demonstration project

PalaceXchange

Project Name: PalaceXchange

Project Location: Middlesex
Sector: Commercial
Themes: Building Information Modelling
Project Team: ING Real Estate / Costain /
Reid Architecture / Gifford
Contract Value: £30m
Type of Work: Retail development

The PalaceXchange scheme involved the erection of a civic building • Sharing of information, drawings and schedules in an agreed and
comprising three-storey civic/library accommodation. This was consistent manner.
connected by a new footbridge to a 530-space multi storey car park
They found that the issue primarily resulted from inaccuracies in dimensions
below including three leisure use compartments. It provided 14,000m²
which were added to drawings during their development. The generic Avanti
of new retail space in 22 shop units and 6,038m² of leisure and cultural
approach advocates the usage of ‘associative dimensioning’ (where the CAD
venues and a link between the town’s top high street retailers.
technology in use allows) whereby the dimensions are added to drawings
automatically by the CAD system when the base reference files are updated.
Drivers for Change
This removes any risk of error in dimensions where they are added as text by
Costain wished to improve their processes to deliver a high quality end product the operator.
with less waste in the design process. The clients, ING Real Estate, were keen
to make good use of technologies and techniques to make the construction Following the review, a series of simple common formats were defined, and
process more efficient and reduce the operational costs. The client and fully agreed by representatives of all project partners, for catagorisation of design
contractor felt that a Building Information Model (BIM) could help to improve data, data and document exchange formats, the drawing template and the
spatial coordination and produce better quality information with a reduction CAD layer naming convention.
in Requests for Information (RFI). The team therefore decided to use a
basic BIM in the form of a 3D model, initially to check the spatial coordination Once the project standards were agreed, meetings were held to present the
between the architecture, structural frame and facade. This was then passed methodology to the sub-contractors that had design and co-ordination responsibility
to the timber cladding specialist. when they were appointed and once their buy-in had been achieved.

TruAxis developed a 3D model and the steel suppliers, Bourne Steel, were
Enablers already familiar with the technology. Costain recognised that by employing
Costain decided to review existing documentation to assess the extent to which the external TruAxis team to undertake 3D modeling they were paying for an
a consistent approach had been taken, and standard format used, during the external organisation to check one of the lead designers’ responsibilities, namely
development of the design documentation. This was carried out by a third party design coordination, but they were content as this process was speeding up the
consultancy, TruAxis and an audit report was produced. Costain’s main concern overall design and co-ordination process. The rest of the team had little prior
with the findings of the audit report was the lack of standards in use as they experience of using BIM and so experience was not stipulated as a requirement
found that the drawings were to different scales and to different origins. during the procurement of the supply chain. As is often the case where new
ways of working are proposed, there was some reluctance amongst the team
The early audits undertaken by TruAxis found some inconsistency in the spatial to try out the BIM and Avanti approaches. However workshops had been held
co-ordination of the design. The Avanti team was asked to investigate the to explain the benefits and once this had been understood the tools aided the
inconsistencies to confirm whether they could be resolved through the agreed cultural integration of the team.
standards. Avanti is an approach to collaborative working that enables construction
project partners to work together effectively. It works on the following principles:
Barriers
• Early access to all project information by all projects Collaborative working using the Avanti approach is best implemented at the
• Early involvement of the supply chain earliest possible stage in the design process. When the decision was taken to
use the Avanti approach on the PalaceXchange project the design process was could access [and re-use] the Solaglas model files. This meant we could issue
well underway. This meant that implementation of the entire Avanti approach fully co-ordinated information.” Sharing of information in this way is one of the
was not possible. key advantages of employing approaches such as Avanti and BIM.

Lessons Learnt The approach meant that the formal activity of design co-ordination coordination
The Avanti consultant, and Costain identified the following learning points: phase and clash detection happened inherently when all parties are reusing each
others’ CAD information – all at the same origin, orientation scale, as reference files.
• Costain and their partners have a culture of improvement and this
facilitated the introduction of the Avanti approach. Similarly, reviewing others’ information for approval was much simpler as it
• The investment needed can be greater where the new approach is was fully spatially coordinated and achieved a much higher quality and level of
implemented once design has been produced, as existing designs needs spatial co-ordination. The architect calculated that the process for repositioning
to be checked and redrawn every other party’s existing details for review and coordination check as below:
• Successful implementation of the Avanti approach can be achieved where 45-50 details per area
organisations have: x 15-20 minutes per drawing

© Constructing Excellence. Requests to reproduce any part of this case study should be sent to Constructing Excellence. Published January 2010.
• A management team with the willingness to promote and enable the x 4 areas for that building
change x between 3 and 6 levels on each building
• People with skills which are commensurate with the approach and the = approx 8 man-weeks per building
scale of the change required, or can upgrade their skills as required
• Well-prepared and formalised processes and procedures so that This shows that where the Avanti approach is adopted, a huge quality
consistency of approach can be achieved without ambiguity improvement can be attained in return for little or no investment in cost or time.
• Technologies, where required, which enables the approach to be
One of the interesting observations was the impact that consistent information
implemented.
can have on cost certainty. Where information which was compliant with the
• Costain are implementing the Avanti approach, on other projects, in a
Avanti SMP was issued for tender the spread in tender returns (variance in
considered, phased manner. This continuous improvement approach,
costs as % of total package value) was smaller than where returns had been
on a project-by-project basis meant that resistance to change could be
received previously. Costain suggested that this is due to a consistency in the
managed more easily than where step changes in practice are adopted.
interpretation of information enabled by the issue of better quality information.
• The design team members developed design in 2-D as the norm,
however this did not prevent the adoption of collaborative methods and Costain recognised that co-ordinated information generated using the Avanti
3D modeling provided additional benefits. approach was helping to flush out hidden design costs that otherwise may have
• It is much easier to encourage sub-contractors to adopt processes and developed into claims at a later stage where is would be more difficult to resolve.
standards where these are agreed at the time of their appointment. This
means that the collaborative approach is applied from the outset rather The project was measured against requests for information and design changes

Constructing Excellence is committed to reducing its carbon impact.

than making a transition between approaches halfway through the project. and was fully reported in the Avanti documentation. Further measurements
were carried out by Costain suggest that overall the project saved around 10%
KPI Results of the construction cost (around £3.6m). The final building is considered to be
Information management processes were seen to be greatly enhanced. For fit for purpose.
example, in one area of the design a saving of two hours per drawing was
achieved in formatting and preparing the drawing for issue. This area of the
Conclusions
building was represented on 65 drawings each of which was expected to be
issued 6 times for different purposes giving a total saving of nearly 800 man- The experience of Avanti to date, and findings from impact analyses, has been
hours (or £50K). Savings of up to 50% compared to traditional methods in the sufficient for Costain and Reid Architecture to express commitment to the
effort required in the exchange of information documentation were observed implementation of the Avanti approach on this and other projects. They felt
thus negating the initial investment. that the major benefit of improved spatial coordination was the delivery of the
project 10% under budget. Some members of the team have adopted the
Changes required to the facade design to satisfy Planning Conditions meant Avanti principles and have used 3D modeling in subsequent projects. Costain
that a set of 1:5 details had to be produced. The architect was able to re-use is now considering the priorities among their other projects to adopt the
design produced by the façade contractor, Solaglas. The architect stated: “the approach. Likewise the team at Reid Architecture is committed to adoption of
preparation of 1:5 drawings involved a lot less guesswork than usual as we the Avanti approach and is also now prioritizing its projects

Constructing Excellence
in the Built Environment
Warwick House,
25 Buckingham Palace Road,
London SW1W 0PP

T 020 7592 1100 E helpdesk@[Link]

W [Link]