Manchester island residential development
The Pomona Wharf project on Pomona Island - one of Greater Manchester’s hidden gems – will comprise two new apartment blocks of 11 and 10 storeys high. The forgotten island, which was created by the River Irwell, Manchester Ship Canal and the Bridgewater Canal, was once a bustling docklands.
For Elluc Projects, The Pomona Wharf project represented a number of opportunities including the development of its BIM processes.
As many of the stakeholders had previously had little experience of precast construction and even less of BIM, it was essential for Elluc to drive a BIM workflow, which naturally influenced the design and construction process.
Appointed directly by the developer, Elluc was keen to promote the capabilities of BIM, its staff and, the Tekla Structures and Tekla Structural Designer software used to create the structural model.
Tekla capability provides greater project authority
Elluc’s ability to visualise the structure allowed the early identification of a number of design issues for the whole project team – enabling the company to make a much more positive impact on the design than even it was expecting.
The capability of the software used allowed the company to monitor and feedback information on casting and fabrication schedules. Through efficient reporting, a much better understanding of how the programme was progressing was provided for the entire project team, leading to greater coordination between stakeholders.
Tekla BIMsight provided the project team with an efficient easy-to- use and free method of dynamically impacting on design issues, truly allowing the business to lead the way in open BIM and collaboration.
The accurate and easy creation of the bill of materials and schedules allowed the supplier of the precast panels to plan and resource the project much more accurately and efficiently, with information extracted from the model supporting logistics planning. From casting and delivery to cranage and the ability to support the manufacturer’s estimating department, the need for early production of 2D information was reduced, which eased the pressure on the structural design. This was done through the scheduled provision of material take-offs delivered as the level of detail increased within the model.
Encouraging new BIM evangelists
In anticipation of construction, the buildings were phased according to the optimal logistics plan and the capability to create digital construction sequencing schedules which can go to site, have led to the manufacturer of the precast frame to truly buy-in to BIM. This ability to link on-site information with a centrally controlled model, which feeds back to the project management team, now has encouraged the frame manufacturer to look at how Tekla and BIM workflows can be greater employed within its own organisation. Also the positive impact that the BIM workflow has had on the project’s design and CDM coordination has led to the developer also looking at how BIM can be used across a much wider range of projects in the future.
Embracing BIM across The Pomona Wharf project has led to many new BIM evangelists. Without BIM it is clear that this is likely to have been a much slower and more difficult process.
