In a world where financial deregulation led to destabilizing the entire global market and climate scientists now estimate a 30-year timeframe to reverse the effects of climate change and spare the planet irreversible damage, it’s necessary to reexamine just about every aspect of human civilization, from specific industries to the entire socioeconomic structure.
One Dutch construction firm emerged from the 2008 financial crisis looking to completely reimagine the way it did business, both in the way it constructed buildings and how it could meet zero net energy goals when constructing those buildings.
At Autodesk University 2017, Hilbrand Katsma, COO of Van Wijnen, discussed how his firm was able to transform itself and, as a result, potentially transform the entire construction industry using techniques such as modularization and generative design.
Adopting BIM
After the 2008 financial crisis placed Van Wijnen on shaky ground, the company looked to make itself “future-proof,” according to Katsma. This included meeting goals such as reducing costs by 15 percent, speeding up some projects by 50 percent, and reducing project defects to a maximum of three.
To meet these goals, the company embraced digitization. It shifted from the time-honored tradition of 2D drawings to 3D building information modeling (BIM), using Autodesk Navisworks Manage software. Architects and engineers supply designs to Van Wijnen, which uses Navisworks to aggregate the models and…