From concept to construction
Interviewed by Tony Korsten – Written by Claire Cole
Using cutting-edge BIM technology in designing L’Arena de Cotonou
Designing the heating, cooling, ventilation and wet services for a massive project in a remote tropical location is something most engineers would see as challenging – and it is. However, with cutting-edge technology such as Autodesk Construction Cloud, it is easier than ever before. Asset spoke to Francois Schutte, Director at Spoormaker & Partners, and Stephanie Esterhuizen, Associate and National Drawing Office Manager, about the firm’s recent experience on just such a project. Michael Bredenkamp, Sales Manager: Business Development for Modena
In conversation with Francois Schutte, Stephanie Esterhuizen and Michael Bredenkamp
AEC & Infrastructure, shared his perspective from the Autodesk side.
Michael has been the strategic account manager for Spoormaker & Partners at Modena for over five years and has admired the company’s growth and influence within the building services and construction sector, alongside its digital transformation and adoption of technology in its operations. “This is a strategic account for us – Spoormaker & Partners has always been an important client to Modena because of the relationship we have built over many years, which is one of openness and willingness to learn from each other,” he says.
Over the course of the past 20-odd years, as the use of technology in the construction industry has accelerated, Spoormaker & Partners has endeavoured to stay at the forefront of new technology use and ensure that its people have the skills to use new and evolving tools effectively. This is in keeping with the firm’s commitment to developing its people on all fronts. It recently made the move onto Autodesk Construction Cloud, having used other Autodesk products over the years.
“Overall, the transition has been a smooth one thanks to the team’s proactive training and preparation,” says Stephanie. “The platform’s user-friendly interface and the integration of various construction processes have made collaboration easier. It has significantly improved the
Spoormaker & Partners has always been an important client to Modena because of the relationship we have built over many years…
way we manage project workflows, enabled better coordination among team members, and it has enhanced the accuracy of our deliverables. However, as with any transition, there was an initial learning curve that required adapting to new systems and making sure that everyone was comfortable with the changes,” she adds.
Quickly deployed on a large remote project
An excellent example of Spoormaker
& Partners’ successful deployment of Autodesk Construction Cloud (ACC) can be seen in the prestigious l’Arena de Cotonou project – a 12,000 seat indoor sporting arena which is part of a larger project to
revitalise the port city of Cotonou and the economic hub of which it forms part. Cotonou is the largest city in Benin and is considered the country’s economic capital. Spoormaker & Partners undertook the design of the wet services and the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) services for l’Arena de Cotonou.
There were several complexities in designing the HVAC and wet services for the arena. The equatorial climate and high occupant load created an extraordinary challenge in terms of condensation and latent load on the building’s cooling systems, necessitating a cooling capacity of 7,200 thermal kW on site. “Almost 60% of the cooling is latent load, hence dehumidification,” explains Francois.
Some 4.8km of piping and 12,000m2 of ducting has been specified in the design.
In addition, Benin’s building codes had to be supplemented with a combination of international codes to ensure that all components were designed to the highest possible standard. Finding and implementing codes for all aspects of the design was an engineering challenge.
Despite the various challenges, which were at times exacerbated by the remote location of the site and changes in the design and decision-making timeline, the distributed team put together a comprehensive tender package in just under a year and construction is about to commence. The experience has given Spoormaker & Partners the opportunity to put all the various features of ACC to the test, and the verdict so far is positive.
“ACC offers definite benefits for working collaboratively on a single system – those I would highlight include improved collaboration, streamlined workflows, real-time tracking, scalability and flexibility, and BIM integration,” Stephanie says. The drawbacks have mostly been experienced at the outset – the learning curve of upskilling people to use the software, the data migration challenges, and converting 2D content to 3D content in large libraries. Francois adds that aside from the cost of purchasing new software, there are additional costs to upgrade the IT infrastructure of the business in such a way that the new software can run seamlessly.
Having put the required systems in place, all that remains to get the best out of ACC is to ensure that everyone is able to use it to the full extent of its capabilities. Modena has risen to the occasion with all its clients on this front, offering ongoing training and support as users transition to
the new technology. “Many BIM projects happening in SA have a Modena technical specialist working at the clients’ offices, either from a Revit point of view in the drawing office, or as BIM managers for these projects,” Michael points out.
“It is interesting to note that many of the professional practices at the forefront of using BIM technology are doing so in partnership with Modena. This deeply integrated support is essential to making sure that client organisations get the most out of their investment and have confidence in the product and process. It also creates a strong trust-based relationship.”
Unexpected benefits and evolving uptake
One of the interesting benefits of utilising a cloud-based system such as ACC is that it improves a firm’s ability to undertake international work, such as the l’Arena de Cotonou project mentioned above.
“For a lot of organisations that may be concerned about where their next project might come from in South Africa, this has opened up their access to international opportunities,” comments Michael. Many such projects are being executed from a BIM-mandated perspective, which not only opens the field to larger companies, but creates opportunities for smaller
This deeply integrated support is essential to making sure that client organisations get the most out of their investment…
companies with specialist expertise to work alongside them.
Modena’s approach to deploying BIM specialists to client organisations has been beneficial, not just to assist in training, implementation and co-ordination, but also because they can act as BIM managers on large projects. The role of the BIM manager is a relatively new but important one in this technology landscape, as it takes a person with intimate knowledge of both the software and the necessary project processes to ensure proper coordination of information.
A current challenge that Francois highlights is the fact that, quite understandably, not all companies or professions are at the same level of adoption when it comes to technologies such as ACC. He notes that some structural engineers in particular seem hampered by the fact that their structural load modelling software currently does not dovetail seamlessly into BIM models, which necessitates a lot of redrawing. This can have implications for the accuracy of the information that is supplied at different stages of a project and can result in delays and reworks.
This will need to be worked out of the system in time, because as Michael points out, the entire construction value chain can realise enormous benefits when it comes to putting a project together using ACC – from conceptualisation and pre-feasibility right through to construction, commissioning, operations and maintenance. There are many reasons why uptake happens at different speeds, but the cost of implementing sophisticated systems such as this in a strained economy is an unfortunate reality.
Autodesk Construction Cloud proving itself
Working on the l’Arena de Cotonou has been interesting for the Spoormaker & Partners team. Not only have team members been able to work from distributed locations,
they have saved time doing so. For a project in such a remote location, sending an engineer to site for a single meeting necessitates a week in transit because of the flights and transport arrangements from South Africa. Having a system that allowed for many processes to take place either virtually or in real time, has allowed this inconvenience to be minimised.
Francois is enthusiastic about the way the project execution has gone so far, fully embracing BIM and its various functions including preparing bills of quantities directly from the model. “Where we did have a challenge, however, was that all documentation had to be prepared in both English and French – and translation is unfortunately still a manual exercise,” he comments. Technology may not be able to address the nuances of
technical translation just yet, but at the rate new tools are developing, that may be just around the corner.
What is certain – looking at the sophistication of a tool like ACC – is that with sufficient uptake in the industry, the entire design and construction process for projects can be made far more efficient than it has ever been. One of the keys
to this is to make sure that information flows accurately and timeously from all parties. As Francois points out, each of the six stages in the design and construction process passes a point of no return, which he describes like a gate. In a successful project, the gate of each stage must close and remain closed for the next stage to be executed properly – and a gate ideally should not be closed without all the complete and requisite information being supplied for that stage.
“Unfortunately, we find ourselves working in a less formal way than is ideal for this in the developing world,” Francois adds. “It’s just the way that projects need to be done in order to get them going, that a lot of parallel decisions happen, and changes do happen at later than optimal stages. One also has to develop a certain survival wisdom and learn how to navigate these grey areas.”
Using technology to propel us forward
Aside from the use of new technology such as ACC for the design process, there are often new building and maintenance technologies involved in creating a structure as large as l’Arena de Cotonou. Asked whether that poses a challenge for those who must operate the facility in a developing country, Francois comments that it is important to introduce new technologies because otherwise development in countries like Benin is slowed down. He says that while many of the HVAC technologies used in the building are well used in Africa, local people will need to have the right skills to operate them on an ongoing basis, and in this case, the scale is much larger than most people will be familiar with.
In many ways this is similar to what the project team has experienced, using what is still a relatively new technology in the industry to design and deliver tender documentation for a massive project in a very remote location.
…it is important to introduce new technologies because otherwise development in countries like Benin is slowed down.
“We learned a great deal from a BIM and coordination perspective, and working on the ACC platform definitely made it easier to capture information and coordinate everything on tight
timelines,” says Stephanie. “I believe we all worked well to deliver what turned out to be a very well tendered package not just in English, but in French as well,” she concludes.
Stephanie Esterhuizen and Francois Schutte from Spoormaker & Partners, Michael Bredenkamp and Lee Finch from Modena AEC & Infrastructure with Tony Korsten, Publisher of Asset
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