JPW Leverages Computational Design to Deliver Australia’s Largest Sustainable Commercial Tower
Using OpenBuildings Designer’s Built-in GenerativeComponents® Optimizes Digital Workflows to Save Time and Costs
When developing the tower structure design, the interoperability of GenerativeComponents with Excel allowed interaction with the tabu- lar structural engineering data for the floors, beams, and columns. The team could then use the conditional formatting features in Excel to load, check, and generate computational design models for the tower struc- ture. Bentley’s computational design model could be driven by Excel to customize an accelerated and automated workflow for generative and coordination purposes. All the Excel data for the column height and beams was pulled and imported into OpenBuildings Designer to gener- ate visual 3D models. For the floor slabs, JPW developed a recursive script in OpenBuildings Designer to individually model them, level by level, correctly identifying the placement of services as solids and color- coding them according to their respective discipline. The result was an automated output of a structural model for each floor comprised of the columns, beams, and slabs with all the correct service penetrations. “The façade was another ideal area to incorporate the GenerativeCom- ponents feature in OpenBuildings Designer,” stated Yap. To determine the best balance between new architecture, the surrounding heritage, and environment, JPW required iterative flexibility. The team generated multiple variations of the unique panels and fins, accommodating the changing panel radius and varying fin depths. The team used OpenBuild- ings Designer to generate a unique script that established a polygonal grid as an envelope. The grid encompassed the building where each polygon was parametrically modeled to simplify modification, as well as represented a panel type in the façade system. By creating an Excel spreadsheet that tied back to the OpenBuildings Designer script, JPW iterated over 8,000 panels across the façade. The team took each of the panels and applied them to the polygon envelope based on color, auto- mating, and accelerating the generation of a complete façade model. This seamless compatibility made it realistic for JPW to model the ceil- ings to LOD 300, including the lighting fixtures and fittings. “Typically, modeling the ceilings to this level of detail on a project of this scale would be nearly impossible and certainly unusual. GenerativeCompo- nents [in OpenBuildings Designer] made it realistic for us to fulfill this documentation requirement,” said Yap. The team used existing data for the façade boundary, columns, and core, subtracting them from the ceiling region to generate a script for the ceilings. Team members then sliced the ceiling model into tiles that corresponded to an Excel spreadsheet containing the lighting data. JPW used the color-coding method to reference the ceiling lighting layout for the multiple floors.
A Sustainable Urban Revitalization Initiative As part of Western Sydney’s urban renewal initiative, the redevelop- ment of Parramatta Square will revitalize Australia’s second-oldest city center to create a vibrant, cosmopolitan precinct. The area will span three hectares and offer 290,000 square meters of premium office space and residential, retail, and civic facilities. At the heart of this urbaniza- tion effort are 6 & 8 Parramatta Square, with 8 Parramatta Square set to be Australia’s largest commercial tower at 55 stories and 243 meters in height. The AUD 600 million iconic project will broaden the city skyline and incorporate cutting-edge, sustainable, world-class design, reflecting the highest standards of global architecture. Award-winning architectural firm Johnson Pilton Walker (JPW) is the lead design firm collaborating with multiple engineering disciplines and consultants. Located directly adjacent to a major railway station with limited road access, as well as situated in a flood zone close to the Parramatta River, the project required careful infrastructure planning and design to en- sure that building and public domain were seamlessly integrated. In addition, local authorities imposed strict guidelines to address heritage context, solar access, energy efficiency, sustainability, flexible work- space, and pedestrian permeability. The large-scale building form, combined with an expedited timeline, presented a range of design and delivery challenges. To overcome these challenges and meet all proj- ect objectives, JPW implemented digital BIM solutions to streamline workflows and optimize design. Advancing BIM through Computational Design From the conceptual design stage, JPW relied on OpenBuildings Designer to model the basement, podium, and core according to tra- ditional BIM principles. With much of the conceptual design already completed, the team realized the necessity and benefit of integrating computational design for the geometrically driven design aspects—in- cluding the façade, tower structure, and ceilings—to advance BIM and workflow efficiencies. “Typically, computational design is embedded into the project from the concept stage. However, there are still huge efficiencies to be gained by introducing GenerativeComponents later in the documentation process,” explained Sarah Yap, computational design expert at JPW. To resolve differences between engineering and architectural workflows, JPW relied on the interoperability of Bentley’s OpenBuildings Designer’s built-in Gen- erativeComponents feature.
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october 2020
csengineermag.com
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