Best in class in Building Information Modeling (BIM): For the fourth time, the BIM Cluster Baden-Wurttemberg association is awarding prizes in five categories for the best projects that were carried out using the BIM method.
In the building construction category, the Digital Park Fechenheim of the world's leading data center operator Digital Realty impresses: in eleven use cases, BIM provides the basis for the collaboration of all those involved in the demanding project. On the former Neckermann site in the east of Frankfurt, Digital Realty is currently building the Digital Park Fechenheim - a state-of-the-art data center campus with a total of eleven data centers. The consulting company Drees & Sommer SE, which specializes in construction and real estate, is supporting Digital Realty in the conversion of the listed building.
Throughout the entire construction project, the client Digital Realty, supported by Drees & Sommer, relies in particular on digital planning: 'Right from the start, the integral overall planning was carried out completely model-based with BIM via a shared cloud platform,' explains BIM expert Moritz Mombour from Drees & Sommer, who submitted the project for the BIM team to the BIM Cluster Award 2023. 'This ensures structured data exchange and everyone involved in the planning is up to date. The models developed together can be used for a wide range of applications - from variant analysis in early phases, through the determination of quantities and costs, right through to the later building documentation. Any collisions between the trades are already discovered in the model and not just during the construction phase. BIM planning therefore facilitates communication for everyone involved and helps to identify the individual trades coordinate and avoid errors,' says Moritz Mombour.
Digital twin provides clarity
At the end of the 1950s, when the renowned post-war architect and designer Egon Eiermann designed the Neckermann dispatch center with pen and paper on the drawing board, there was no data center, server homing or BIM. Today he would probably have planned the building using the BIM digital planning method like the BIM experts from Drees & Sommer. Starting from an integral overall model, the various trades and sub-areas of the building, which is over sixty years old, and the planned new buildings can be mapped in detail in the digital twin. A scanner first recorded the inventory in a point cloud. This data was then converted into a 3D model. Collaboration works via a shared data environment and open files that are available to all project participants in the cloud. This makes it easier to monitor progress, calculate, approve and coordinate collaboration. All modifications and additions remain close to the original appearance of the 316 meter long, 65 meter deep and 25 meter high structure, which is a listed building.
The building is a contemporary witness to the economic boom and digital change: then as now, it was groundbreaking in terms of digitalization. Electronic data processing for automated shipping originally distinguished the Neckermann shipping center and this history is being continued. Today, the property, which is located in the immediate vicinity of Europe's largest Internet hub, impresses with its new function as a data center.
Shaping the future digitally together
Project developers, craft businesses, builders, companies, associations as well as universities and colleges applied for the BIM Award 2023 with 49 BIM projects and 11 academic papers. A jury of experts decided on the winners based on the submitted exposes. 'The awards' works and projects are a benefit for all of us. They show what has developed in this area since the first BIM Award in 2016. The applications deal with the project requirements more explicitly and proactively, thus enabling added value that goes beyond the actual project value,' emphasizes Markus Eiberger, board member of the BIM Cluster Baden-Wurttemberg association. The aim of the BIM cluster is to network experts and interested parties in the region in the best possible way. 'The BIM Cluster is intended to make it easier for everyone involved to get started and further develop the BIM methodology, both personally and commercially, and also offer a platform for exchange and partnership,' says Eiberger.
More and more players in the construction industry are working with BIM. However, BIM is often not anchored in the context of a digitalization strategy. At the Digital Park Fechenheim, the jury was impressed by the holistic overall planning and the successful integration of listed existing buildings and new buildings into a digital project landscape. 'The project is also a successful example of our award motto this year 'BIM goes Green'. 'Sustainability plays a central role in the planning of the Digital Park Fechenheim - not least because of the preservation and conversion of a listed building,' explains Eiberger.
DIGITAL REALTY TRUST, INC. 
