WSP's structural engineering teams were recognised with an Engineering News Record (ENR) Best Global Project Award for the second year running in 2014.
WSP is not only multidisciplinary engineer on the project, providing a full range of services from the structure to the services to the vertical transportation, but BIM consultant, too. This involves coordinating and storing all of the information generated from design to facilities management in a virtual reality 3D form that can be communicated.
As BIM manager, WSP prepares all of the deployment information and execution plans. It then monitors and manages the process to produce an owner model which will be kept as maintained during the life of the project.
With BIM, clash detection can begin at the design stage. This has been particularly important at The Place as the building sits on a very constrained site in the middle of a brand new transport hub at London Bridge, also under construction – both schemes are part of the wider London Bridge Quarter development, where WSP is providing a range of services. The new building has been designed to gracefully accommodate two lanes of the bus station running over the basement slab, expanding back to its full floorplate several storeys up.
WSP’s London team called upon the expertise of their colleagues in the US, who provide both integrated and specialist BIM services. Their expertise has been invaluable in producing the model and also allowed WSP to take the unprecedented step of producing steel shop drawings for the contractors too.
All the specifications and manufacturing data related to the equipment is embedded into the same Building Information Model. At the end of the job, there will be a clash-detected construction model, which will in turn be used by the facilities management team as the owner model.
The Place, a ‘sister’ building to The Shard, has been awarded ENR’s global accolade in recognition of the global teamwork and complex engineering required on a constrained site right next to London Bridge, one of London’s busiest rail stations.
