Modern Building Services

FEATURE WORKING BUILDINGS 22 MODERN BUILDING SERVICES MARCH 2021 WORKING BUILDINGS F or those of us working in design engineering, Building Information Modelling (or BIM) is one of the most disruptive technological innovations we have seen in recent years. Its use helps simplify the design process and enables us to construct complicated, complex structures. But the collection and use of ‘building information’ needn’t stop when construction ends. Through the creation of smart buildings, BIM can go on to informways to optimise efficiency, manage energy consumption and improve ongoing building performance. A case in point is Newcastle University’s Urban Sciences Building. Located in the city’s new Helix quarter, a city-centre development fast becoming renowned as a global centre for innovation, the 12,800m2 Urban Sciences Building (USB) houses Newcastle University’s School of Computing alongside a series of innovative labs focused on research into the urban environment. Opened in 2017, it has set a new benchmark for building design. Not only is it an exemplar of sustainable construction and electrically led design, it is also a ‘living laboratory’ – a smart building designed to enable continuous research and learning in the field of energy management. Newcastle University is known for its pioneering spirit and, with innovation a core element of the brief for the USB, a number of PhD researchers now have their hands on the data from the building and are already creating some fascinating outputs that we believe are a first in building management. Collaboration of researchers and estates team In a feat of engineering, the University installed over 4,000 digital sensors throughout the building to constantly monitor environmental conditions and energy use. Through a collaboration between the University’s estates team and PhD researchers, with support from the wider project team, a 3D digital twin of the entire building has been created. This enables live data from the thousands of sensor points to be visualised in a 3D visualisation model. Using this digital twin, the University’s facilities and building managers can focus in on a specific room, floor or area of the USB and look at how internal environmental conditions are performing to within seconds of the reality. From an FM point of view, this means that if someone complains that an environment is too hot, they can instantly review the temperature in that space to see if it has in fact increased, and adjust it accordingly, or whether that person just needs to take off their jumper. This is a real leap forward for facilities management and potentially, energy efficiency. Mark Dowson , Buro Happold shares why Newcastle University is known for its pioneering spirit The Urban Sciences Building – a hard working building