The use of BIM by aflalo/gasperini dates to 2009, at a time when projects started using this technology in their design process. More than 1.300.000m² were developed in BIM throughout these years, which, according to Gustavo Oliveira, Architect responsible for BIM integration at aflalo/gasperini, has contributed to a better understanding of design, thus improving the quality itself, meeting productivity and coordination with all the designers involved.
The different types and sizes of designs the company works on demanded multiple software. In 2015, Archicad, because of its intuitiveness, met the office’s needs at the time. For Gustavo, the easiness of learning and the price were also deciding factors in the choice.
“As opposed to other companies, we do not deem that BIM is the future; we deem it is the present. BIM is part of our design workflow today. We believe that BIM will soon be compulsory, and that professionals who do not adopt it will gradually lose market share.”
Gustavo Oliveira, Architect
The Pilot Project
Initially, a team of three architects received training to develop a 14-story office building. “The ease of use surprised the architects who had no previous experience with Archicad, and made it possible to deliver the first phase of the project for governmental approval in just one week.”
According to Gustavo, a point that significantly contributed to the rise in productivity was not necessary to invest hours of work with the production of parametric objects, since
“Archicad includes an extensive internal library; the native objects were configured to conform to all the graphical standards adopted by the office.”
The Board of Directors was impressed by the initial deadlines achieved, so they asked for internal training to further Archicad´s use in all the teams. Since these architects were already used to the BIM concept, learning Archicad was fast and easy.
The Consolidation
One of aflalo/gasperini’s concerns was how Archicad would behave on massive projects, as that had yet to be tested on this platform, and how it would handle interoperability issues with engineers using different software solutions. They decided to test Archicad to the limit, to test how it would handle extreme situations.
To answer the questions related to the size of projects, they imported into Archicad a large project using the IFC extension.
“We were able to unify in one single Archicad file a project that was divided among 14 separate files in another BIM software. The tests we developed proved that the drawing extraction achieved similar performance on both platforms, but the 3D navigation was very smooth in Archicad.”
To address the concerns about interoperability, import and export tests were performed that produced satisfactory results using IFC generated in other software. In the structural file, it was possible to utilize almost the entire model received to generate architectural documentation, thus avoiding the task of remodeling columns and beams.
Although they have no projects completely developed in Archicad yet, aflalo/gasperini’s expectations have all been met to date. They are currently planning the next steps to consolidate the use of Archicad in the office, with special attention to BIM collaboration with all the external consultants they work with.
About aflalo/gasperini
Founded in 1962, aflalo/gasperini arquitetos operates throughout Brazil, in the areas of architecture and urban design, encompassing the office, services, residential, hotel, public and social, recreational and industrial sectors.
The office is known for designing buildings that have become landmarks in the cities in which they were built, like the IBM headquarters, Rochaverá Corporate Towers complex, the eTower in São Paulo, and the Claudio Santoro Auditorium in Campos do Jordão. Their scope of work covers site research and analysis, architectural concept development, presentation drawings, pre-dimensioning and physical planning, construction documentation, and project coordination, construction control and monitoring.
During the past 50 years, aflalo/gasperini arquitetos has designed and built more than 6.500.000m².
About Graphisoft
Graphisoft® ignited the BIM revolution in 1984 with Archicad®, the industry first BIM software for architects. Graphisoft continues to lead the industry with innovative solutions such as its revolutionary BIMcloud®, the world’s first real-time BIM collaboration environment; and BIMx®, the world’s leading mobile app for lightweight access to BIM for non-professionals. Graphisoft is part of the Nemetschek Group.