What sort of complexities are introduced when you construct a building complex in phases?
- What happens at the interfaces between the buildings as the phases advance?
- How can you plan and prepare for these complexities as your create your initial building model?
As phases advance, these interfaces will need to be coordinated and aligned meticulously to ensure each discipline (architectural, structural, MEP) of the building comply with the logical sequence of the project. To plan and prepare for these complexities, the use of BIM model is essential as it allows the designers to utilize this power tool to test-drive the coordination of the building and create flexible and adaptable design elements that can be potentially used to reduce the amount of complexities that might occur in the future as the project moves forward. In addition, BIM allows for early planning that can incorporate buffer zones as well as adjustable interfaces to simulate how each phase will interact with adjacent structures.
In your project, which features of the proposed design did you choose to model as design alternatives?
- Why did you choose these building features? And what were the biggest challenges in modeling them as the design alternatives?
For my project, the design alternatives can be manifested in the difference of whether the “arch” exterior walls should be placed in front of the extension building of the engineering common center. Since the center of focus for my design program is to provide student with more exposure to outdoors and having those elements in place will potentially be contradictory to this idea. I reserve this as an option for the client since the “arch” elements in those walls do provide a certain degree of aesthetics to the overall building, therefore, this is intentionally left as an option to the client to decide if they want to keep this element. Practically, it is not too difficult to model them as design alternatives and the only challenging part is to decide which particular elements should be assigned to sets of design alternatives while ensuring the overall consistency of the building.