Building Information Modelling (BIM) is changing the way we think about sustainable infrastructure, especially when we learn from the Olympics event.
Many past Olympic host cities have had to deal with underused or even abandoned infrastructure after the games. Which has led to financial issues and environmental concerns.
Paris is trying to avoid this by using existing stadiums and making sure they’re built in a sustainable way.
Yup, Paris is shaking things up by hosting the 2024 Olympic Games with a focus on sustainability. They’ve only built one new venue, the Aquatics Centre, and plan to repurpose it as a multi-use facility after the Games.
That’s why Marc Nezet, Chief Division Officer (CDO) at Nemetschek Group, says that BIM is a great way to create a legacy for stadium developments, promote sustainability and manage things more efficiently.
Nezet’s views chime with the findings of recent BIM research, which show how BIM can help make stadium projects more sustainable and ensure they’re well managed.
Before going any further, you might want to read this first “What is BIM?“
Using Existing Stadia Developments
One of the most important things Marc Nezet says is how we can use existing stadium developments.
This approach makes sense from a practical and economic point of view, especially given that many Olympic host cities have trouble with legacy issues, where expensive facilities fall into disuse after the event.
This means the Olympic stadium is not just a hub for the event itself, but they also continue to serve the community in different ways afterwards.
The challenge, as Nezet points out, is in adapting these facilities to meet not only the immediate requirements of the event but also long-term sustainability goals.
This fits in well with the Lidia Pinti and colleagues paper “A Review of Building Information Modelling (BIM) for Facility Management (FM): Implementation in Public Organisations,” which shows how BIM has mainly been used for design and construction, but there’s still a lot of potential for using it to improve FM.
This is an important point, as many public organisations, especially in the Asia-Pacific region, have limited budgets when it comes to maintaining large-scale infrastructure.
Lifecycle Management and Legacy Planning with BIM
One of the best things about BIM is that it gives you a complete overview of a building’s lifecycle, from the design and construction stages to the operation and maintenance phases.
This lifecycle approach is particularly important for Olympic venues, where the focus often moves from getting the job done now to making sure the venue can be used for a long time to come.
Take the Sydney Olympic Park, for example. It hosted the 2000 Olympics and has since become a multi-purpose precinct.
This was largely thanks to careful legacy planning, which could have been further enhanced through BIM’s capabilities.
Marc Nezet’s views on planning for post-Olympic use reflect the issues faced by previous Olympic cities, which often ended up with “white elephant” stadiums left unused after the games.
BIM provides a structured framework to avoid this by allowing stakeholders to simulate different post-event scenarios and make informed decisions about how the venue can adapt to future needs.
For instance, using BIM during the design phase lets architects and engineers think about seating arrangements, and access routes.
And the overall layout of the facility can be tweaked to suit different sporting events, concerts, community gatherings, or even residential developments.
BIM and Facility Management (FM) to Enhancing Long-term Building Continuity
Facility management is often the longest and costliest phase of a building’s lifecycle.
Xiaozhi Ma and colleagues say in their paper, “Justifying the Effective Use of Building Information Modelling (BIM) with Business Intelligence,” how we need to integrate BIM with FM to make sure buildings keep working well long after they’ve been built.
Marc Nezet’s views on technology in stadium development are spot on. BIM’s data-rich environment gives facility managers a detailed insight into every aspect of a building’s operation.
Nezet points out that creating digital twins is a great way to make the full potential of BIM a reality.
With digital twins, stakeholders can see, test out and make the most of how a stadium works at every stage of its life.
This is particularly important for making sure the stadium meet their sustainability targets, whether that’s in terms of energy consumption or waste management.
Xiaozhi Ma and colleagues go into more detail on this idea by showing how BIM lets facility managers collect real-time data, which is really important for making decisions throughout the building’s operational phase.
This huge database has all the details about the building parts, like the HVAC systems, electrical wiring, plumbing, structural elements, and even the types of materials used.
This data-driven approach helps us manage things more efficiently and flexibly, which is great for keeping costs down and being kinder to the environment in the long run.
Final Closing
Marc Nezet’s insights on how BIM can contribute to the 2024 Olympic Games stadium development go beyond just leveraging technology.
Nezet also points to a big change in how large-scale infrastructure projects are handled, from start to finish.
BIM helps integrate facility management, energy efficiency, and collaborative decision-making, which makes buildings last longer and adapt better.
That way, they’re still useful after the Olympics are over.
For Australia and the Asia-Pacific region, BIM is a great way to make sure that major infrastructure projects, like the Olympic stadium, don’t become relics of a single event but instead keep serving and benefiting communities for generations.
That’s why, BIM is a technology to make construction more efficient and also makes sure the buildings keep on evolving, adapting, and thriving in an ever-changing world.
And with over 10 years of experience, we’ve got a full range of services to help you get to grips with the BIM and digital twin landscape.
We know our stuff when it comes to BIM management, data integration, and digital twin development.
What does it mean for your business?
We’re here to support you and make sure the transition is seamless and the project is a success. We’ve got a great track record of delivering successful BIM and digital twin projects across Australia.
One of our most recent projects was the Ewert Leaf project, where we developed a framework to make sure we were using energy as efficiently as possible and reducing operating costs.
If you just want to get an overview of how we work, you can read our Interscale BIM Management Support page here.
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