Overview
The DeepWood project team set itself the challenge of how to achieve collaboration between multiple disciplines in a single model. The model used was the timber design model of Cadmakers in Vancouver. The question was: Can this business model, can the planning that takes place at Cadmakers be transferred 1:1 to Switzerland?
The DeepWood project team used the same industry platform and its structures as an example. Based on the idea that this approach can eliminate the "noise" of interface problems in current BIM projects, new structures for future real-time, multi-company and collaborative timber design were exploratively developed and tested in two living labs. At the same time, a performance matrix was developed to provide guidance on how architects and engineers can manage the progress of timber construction projects in a concerted manner.
Collaboration in the Living Labs and in the research project challenged the project team. Away from the logic of conventional architecture and construction software, modelling expertise was built on an industrial platform. The desire to avoid interface problems did not quite succeed. It proved difficult to increase practical modelling expertise on the industrial platform.
However, intensive workshops with experts from around the world and early users in Switzerland have identified the added value of parameterised planning and the component-based design approach. Previously rigid project structures can be broken down and in-depth variant studies can be carried out in parallel over a longer period of time. It is also possible to make simple adjustments very late in the process. With these insights, a second Living Lab was launched to better understand the methodology and develop a new disruptive planning structure. This disruptive DeepWood process structure paves the way for a new understanding of planning.
Living Lab 2 was organised by a design team from the two universities and Helbling PLM Solutions and proved to be a great success. The result is a new understanding of processes, moving away from rigid phases, and the new opportunities that this brings for making decisions in a project only when the interdependencies and implications have been better clarified.
Despite the success of Living Lab 2, it is still difficult to transfer the Cadmakers service model to Switzerland. On the one hand, there is still a need for research on the technical side. On the other hand, the entry barrier for specialist planners is very high, the lock-in effect has also challenged the research team, and the development of qualified specialists for modelling is another challenge.
