Study in Success - TLCD Architecture (excerpt Part 2)

How TLCD Architecture Capitalizes on BIM

Excerpt from Ideate Study in Success
Part Two of a Three Part Series

By 2002, new TLCD projects were being modeled in Revit. By 2006, BIM was the firm’s core methodology for project delivery. The well-known Revit advantages of consensus building and collaboration solidified the firm’s commitment. TLCD also found that the visualization, scheduling, analysis and phasing capabilities of Revit underpinned many successes.

Visualization and Leveraging

With Revit, TLCD can produce strong, striking images at any point in the process, and the visualization capabilities alone make the tool invaluable. Leveraging Revit in combination with other software increases its value further.

As one example, to help clients visualize, the TLCD team uses a familiar imaging tool, Google Earth. From an outer space perspective, they zoom toward the targeted continent, country and region until recognizable area landmarks orient the client to the location, then they drop the 3D Revit model into its proposed site.

Scheduling

With Revit, schedules and quantities are live views of the building database. With interior design for example, what-if scenarios facilitate exploration of design options for cost efficiencies and other criteria. Human counting errors shrink to virtually nothing. Preliminary costs grow in accuracy. The client sees the 3D use of space, the functionality earlier in the process in surprising detail. Redundant work disappears. TLCD can offer alternatives and suggest scenarios for customizations and cost-efficiencies.

Estimating and Cost Benefit Analysis

Revit has the ability to extract and summarize quantities of materials, a capability that points to a future where cost benefit analyses facilitate sustainable designs. Historically, estimating was done at fixed episodic points. Now, TLCD is focused on a new model where cost and quantity data are fluid in real time.

Real time estimating will enable the firm to determine a measurable value for virtually any and all design features, to test them in the model and weigh their benefits. Given this data, at any point in the process from conceptual to construction, the firm will be able to extract information and quantify its effect on the overall cost of the building.

Phasing

Since tenant improvements (TIs) proceed in phases, TLCD renovations of existing spaces make the phasing capabilities of Revit very useful. Revit enables tracking so that a sequential approach for each stage of the project can be established.

The snapshot of the construction process Revit provides and the capability of Revit to organize the project are especially useful in TIs for medical facilities. Hospitals never shut down, so the design team must provide disruption planning to allow operation during construction. In the specific design of medical clinic examination rooms, health practitioners need to see details such as placement of sinks and electrical outlets in proximity to exam tables to accommodate issues such as patient safety.

Revit helps orchestrate phasing, enabling the client to coordinate staffing and plan for materials management throughout the project. By using GoToMeeting and Sketch Up with Revit, TLCD is able to facilitate client communication. Utilizing Revit for phasing also helps the contractor visualize what a space will look like.

With Revit, TLCD is able to provide visualizations, scheduling, analyses and phasing. It is in the what-if scenarios that the client discovers what works, what doesn’t work, and what are the best alternatives.

As Stephen Peakes, TLCD Project Manager – Healthcare Projects explains, “With Revit, you have changed the paradigm for the industry.”

To read the complete text of the Ideate Study in Success http://ideateinc.com/ideas/case.html
To learn more about TLCD Architecture http://www.tlcd.com/