Children’s Memorial Hospital is building a new hospital, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, and is using an innovative technology to hold costs down and ensure that the project is ready for a Summer 2012 move. The hospital’s construction managers, architects, and engineers are using Building Information Modeling (BIM), which creates a virtual 3D model of the hospital to identify and address potential design and construction issues well before they impact the schedule and budget. For example, BIM helps the hospital ensure that they are routing piping, ductwork, and conduit properly before any of this work actually happens inside the building. This technology is also enhancing the energy efficiency of the building in several ways including the enabling of thermal modeling, which provides a virtual comparison of potential heat loss based on which materials are selected for the building’s enclosure. Mortenson Construction, who came together in a joint venture with Power Construction to manage Lurie Children’s construction project, is a national leader in the development and implementation of BIM. Although it is often used on commercial construction projects, utilizing BIM technology to this extent for a hospital project of this magnitude is groundbreaking.
BIM will continue to reduce costs by providing a “digital blueprint” of the hospital and its complex systems. Anytime a remodeling or renovation project needs to take place post-construction, hospital officials will use the BIM model to visualize the space, review possibilities, and schedule the necessary work before construction begins.
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