Tekla Global BIM Awards winners announced

BIM keeps expanding to new fields in construction

By Risto Räty

The winners of the five categories of Tekla Global BIM Awards have been chosen among a vast range of competing models, using all kinds of materials all around the world. In the Total BIM category, the best was Puuvilla Shopping Center in Pori, Finland. The Cast in Place Concrete award went to BB&T Ballpark in Charlotte, USA, and Precast Concrete award to Kalasataman Fregatti and Fiskari in Helsinki, Finland, while the best Engineering project was Tesco Sheringham. The Steel award was given to the Gap ice-skating stadium in France.

The Puuvilla Shopping Centre, delivered by a project group of 13 companies, is truly a Total BIM project. The team tackled the challenges of large project, tight schedule and combining new and old structures with good Building Information Modeling. In addition to structural, they utilized architectural, MEP, electricity and sprinkler system models and laser scanned the existing structures to create an inventory model.

The competition jury selected BB&T Ballpark in Charlotte, USA, the best Cast in Place Concrete project. Wayne Brothers was responsible for concrete construction and coordination. They used models for planning pours, tracking progress and coordinating with other trades. The rebar provider Harris Steel used the concrete model in detailing, which lead to fewer errors and more efficient workflow.

The winner among Structural Engineering projects was Tesco Sheringham supermarket by Pinnacle, a bespoke design featuring a timber roof structure. The design team combined the architect and mechanical engineer’s 3D models along with their own steel, timber and reinforced concrete model created in Tekla and exchanged the models between all parties.

The best project in Precast category was Kalasataman Fregatti and Fiskari, two residential buildings with geometrically complex façade under construction. Engineering office Mäkeläinen started modeling already in the conceptual design phase, omitting 2D drawings, and now uses architect’s model as reference and for clash checking. The model has also been a notable source of fabrication information.

In the Steel category, the winner was the renovation project of the skating stadium in Gap, France, by Patrick Millet. The team had to keep the existing timber structures from the early 70s while reinforcing the structure to support new loads and fill the current seismological norms.

The winner of the public vote was the Baku Olympic Stadium in Azerbaidjan, modeled by Tekfen Engineering and Sdeng Steel & Structural Detail Engineers. The stadium was modeled in two locations, in Greece and Turkey, while BIM tools were used for communication with the designers in South Korea and New York.

For the first time, Tekla Global BIM Awards also had student contestants. The best student project was Hotel Katajanokka, coursework by Jesse Pulli from the Aalto University in Finland, and Alan David Lazarte Mejia from Universidad Nacional de San Agustin in Peru got a special mention for his independent sports court project.

The winners of the competition were chosen by a jury of international BIM experts: Ashwin Mahalingam, Assistant Professor of Indian Institute of Technology, Madras; Richard Ogden, Chairman of Buildoffsite and Director in acumen7; Viktor Várkonyi, CEO of Graphisoft; and John Bacus, Product Management Director of Trimble SketchUp. Tekla was represented by Executive Vice President Risto Räty.

The entries to the Global BIM Awards competition were the winners of regional Tekla BIM competitions held by Tekla area offices and resellers during 2013. Forty-four exemplary projects competed in Tekla Global BIM Awards and over 2,800 votes were cast for the projects presented on the competition website.

More information about the competition, winners and other entries is available at www.tekla.com/global-bim-awards-2013.