Virtual Design and Construction

Visualizing the planning process of a large hospital reconstruction project

The BIM (Building Information Modeling) method supports planning, construction, and operation of buildings, with the help of software, among other things. The data that is produced and collected along the way hold a great potential for supporting the various processes that are involved. Complex relationships and dependencies can be made visible to support the analysis of the underlying mechanisms, and to communicate to the various stakeholders based on evidence.

Typical BIM software products however focus on the building and less on the processes. In the context of the VDC Network (Virtual Design and Construction, vdc-netzwerk.ch) we developed a prototype that provides insight into the planning process of a large hospital reconstruction project. The web-based application provides multiple coordinated interactive visualizations of space, time, and organizational aspects, and allows a better understanding of who collaborates with whom, when and how intense during the planning of the reconstruction.