Autodesk announces Excellence in Infrastructure 2013 award winners

SAN RAFAEL, CALIF. — Autodesk, Inc. and CGarchitect presented this year’s awards in the Autodesk Excellence in Infrastructure Competition. The annual competition, now in its second year, presents awards to projects that demonstrate an exemplary use of Building Information Modeling (BIM) for civil infrastructure.

The 2013 winners are:

• First Place — HNTB for the Denver International Airport Hotel and Transit Center Program. HNTB, in collaboration with firms including Parsons, Gensler, AECOM, and Mortensen Construction, used a BIM process and Autodesk software to help the fifth busiest airport in the U.S. design and construct a large-scale addition set to meet LEED Silver certification. The team at HNTB guided the creation of an exemplary virtual model of the building which has been used for a host of purposes, including spatial coordination, clash detection; structural design analysis, design review, collaboration, cost analysis, and construction scheduling.

• Second Place — iNFRANEA for Room for River Waal in Nijmegen, Netherlands. As part of a huge project by the Dutch government to change the course of more than 30 rivers to prevent future flooding, the Room for River Waal project includes moving the Waal dike in Lent and dredging an ancillary channel in the flood plains. The award recognizes a remarkable application of a BIM process to create and manage an integrated model for the entire project which also includes waterworks, earthworks, roads and three bridges in a complex environment including non-exploded World War II bombs.

• Third Place — The alliance of Galliford Try Costain Atkins effectively applied a BIM process to help deliver significant cost and safety benefits on a major addition to the Liverpool Wastewater Treatment Works facility. The 3D model created within a BIM process provided designers with a virtual structure to navigate around, even in the earliest stages of detail design, allowing them to explore alternative concepts and optimize designs much earlier in the process. The model also allowed early engagement with the client’s operators to discuss HAZOPS and Access Lifting and Maintenance issues helping guide designers to deliver a more optimal operational solution.

• Special Visualization Award — VR Real Technologies (VRRT) for its work on the DFL India Cyber City Gurgaon animated visualization of Cyber City, located in Gurgaon, India and designed by Rajeev Trehan from AHC, AECOM, and Rick Parisi Landscape Architects. The team at VRRT helped DFL quickly understand how the massive integrated business district will look and operate once construction completes in 2013. The cinema-like, photo-real animation showcases the benefits of a 16-lane highway, a dedicated metro line, and multiple pedestrian walkways connecting all the office buildings in Cyber City.

“Each of the winning projects offers a model for the application of forward-thinking Building Information Modeling workflows and technologies for infrastructure projects,” said Lisa Campbell, vice president industry strategy and marketing, Autodesk. “First place HNTB, for example, employed Autodesk technologies to drive a BIM process from early stages of planning through design, and now into construction — engaging a large group of stakeholders from the airport to a host of design and engineering firms working to make this project successful.”

Managed by CGarchitect, and co-sponsored by Autodesk and HP, the competition’s jury of industry experts selected the winners from submissions covering a wide range of transportation, land development, urban planning, water/wastewater and energy related projects. Entries were judged based on complexity, innovative use of technology, sustainability factors and the overall value Autodesk software and BIM for Infrastructure provided to the project outcome, whether used to plan, design, build or manage infrastructure projects. The winners will be honored at the upcoming Autodesk University 2013 conference this December in Las Vegas, and will be given more than $10,000 in prizes by competition sponsors including HP.

More Information about the Autodesk Excellence in Infrastructure Competition and the 2013 winning projects is available at www.infrastructure-excellence.com.