The 2018 AEC Excellence Awards – Is Your Project a Winner?

Modern engineering-based projects are often highly complex and extraordinarily demanding to deliver. Yet infrastructure companies meet such challenges every day, often through impressive innovation and with civilian-pleasing and industry-take-notice results. Here at Autodesk, we believe that with the right tools you can Make Anything. In fact, winners of the 2017 AEC Excellence Awards in Infrastructure showed that to be true.

We eagerly anticipate more of the same. Judges for the upcoming 2018 AEC Excellence awards will be reviewing design projects for their complexity, innovation, sustainability, benefits of model-based workflows, use of emerging technology, and more (9 categories, in fact). The deadline to submit your project is July 31, 2018. Finalists will be announced in September. In addition to industry recognition and other benefits, winners will win a free trip and conferences passes to Autodesk University in November.

In anticipation of the upcoming 2018 AEC Excellence competition, we offer a snapshot here of last year’s winning projects. As you scan these summaries, think about one of your own noteworthy infrastructure projects and submitting it for consideration.

2017 Infrastructure Winners

1^st place – Foster + Partners and FR-EE set sustainability at the center of the top-winning infrastructure project, Nuevo Aeropuerto Internacional de la Ciudad de Mexico (NAICM)–soon to be one of the world’s largest airports. With a customer-first mentality, their design intent was to ensure a great passenger experience. Across multiple disciplines, BIM enabled the requisite collaboration needed to make that happen. The overall size, scope, and artistic design is breathtaking.

2^nd place – The LiRo Group joined the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s East Side Access project in Manhattan in 2011, well into the project’s construction phase. They knew that a comprehensive BIM integration of the 150-model project could expose unforeseen issues before they became construction problems. The 4D BIM-based progress tracking system eliminated redundancies that cut reporting time spent by hours per week and per contract, just for starters. The use of reality capture will support facility management into the future.

3^rd place – Multidisciplinary consultancy firm Norconsult AS built a tunnel in Norway—and not just any tunnel. The Arna-Bergen, Ulriken Tunnel is 7.8 km long and passes through Mount Ulriken, parallel to the most heavily-trafficked single-track tunnel in Northern Europe. Norconsult AS used immersive technology and interactive virtual reality in this BIM-based undertaking to validate the project design, provide early insights for better decision-making, and enable training before construction even commenced. Visualizations will help to reduce the changes and adjustments often required once operations begin.

2017 Infrastructure Finalists

The KMM Metro Line route is Turkey’s first BIM-mandated project that also leveraged multidisciplinary software tools, 3D laser scan technology, and the cloud to help with accuracy, feasibility studies, and up-to-the-minute collaboration capabilities.

The Istanbul Grand Airport project instituted the use of 3D-to-7D models to cover all the dimensions stakeholders must take into account: installation information, costs related to construction schedules, sustainability, and facilities management.

The 13-km Huawei Songshan Tram design project utilized BIM+GIS integration, BIM 360, virtual reality, and advanced UAV technology to better inform design, improve collaboration, and optimize construction plan options.

The use of BIM on the enormous Zhuhai-Macao Bridge project, with more than 10 sub-systems, helped to ensure construction drawing quality, optimize construction processes, support device control routing, and much, much more.

The 8.0 km Karavanke Tunnel project was the first BIM-mandated underground project in Turkey, designed with robotic total stations, 3D laser scanning technology, and cloud access.

The Mikusa Tunnel construction project relied on construction information modeling (CIM/BIM), data sharing in the cloud, drones, and IoT to create visualizations, improve collaboration, improve the flow of information, and increase accuracy. Overall, the project realized a 35% increase in construction management efficiency.

Enter to Win

It’s a new year, a new competition. How does your project compare? You must enter your project to find out. However, time is running out, so submit your entry by July 31. Visit www.AECExcellence.com to learn more.

Here’s hoping we meet you in Las Vegas!