CC Jul-Aug 2021

CASEstudy
A&Q PARTNERSHIP'S PATHWAY
TO BIM
A&Q Partnership use BIM workflows on
all projects, in part due to Lawrence who
has been interested in BIM since before
the UK government's 2016 mandate. "I
like to keep up with what's happening on
a technical front," Lawrence said. "Most
of our clients are private developers with
no statutory requirement for us to
conform to the mandate. But prior to
2016 BIM was on my radar as something
we should be competent at. We didn't
want to miss any jobs or contracts which
required BIM."
Lawrence plays a major role in training
staff to office standards, particularly in
resource management systems, which
keeps projects organised and consistent.
This helped prepare them for a recent
job, a massive 1200-unit residential
project for Berkeley Homes, one of the
largest housing developers in Europe.
THE EIGHT GARDENS AT
WATFORD
With claims of the project
"Manhattanising" Watford, which is just
outside of London, the Eight Gardens
development aims to deliver over 1,200
new homes to the area. Alongside
future plans for a primary school and
community amenities like a dentist's
office, the Eight Gardens development
is part of a much larger modernisation
of the area, according to Watford
Borough Council.
Currently at Stage 3 of the RIBA's Plan
of Work, the Eight Gardens scheme sits
close to Watford Junction, a large train
station through which passengers can
reach Central London in just 20 minutes.
Lawrence said the location itself is a
good development opportunity
comprising two distinct phases, though
at the time of writing this article A&Q
Partnership is mainly working on the first
phase - the Eight Gardens south of
Penn Road.
OPEN BIM: COLLABORATION WITH
CONSULTANTS
Among the landscaped elements in the
Eight Gardens project are amenity
spaces and shared gardens exclusively
accessed by the private residents on top
of the shoulder blocks, and publicly
accessed landscaped steps, squares
and streets at ground level.
With some consultants not as familiar
with BIM workflows as A&Q Partnership,
the initial appointments did not formally
stipulate a BIM workflow. However, the
teams were keen on developing a good
working relationship and agreed to
proceed as a BIM project even though it
wasn't obligatory.
"We developed it as a BIM job, partly to
help others in the learning process,"
Lawrence said, explaining that the team
got together and set expectations for
each other, following it up with a tight
execution plan. A&Q Partnership worked
with the .dwg files and .ifc files by
referencing them into Vectorworks.
MAINTAINING HARDWARE
PERFORMANCE WITH LOTS OF
INFORMATION
Lawrence and his co-workers at A&Q
were aware of hardware constraints as
the Eight Gardens project contains
multiple large buildings and a high level
of detail. The Partnership relies, therefore,
on a multi-file method to ensure files run
efficiently. The project's six buildings each
have their own file separate from the
master file, and they reference each
building into the master file for
coordination after completing design
10
July/August 2021