Current Filter: CAD>>>>>Case Study>

   

BIM Unlimited's BIM manager for the event was Martyn Horne, whose task was to lead an international team in creating innovative architecture within an organised and collaborative workflow. As you can imagine, the project - taking a Hudson Yards site in lower West Manhattan, and re-imagining it with a proposal for a 60-storey residential tower and a multisport community outreach arena adjacent to the High Lane elevated urban park - was pretty demanding, and that’s even without the 48-hour deadline.

Team member and lead architect Ruben Hernandez Fontana and his team of architects at CAEDRO/Estudio Caribe were able to rise to the challenge, creating a sophisticated architectural concept with non-standard geometry, which the rest of the multi-discipline project team was able to feed into its own BIM workflows.

MULTI-DISCIPLINE BIM
The intention of Horne's team was to demonstrate a truly interoperable approach to BIM, incorporating the use of different technologies by a widely dispersed team using BIM processes. Users of the major disciplines within the team could employ their preferred software, specialising in the fields of architecture, structural design and analysis, MEP design and 4D construction scheduling, and were able to exchange their BIM models using IFCs. The team also welcomed for the first time new members, including research students from the University of Tokyo and Tokyo University of Science with expertise in the area of external airflow, led by Yasin Idris.

Stressing the benefits achieved by embarking on such a project, the team's BIM validation and analysis manager David Oliviera says: "The Build Earth Live events are a great example of what can be created in the short timeframe allowed when team disciplines work collaboratively and in parallel.” This sentiment was echoed by the judging panel, which commented on the impressive amount of detail that the BIM Unlimited team was able to present in the short time allowed.

CHECKING OUT THE BRIEF
New York's City Planning Department provided the team with site data, which the team set about analysing - prompting a rapid response from lead architect Ruben Hernandez Fontana. He commented on the features that made it an ideal community space - the efficient connection between the three different areas of the project: the sport arena, the residential tower, and a pleasant spatial and visual connection with the High Line. He also pointed out the good accessibility to the metro stations, making it eminently suitable for future urban development.

In more detail, the 796,000 square feet area, together with the striking Hudson Yard Diagonals, provide a particular connection with the different contextual elements found in the Hudson Yard area. The most immediate is the visual and operative connection to High Line Park, maximising, at ground level, the use of the public spaces, and incorporating an elevated public and green space that connects the High Line Park, the view to the river and the team’s proposal for the Sport Arena +Residential tower - visually and spatially,

The Residential tower is conceived as a flexible structure, supported by an external diagrid. The diagrid structure defines the composition of the facades, staying underexposed and covered by a Curtain Wall, which reflects only one of the directions of the diagrid. Cleverly, this defines an optic pattern that breaks the usual image of diagrid-designed structures (which were the main inspirations for this building) and changes the way a High Rise building is perceived.

The Sport Arena has been conceived as a horizontal building with a direct relationship with public spaces - a relationship that is found in other successful New York buildings, such as the Lever House at 5th Avenue. The Sport Arena, which comprises a multi-use sports hall for community use, complements the tower, whilst at the same time strengthening the project relationship with the ground-level public space and the river front.

Page   1  2