Best BIM Project: T2 Alliance, Helsinki Airport, Finland
The 103,000 square-meter extension to the existing Helsinki Airport is the winner in the Public category and the Best BIM project of the 2022 Tekla Global BIM Awards. This approximately 1-billion-euro project was a cooperation between Ramboll Finland, Finavia Corporation, SRV Rakennus, ALA Architects Ltd, Arkkitehtitoimisto HKP, and Gravicon. The project entails a new 450,000 square-meter apron, 16 new wide-bodied plane parking positions, and 4,800 new parking spaces for cars. Finavia, the owner of the project, achieved the BREEAM Excellent sustainability certification.
The BIM-based collaboration throughout the project was instrumental to the success of the project. All 100-200 engineers and building product manufacturers modeled their products digitally. The contractors orchestrated the use of over 400 high level-of-detail models in the project using 30 BIM-related software products.
"This project showcased such a strong way of collaborating and building things digitally and then creating the physical twin. It demonstrated innovation and re-engineering the processes for the benefit of all the different stakeholders," said jury member Salla Eckhardt, director of Digital Building Lifecycle & Innovation at Microsoft.
As the winning team, T2 Alliance will present its Helsinki Airport project at Dimensions+ 2022, the Trimble User Conference taking place in Las Vegas, November 7-9, 2022.
International Competition
What started as a regional drawing contest in 1999, has grown into an internationally recognized competition in the field of structural engineering. Teams from across the globe working on some of the world's most challenging projects compete on the basis of the best or most innovative use of BIM and digital technologies in structural engineering. Over 132 projects were entered in this year's competition, which included winners of regional Tekla BIM Awards from 37 countries.
The projects are judged by an international jury consisting of industry experts Salla Eckhardt, director of Digital Building Lifecycle & Innovation at Microsoft (US); David Lash, product manager of Tekla Structures at Trimble; Kalle Kähkönen, professor & head of Civil Engineering Unit at Tampere University (Finland); and Holger Karutz, civil engineer & editor-in-chief at CPI Concrete Plant International trade journals (Germany).
"The Tekla Global BIM Awards celebrate the best in structural engineering and BIM," said Jari Heino, vice president and general manager, Trimble Tekla. "Our Tekla software enables structural engineers the world over to push the envelope of design quality, functionality and sustainability. The exceptional quality of this year's entries shows the progress that the Tekla community is making in furthering the impact of the structural engineering trade."
Tekla 2022 Global BIM Awards Category Winners
Commercial: King's Cross R8, United Kingdom
Arup is the winner of the award in the Commercial category for Lot R8, a part of the King's Cross Masterplan in London. This high-visibility project comprises a 13-storey office block and residential block. The £110 million development will provide approximately 13,000 square meter office space and over 70 apartments. The team consisting of Arup, Argent, McLaren Construction, Piercy & Company, Severfield UK and Getjar used a Common Data Environment based on Trimble® Connect® collaboration platform and applied an IFC standard-based exchange to collaborate with stakeholders. The group made significant use of Tekla Warehouse for content sharing. Another noteworthy aspect was the intricate rebarset that was designed for the project.
Public: Helsinki Airport, Finland
The extension to the Helsinki airport—a project by the T2 Alliance—won the Public category and Best BIM Project award. The jury praised the fact that the model used was created only by a few people and shared by many, especially in the light of synchronized production and the project's impressive dimensions.
Industrial: Pierrefonds Waste Management Plant, France
The creation of the Pierrefonds waste separation facility on the island of La Réunion (off the coast of East Africa) is a multi-year, 230-million-euro project by a consortium of specialist firms led by industrial contractor CNIM, and will promote the island's circular economy. The design created in Tekla Structures, using Tekla Model Sharing, combines units for the sorting and processing of recyclable materials, digestion of biowaste and will generate renewable electricity, making this what the jury deemed "an environmentally positive industrial project" at "an interesting location."
Infrastructure: Ovalo Monitor Bridge, Peru
The winner in the Infrastructure category is an overpass of 870 meters, with a complex reinforced concrete superstructure and a substructure consisting of 2 abutments and 21 piers. The team from TSC Innovation, together with the builder INCOT and the rebar supplier Aceros Arequipa, used detailed (LOD400) and collaborative VDC engineering, prefabrication and applied IFC and cloud connectivity. The jury recognized the impressive digital workflow, as disparate design teams used Tekla Model Sharing and Trimble Connect as a common data environment; commenting: "combining the BIM data with conditions is a strength for decades to come."
Sports & Recreation: Tampere Deck and Arena, Finland
In the Sports & Recreation category, the 2022 Tekla BIM Award went to the Tampere Deck and Arena project. The site is complex, with a living oasis being built over a railway in the middle of an urban area. The team from SRV Rakennus, Ramboll Finland and ARCO Architecture Company worked on around 500 models using Tekla Structures, Tekla Model Sharing, Trimble Connect and Trimble SketchUp® modeling software. In the project, an initial InfraBIM-based information model was implemented. Infrastructure and traffic planning were implemented in a versatile manner with simulations used for traffic arrangements. Sustainability aspects were considered in multiple ways, such as a condensation heat recovery system and solar collectors.
Small: The Big One, Season 2, United Kingdom
The Big One is one of the best-known rollercoasters in the UK. Taziker Industrial won a 2021 Tekla BIM Award for their project on the re-tracking of 9 tracks. This included a tunnel crossing and changing the line of the tracks for a smoother ride, collaborating with the dynamics engineers at Westlakes Engineering. The team faced complex geometry, using point cloud to determine geometry of the existing track, which was then exported for design improvements, and reimported for the new line design and final modeling. Tekla Structures was key to the success of this project along with its variety of tools such as point cloud import, layout manager and the Grasshopper <
