SUNNYVALE, Calif., Oct. 4, 2022--Trimble announced today the winners of its 2022 Tekla® Global Building Information Modeling (BIM) Awards. In this biennial competition, the world's most impressive structural construction projects that use Tekla solutions, are judged in eight categories on criteria such as Use of BIM and Collaboration, Innovative Use of Tekla software, Constructibility, Environmental Benefits and Cool Factor. The overall winner for the best BIM project of 2022 is T2 Alliance, for their Helsinki Airport expansion project
International Competition
What started as a regional drawing contest in 1999, has grown into an internationally renowned competition. 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 GM at Trimble. “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.”
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.
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® and applied an IFC standard-based exchange to collaborate with stakeholders. The group made great 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 went on to win the 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’ on ‘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 praised the impressive digital workflow, as disparate design teams used Tekla Model Sharing and Trimble Connect as a common data environment, ‘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 very 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®. 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 taken into account 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 and using its many tools such as point cloud import, layout manager and the Grasshopper® link ability and the possibility to back check using a total station to confirm final geometry. The jury commented, “this kind of project raises the bar for the industry overall.”
Student: Corrèze Bridge, France
The winning student project is a design project for a bridge over the Corrèze river, with a team of 6 students from the IUT du Limousin Civil Engineering Department, working for only 13 working days on the discovery of the bridge under construction, the concrete execution plans & mixed steel-concrete structure, applying Tekla Structures to model the boom as built and the bridge, and scan the boom to find missing dimensions, produce the reinforcement cages for the bridge supports: piers, abutments, and deck and present to the project engineer, manager and owner. The jury was impressed, saying: “There is a lot of new talent growing and entering the industry.”
API Developer: ScaffPlan, Australia
The 2022 Tekla Global BIM Award for an API Developer went to ScaffPlan, for their ScaffPlan® system for scaffolding modeling built on top of Tekla Structures. Utilizing the full power of Tekla Structures, through the Tekla® Open API, tied together with ScaffPlan features, it helps increase companies' ROI significantly. A team of 5 developers worked on 3,000,000 lines of code. The solution is a strong proof point of Trimble’s platform strategy, aiming at 100 percent of the construction trades creating constructible information.
Special Recognition: E6 Ranheim-Værnes, Norway
The jury gave a special recognition to the E6 Highway project in Norway, a 23 kilometer highway expansion to improve traffic safety. It comprises 240 meter bridges and 2 CIP concrete tunnel portals. The team consisted of ACCIONA Engineering, Ramboll, ACCIONA Construction, COWI, Statens Vegvesen (road authority) and Nye Veier (project owner). This is a true wide-scale BIM project from design to construction with digital information being central to decision making, collaboration (through Tekla Model Sharing), coordination, data exchange across teams and finally handover for operations. Trimble® Quadri® was the main coordination environment for model federation and interdisciplinary coordination. The jury highlighted the efficient use of IFC files and Trimble Connect serving as the linking pin for information exchange between structural, modeling, drafting and project coordination teams.
Public vote winner
The winner of the public vote is Pidekso Dam.
More information about the Tekla Global BIM Awards projects, submissions, jury and winners is available at: https://www.tekla.com/bim-awards