📋 Tender Overview
A Sustainable Urban Revitalization InitiativeAs part of Western Sydneys urban renewal initiative the redevelopment of Parramatta Square will revitalize Australias second-oldest city center to create a vibrant cosmopolitan precinct. The area will span three hectares and offer 290000 square meters of premium office space and residential retail and civic facilities. At the heart of this urbanization effort are 6 8 Parramatta Square with 8 Parramatta Square set to be Australias 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 ensure 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 workspace 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 project objectives JPW implemented digital BIM solutions to streamline workflows and optimize design.Advancing BIM through Computational DesignFrom the conceptual design stage JPW relied on OpenBuildings Designer to model the basement podium and core according to traditional 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 aspectsincluding the faade tower structure and ceilingsto 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 Bentleys OpenBuildings Designers built-in GenerativeComponents feature.When developing the tower structure design the interoperability of GenerativeComponents with Excel allowed interaction with the tabular 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 structure. Bentleys 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 generate 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 faade was another ideal area to incorporate the GenerativeComponents 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 OpenBuildings 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 faade system. By creating an Excel spreadsheet that tied back to the OpenBuildings Designer script JPW iterated over 8000 panels across the faade. The team took each of the panels and applied them to the polygon envelope based on color automating and accelerating the generation of a complete faade model.This seamless compatibility made it realistic for JPW to model the ceilings 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. GenerativeComponents in OpenBuildings Designer made it realistic for us to fulfill this documentation requirement said Yap. The team used existing data for the faade 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 similar process was used to layout the HVAC diffusers provided by the mechanical engineer through an IFC model.Leveraging GenerativeComponents Drives EfficienciesLeveraging the algorithm-driven features of OpenBuildings Designer enabled JPW to maximize data potential developing scripts and performing parametric modeling to automate previously manual processes. The solution streamlined workflows for the tower structure faade and ceilings enabling two people to design and generate data for more than 1400 tower columns 8000 faade panels and 179000 ceiling tiles.
