The Central Park Tower construction project took center stage at Tekla’s special BIM seminar held at the Sheraton Denver Downtown Hotel in Denver, Colorado, August 13, 2009. During an afternoon interactive session, about 75 Colorado-based industry professionals had an opportunity to hear the key members of the Central Park Tower team discuss the use of integrated project delivery and virtual construction and design to deliver the steel and concrete structural elements of this project faster, at a lower cost and with zero change orders.
The Central Park Tower at Interlocken, located in city of Broomfield, northwest of Denver, is an 11-story, 305,000 square foot Class A office building. The below grade parking level is precast double-tees supported on precast inverted tee beams spanning to cast-in-place concrete pilasters. The above grade structure is steel frame with cast-in-place concrete foundation and core walls. As general contractor for the project, The Weitz Co. looked to demonstrate the power of building information modeling (BIM) technology to help drive collaborative processes well beyond design through engineering to fabrication, detailing and ultimately, erection.
The interactive and highly charged seminar featured representatives from four companies directly involved in the construction of the Central Park Tower. The participants included Chris Allen from The Weitz Company; R. Wayne Muir from Structural Consultants, Inc. as the lead structural engineer; Rob Schoen from Axis Steel Detailing charged with steel detailing; and Russel A. Martino from Martino & Luth, the subcontractor assigned to detail the cast-in-place concrete elements.
Each described his role in the project and the early-on agreement to develop a BIM model using Tekla Structures that would be maintained throughout the design and construction phases. The team worked closely during the early coordination phase to essentially construct the Central Park Tower in the virtual world, develop schedules, a shared model methodology, the subsequent approval process and much more.
Chris Allen, manager of Virtual Design and Construction at The Weitz Company, set the stage discussing his firm’s role as the coordinator in bringing all parties together under a collaborative GMP project delivery method.
Schoen from Axis Steel Detailing was particularly excited about the process, commenting that this is one of the one of the first times that a general contractor has brought his firm in during the coordination phase of a project. He added that the collaborative approach gave Axis the opportunity to offer insight on how to improve the process downstream, making a huge difference in the entire project team’s overall ability to provide value to the project and the client.
Structural Consultants’ Muir described how his firm developed Tekla Structures 3D model, prepared construction documents and extracted supplementary structural drawings from the model. Both Axis Steel Detailing and Martino & Luth subsequently used the Tekla Structures model initially developed by Structural Consultants to detail respective steel and concrete elements, and then shared those models with the rest of the team. Once detailed and approved, the models were passed to the fabrication shops, and then delivered to the site as needed for construction.
All four panel members commented on the use of the Tekla model throughout the construction process. When questions or concerns emerged, everyone from the project manager to the site foreman would refer back to that model to make decisions and resolve potential conflict.
In conclusion, the Central Park Tower project team enthusiastically stepped through the project benefits gained by using BIM and collaborative methods.
The cast-in-place concrete fabricator was able to use 21.6% less reinforcing material than originally budgeted, saving the owner $113,000. There were no RFIs in the product and the construction schedule was reduced by two weeks.
On the structural steel side, the steel detailer was able to detail the plans in 1,050 hours as compared to 1,600 originally planned because of the use of the Tekla model. The iterative, concurrent design/detailing process reduced steel fabrication by five weeks, reduced initial steel delivery time following construction documents by eight weeks and saved the owner $250,000 in mill orders.
The up-front work in design, detailing and fabrication made a visible difference in the erection process as well. The construction team noted zero change orders in the process and only two RFIs to-date.
The Central Park Tower, designed to achieve a LEED Gold rating, is scheduled to be complete by end of summer 2010.
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BIM Seminar Presenters
Chris Allen, LEED AP
Virtual Design and Construction (VDC) Manager
The Weitz Company
Chris leads the VDC development, implementation and training in The Weitz Company’s Rocky Mountain Region. He has 12 years experience in construction project management and is in his 10th year with Weitz. Chris combines his project management expertise with the use of VDC, including building information modeling (BIM) to reduce risk, schedule, time and overall project cost. He graduated from the University of Nebraska with a BS in Construction Management in 1999.
R. Wayne Muir, PE
Managing Principal and President
Structural Consultants, Inc. (SCI)
Wayne has over 36 years experience as a structural engineering consultant and has been owner of SCI since 1984. His past experience includes involvement in the design and construction of all types of commercial buildings including retail shopping centers, hotels parking structures, office buildings, medical complexes and schools. Wayne has been intimately involved with the implementation of BIM and IPD into SCI since 2003 and instrumental in the strategic development of incorporating collaborative process and approaches into design and construction teams to achieve cutting edge project delivery methods for all types of projects.
Rob Schoen
President and Owner
Axis Steel Detailing
Rob has been in the steel detailing business for 15 years. He is a class 1 certified detailer with an NISD IDC certification. He has served as the NISD chapter director for Arizona for two years and is currently serving on the AISC planning committee for the NASCC conference for the detailing segments. Rob has spoken at the last six NASCC conferences on detailing and steel construction topics that include BIM, seismic detailing, design-build/design-assist and more. He has worked on many award-winning projects including the Seattle Central Library and the Cosmo Casino in Las Vegas. Axis Steel Detailing is a full service detailing company that is 100% Tekla-based.
Russel A. Martino, PE
President and Manager
Martino & Luth, Inc. Structural Engineers and Builders
Russel graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder with a combined BS and MS degree in 1999. His specialties include conceptual design, lateral load analysis, production of working drawings using all conventional building materials, renovations of existing structures, engineering for construction/constructability, and engineering for demolition. He is convinces of the value of using BIM software such as Tekla to model structures during the design phase and to virtually construction the structure prior to breaking ground, and then carrying that model through construction to product structural steel, light gage stud and reinforcing steel shop drawings.