the project (e.g., Asite).
Bond Bryan Digital worked with the Department for Education, Mott MacDonald (project management) and Asite to setup a common data environment (CDE) aligned to the requirements of ISO19650.
Moving away from traditional folder structures, the common data environment setup used meta data rather than folders to filter and sort information. Bond Bryan Digital managed the project’s common data environment on behalf of the Department for Education throughout the life of the project – adding and removing users as required, adjusting the configuration, and checking information was provided by information authors in accordance with the Project’s Information Standard.
Our work also involved developing processes to support the invitation to tender for the design team and carrying out capability and capacity assessments of each prospective designer using online forms and reports.
On the appointment of the designers to the project, Bond Bryan Digital supported the team to develop the appointment resources, including a BIM Execution Plan, Detailed Responsibility Matrix and Master Information Delivery Plan. All these lead appointed party information management resources were included within the Information Hub, directly alongside the Department for Education’s information management resources.
This project (as a research and development project) was unusual to standard ISO19650 projects as Bond Bryan Digital supported both the appointing party (the Department for Education) and lead appointed party (Mott McDonald). This approach led to a more collaborative approach and allowed the Department for Education to improve understanding of progress of the information delivery throughout the project.
The use of open standards as part of the Department of Education’s Exchange Information Requirements meant that the best designers could be selected to deliver the project. This resulted in the selection of a design team that were using four different authoring tools – Graphisoft Archicad (architecture), Autodesk Revit (building services, catering, civil engineering, and FF&E), Nemetschek Vectorworks (landscape architecture) and Bentley OpenBuildings Designer (structural engineering).
The use of four different authoring tool meant that a consistent OpenBIM approach was required across all tools to provide data that could support the required purposes. Bond Bryan Digital supported the design team to deliver the information required, working with the designers to address issues with interoperability throughout the commission.
As the project was a research and development project much of the scope emerged as the project evolved. As a result, Bond Bryan Digital services included the collation of federated data for carbon analysis to import into the cloud-based carbon assessment solution (One Click LCA) and supporting the exchange of information for quantification (iTWO costX). Additionally, Bond Bryan Digital developed an approach to provide cloud-based specifications for some of the designers using its Information Hub concept, adding no cost to the project, but satisfying the client’s brief. This solution allowed a direct connection between the 3-dimensional models and the detailed specification for each product.
At each information exchange, Bond Bryan Digital produced federated models, COBie outputs and information management reports.
All resources were fully aligned to open standards, enabling the Department for Education to select the best teams to deliver best value across all school projects.
This project also won BIM Project of the Year 2021 at the Construction Computing Awards.
For more information visit: https://www.genzero.co.uk/
Bond Bryan Digital were employed for reconfiguration of client information requirements around open standards, mobilisation and training of model authors for information delivery.
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Bond Bryan Digital were employed for information management for McLaughlin & Harvey (lead appointed party).
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