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A major construction change required in building the final floor of the Altaira high-rise condominium in Bonita Springs could have brought a round of frowns from Suffolk Construction work crews. And the shift nearly shot the firm's completion schedule for the luxury residential project at The Colony Golf & Bay Club.
But the calamity was avoided, thanks to high-tech building information modeling, BIM, and specifically its sophisticated Revit program. Now the high-rise will be done in June — a bit ahead of schedule.
With the 21-floor Altaira nearly topped off and interior work about to start, Suffolk officials learned that a single buyer wanted both penthouses converted to a single penthouse. Modifications would have to be done to the top unit's intricate ceiling decor, the ceiling's elevation, arches in the master bedroom and the electrical, sprinkler and HVAC features above the ceilings.
Suffolk handed the task to Matt Carland, its regional virtual design and construction manager.
Carland recites a lengthy list of snags the Altaira would have faced, including dealing with a pair of 8-inch holes in the floor of the master bedroom and reconfiguring plumbing under the floor slab. Instead, the three-dimensional pictures he got after inputting the penthouse changes showed precisely where everything should go.
“In this instance, we used dimensions. It gives the field installer more security that where they are putting” something is the right place for it, says Carland, who has a motto on his office wall that reads “Pixels are Cheaper than Bricks.”
The old-school overlay method Carland used earlier in his construction career relies on hand-drawn dimensions that would need to be redone in instances like the changes to the penthouse. But with BIM, Carland could continually modify the digital modeling and get an accurate picture of how the changes fit in with the building's components and systems. “It is a powerful visualization tool for all parties involved,” he says.
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