kaiser capitol hill medical office building

KAISER CAPITOL HILL MEDICAL OFFICE BUILDING

BIM ENABLED

LEAN

CONSTRUCTION

FASTER, EASIER, BETTER,

AND LESS EXPENSIVE

PROJECT DELIVERY

EMILY FINAU

YONG CHEOL LEE

Table of Contents

Introduction

Description of Project

Project Organization

Specific Challenges

Schedule

BIM and Interoperability

Design Innovation and Construction

1. Dynamic animation for evaluating MRI package movement paths

2. Pharmacy area virtual mockup

3. MEP coordination

4. BIM + Lean construction

5. BIG room

3C’s (Collaboration & Coordination & Communication)

BIM Benefits Realized

BIM Application’s Return on Value

Conclusion and Lessons Learned

References


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Figure. 1 Building and Site

Introduction

Kaiser Permanente is a not-for-profit health plan and care

provider, which has built a medical office building on

Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C., 700 2nd

street. Kaiser

Permanente Capitol Hill Medical Center was completed in

January 2011. This Medical Office Building includes

radiology/imaging suite and pharmacy, laboratory space, a

conference space, and exam and procedure rooms, physician

offices.

This project involved the renovation of an existing office

building for a hospital facility, using four of the eleven

floors (lower, ground, 6th and 7th floors) in the building,

approximately 189,000 square feet. MOB’s have special

requirements for mechanical, electrical, and plumbing, and

have specialized spatial needs for large equipment, so the

use of BIM was especially important in this project. Thus,

the initial objective of BIM was how to effectively minimize

problems in the renovation project from an office building to a hospital, how to efficiently

design the MEP systems of hospital in low height stories and how to efficiently arrange the

hospital equipment. Also, in this project, BIM was used by various ways like dynamic

animation, virtual mockup, lean construction and BIG room.

In addition, collaboration, coordination and communication were essential to the success of

this project because there were several difficulties in the tight schedule: scheduling between

DPR and another construction firm working in the same building, and coordinating among an

architect, an engineer and a constructor. These were all issues of collaboration, coordination

and communication that were solved by BIM application.


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Project

Location

Construction

Size

Cost

Kaiser Capitol Hill Medical Office Building

Capitol Hill Medical Center 700 Washington, D.C

Tenant Fit-out of Core & Shell (Design-Bid-Build)

189,000 Square feet (4 of 11 Exsiting Floors : B1,1,6,7 F)

$ 27 Million GMP (Completion cost $ 40 Million)

Period

Structure

Owner/Client

Architect

Constructor

12 Months (Jan 2010 – Jan 2011)

Steel and Concrete structure

Louise Dreyfus / Kaiser Permanente

Hawley Peterson & Snyder Architects (HPS)

DPR Construction

Description of Project

Project Organization

The construction type was unique in that two parties needed to be represented: Kaiser

Permanente, a healthcare provider, as well as the building owner and developer, Louis

Dreyfus Property Group and Fisher Brothers. DPR’s contract was with the building owner

but while still representing Kaiser. Representing the two parties proved to be difficult. Also,

Jacobs Engineering and Louise Drefus played the role as the Construction Manager, for fee.

Table. 1 Project Description

Figure. 2 Project Organization

Chuck

Highlight


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Specific Challenges

1. Tight schedule

The schedule for completion called for 1 year, which is

a short amount of time to design, collaborate, fabricate,

and build. The time for BIM coordination, especially,

was not quite enough for DPR.

2. Building structure

Low ceiling heights and height limits in Washington D.C. resulted in low height

stories (1000ft). Since the building was previously an office building, there were low

height stories already in place, and were therefore problematic for hospital equipment

and all MEP systems. Additionally, the building had 11 floors total, with 4 of the

floors being used for the hospital.

3. Coordination.

There were many problems in coordination work. Firstly, it was hard to coordinate

between DPR construction and another construction firm because both construction

companies were going their works in Kaiser Capitol Hill Medical Office Building at the

same time. Thus, DPR construction was difficult to set the schedule for avoiding

overlapping with the other construction going on. Secondly, the collaboration with an

architect and an engineer was another problem. That is because the architect was in

California and the engineer was in Tennessee and DPR was in Washington. Thus, it

was not easy to set the meetings for project.

4. Budget.

The budget for the project was $27 million but ended up at $40 million. The main

reason for this budget increase is the low quality of the architectural/mechanical designs.

Therefore, during constructing the building, there were a number of design changes.

Actually, there were 60 bulletin changes.

Figure. 3

Schedule Timer in DPR office


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Figure. 5 Backward Calculation Method

Schedule

The design of Kaiser

Permanente began on May 2009.

All design teams, including the

architect used BIM tools to design

their buildings and collaborated

over several BIM meetings. BIM

coordination work began just a

month before beginning construction. By coordinating BIM models with the existing

building, the architectural model, the MEP model and other subcontractors’ models, the

construction started on October 2009. The owner required DPR to deliver the project in less

than 48 weeks from the start of construction. DPR made every effort, including lean

construction concept, for meeting this schedule. It was difficult for DPR to keep the

schedule because another construction firm was working concurrently in the same building

on the other floors that were also being renovated by other companies for other program

besides Kaiser Permanente’s health care facility.

Scheduling played an important role in meeting

the dead line. After setting the schedule deadlines,

each of the subcontractors made efforts to meet that

schedule. The detailed schedule was set by the

backward calculation method. The schedule was shared and coordinated during group

meetings and then evolved into the real time and detailed schedule for construction. In this

project, the commitment to meet the deadline of each subcontractor played a key role in

building completion. If they could not meet the time schedule, it could have an adverse

effect to other subcontractors. Consequently, they took the greatest and utmost pains for

making the fixed schedule.

Total scheduling process

Firstly, they formed a plan to complete BIM coordination before starting construction of

the four out of eleven floors: the 7th

floor, 6th

floor, ground level, and lower level. The work

Figure. 4 The Schedule


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went from one floor to next after each BIM team finished the corresponding BIM

coordination. However, they recognized that the coordination work took more time than

expected and could have resulted in the delay of starting the construction.

Figure. 6 Schedule Board Figure. 7 Initial BIM Execution Schedule – Last Planner Scheduling

For solving the problem, they decided to operate two BIM teams for BIM coordination.

In addition, they divided the 4 specific sections for reducing time per each coordination works

instead of work for each floor, which enabled them to enter the construction right after

finishing the coordination for each section. The change in BIM coordination work helped to

complete construction quickly.

Figure. 8 Smaller Sections

Figure. 9 Actual BIM Execution Schedule – Last Planner Scheduling

BIM and Interoperability

3D modeling used by DPR was crucial in the design

process and in modeling the complex MEP design. The

Kaiser Capitol Hill Medical Office Building proved that

use of BIM applications was invaluable in completing the

project. This renovation project required the as-built 3D

S #2 S #1

S #4 S #3

Figure. 10 3D Rendering


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Figure. 11 Laser Scanning

Autodesk Revit Architecture

Engineers Model

AutoCAD for 3D model

Mechanic Model

PipeDesigner Quickpen

Electric Model

Autodesk Revit MEP

Architectural Model

Laser Scan, Cyclone-ex As-built Model

AutoCAD & Plumbing library Plumbing Model

CADDuct

Construction Model

Autodesk Navisworks

Duct Model

Table 2 Design and Software

model for applying the BIM approach to this building. For the 3D model of this existing

building, DPR used 3D laser scanning. The laser scanner equipped with a 360-degree

rotating camera as a total solution device that analyzed the existing building and created a

figure from the existing building by making point clouds.

After collecting the data from laser scanning, the data

was exported for creating digital and three dimensional

models for other formats like the IFC main library through

3D software, cyclone-ex. The BIM models made from

all the contractors in this project including an architect, an

engineer, and MEP contractors were based on the laser

scanned model.

Interoperability

Architects used Revit Architecture

and Engineers used AutoCAD for

creating 3D model and contract

drawings. DPR used Revit

Architecture, AutoCAD, Navisworks,

and Google Sketchup. Subcontractors

used AutoCAD with plug-ins for the

libraries they need. For example,

ductwork contractor used CADDuct

and mechanical pipe contractor used

PipeDesigner Quickpen. All issues of interoperability among all programs in the project

were solved by the use of Autodesk products. Based on the existing model from the laser

scanning, DPR coordinated all models through Navisworks. Therefore, Navisworks could

compile data without any missing information. Therefore, in this project, interoperability

was not a big issue because almost all contractors used the Autodesk sibling products, which

has DWG or RVT file formats. Data exchanges between the two tools were carried out

through direct links, proprietary file exchange formats, and public product data model

exchange formats (IFC). Each model could be interoperated for visualization, clash

detection and full documentation of the entire project.


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The interesting point in the above chart was a plumbing model made by AutoCAD and

plumbing library. They could not use Revit MEP because the machine making real ducts

only read AutoCAD files. This was perhaps the most problematic interoperability issue;

BIM did not apply to the fabrication component because of the fabricator’s software. This

is commonly a current problem of applying BIM to the real work, and there is still much to

be done to improve the architectural environment.

Design Innovation and Construction

Kaiser Permanente was a hospital renovation from an office building with a core and shell,

or with an existing structure and curtain wall. The work scope included concrete,

mechanical, electrical, and plumbing; an entire renovation and interior construction project of

4 of the floors of the building. DPR had utilized BIM models to identify the design concept

and the project scope of work. BIM was also utilized for visualization and enhancing the

design. All of contractors use Autodesk products like Revit and Revit MEP for 3D

modeling, production scheduling, HVAC design, optimization of various mechanical systems,

energy analysis, performance monitoring, quantity extraction, and estimating.

1. Dynamic animation for evaluating MRI package movement paths

DESIGN DILEMMA: Hospital equipment needs - MRI, CT big equipment results in

difficulties in creating an entrance and circulation pathways that result in ease of

movement and flow.

DESIGN SOLUTION: Dynamic Animation

Generally, in the case of a hospital new construction project, a pathway and an entrance

are set for large equipment like MRI or CT. However, because the Kaiser project was

a renovation project from an office to a hospital, it was difficult to plan the equipment’s

pathways. Dynamic animation in this project was used in that there was a movement

point that moved throughout the model to find how many clash detections occurred.

The path with the fewest clashes was found and once clash detection was performed

and adjustments made, the walls were then constructed after first moving the equipment

or they were built by using precast concrete method. This method was really effective

to show the pathways and to find the best one among several alternative pathways.


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Clash Detection

MRI

Clash Detection

MRI

Figure. 12 Dynamic Animation for MRI Package Path

2. Pharmacy area virtual mockup

DESIGN DILEMMA: Nurses wanted to confirm that the pharmacy facility and

movement through the facility would assist the ease in flow throughout their workdays.

DESIGN SOLUTION: Virtual Mockup

Figure. 13 Pharmacy area virtual mockup


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Figure. 14 Clash Detection

A virtual mockup was completed by students in a nearby university, allowing for

students to obtain valuable work experience. High quality and 3D mockups were not

needed, and therefore were able to be done by local students. The virtual mockup

showed the cabinet placement, the flow of movement, the height of worktables, etc.

Through the 3D virtual mockup, DPR and the nurses of the Kaiser hospital could study

proposed construction details, facilities, and working environments. Above all, the

virtual mockup method gave the owner and nurses satisfaction in analyzing design

figures, minimizing problems, and saving time.

3. MEP coordination

DESIGN DILEMMA: How to coordinate the MEP process, the model design and

coordination with the ceiling model and the 3D model overlaid with the as-built model.

DESIGN SOLUTION: Navisworks Coordination - Clash Detection

The design team developed 3D models to rationalize specific hospital spaces and MEP

systems. The design model was shared with project team members. As previously

mentioned, the BIM coordination process by Navisworks was used for this coordination.

This was an especially important

element in this project - the ceiling

heights were lower in the building

due to the rehabilitation from office

spaces to hospital spaces, and since

hospital equipment is large and

required higher ceiling heights, clash

detection was crucial to verify that

MEP systems were not going to

conflict in the low ceiling spaces.


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Figure. 17 Lean Construction Meeting

Figure. 15 MEP Coordination & Real Construction

Figure. 16 MEP Coordination

4. BIM + Lean construction

DESIGN DILEMMA: Meeting the construction schedule with less waste and less time.

DESIGN SOLUTION: Lean Construction Production Management

Using LEAN construction techniques are used to

maximize overall production value, reduce waste,

and maintain the highest quality. For the LEAN

construction management, the project team

members including the owner, architect, DPR and

subcontractors, worked together to plan the


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delivery process in conjunction with the facility. The architect, Pritzker award winner

Kevin Roche, used Revit but the architect was located in California and the engineer,

Jonghoon Kim with DPR, was located in Tennessee, making it difficult to coordinate

meetings. However, because of the Big Room Concept (discussed below),

coordination and model updates became possible to promote a more fluid transition and

more reliable work flows between the various trades involved. Every step of the

construction delivery process was broken down. Potential time and space conflicts

and sequencing issues cold be more easily understood through this collaboration

process. It was the pairing of the virtual building technology (3D and 4D models and

computer-aided design drawings) along with a LEAN approach that produced the most

efficient installation of MEP systems.

5. BIG room

DESIGN DILEMMA: Coordination among designers, contractors, subcontractors,

construction, fabricators, etc.

DESIGN SOLUTION: Big room concept – Smart board

After clash detection was performed, the Big Room Concept was implemented. This

is where all parties were able to conference into the meeting held in an I-Room

(Information Room) in which a SMART Board was used to automatically show updates

in the model and then everyone on the team is able to update all the drawings

accordingly. An I-Room is a room large enough to house the entire team and all the

necessary computers and display screens for everyone to follow the process in detail.

The point of getting everyone together in one place is important. This makes the

designer actually a collaborative team, which is under the conducting of the architect.

Figure. 18 BIG Room Coordination


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3C’s (Collaboration & Coordination & Communication)

Figure. 19 Coordination Process

The initial BIM staffs were the DPR coordinator, ductwork modeler, plumbing/HVAC

piping modeler, electrical modeler, and sprinkler piping modeler. DPR coordinated all

models based on the as-built laser model. This compiled 3D model was used in the field

after clash detection. As mentioned above, the 3D model also could be used more effectively

by using BIG room concept. The BIG room played an important role not only in

coordination among designers, engineers, constructors and subcontractors, but also in

collaboration between DPR and another construction company that was working in the Kaiser

building at the same time. All BIM engineers of DPR and the other firm had many meetings

in the BIG room for scheduling. Through the BIG room meetings, DPR could save time for

coordinating and enhancing communication among project team members. In addition,

there was another problem in the coordination between an architect in California, an engineer

in Tennessee and a DPR engineer in Washington. On the construction site, an architect, an

engineer and a constructor met periodically with the BIM model in the BIG room, which

helped save much time in explaining and describing processes. Furthermore, an architect

and an engineer worked on site every two weeks. They worked in two-week shifts.

Moreover, they often had conference call meetings.


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Figure. 20 BIM & Real Work

BIM Benefits Realized

The BIM tools and the coordinated 3D model played a

pivotal role in this MOB project.

Firstly, the use of BIM in pre-design phase was a great

help in the designing and coordination of the hospital’s

mechanical, electric systems and plumbing in low height

stories of the office building. That is, BIM enabled the

project team members to identify the possible problems and

understand the whole project easily, which resulted in successful completion of the project.

Secondly, the use of the same 3D model provided modelers and designers on site with the

opportunities for collaboration and coordination. After MEP coordination, DPR performed

the clash detection, as previously mentioned, with Navisworks, a coordination program

created by Autodesk. The changes made from each subcontractor were updated throughout

those databases so that the changes of each contractor were coordinated quickly. That is,

BIM approach enabled workers to explore and modify changes of the building at any time

without re-coordination of the tasks. Thus, MEP coordination enabled DPR to minimize

coordination time and facilitate manual checking. Also, sharing the Revit model allowed

project members to work together with one model through all phases of the project. Therefore,

the construction on site could go on quickly. The 3D BIM model was a bridge among all

project members (including the other construction firm working at the same time) for

collaboration, coordination and communication.

Thirdly, the BIM tool supports other tools’ application like the dynamic animation, the

virtual mockup, the BIG room concept and the Lean construction. BIM model has the

multi-functions, which allows the project members to see and estimate the project from

various angles through various methods related to BIM model. Also, these functions make a

great contribution in improving the project quality, saving cost, reducing the schedule and

satisfying an owner.

Fourthly, the BIM approach improved the documentation process and was helpful

throughout all administration phases. The 3D database also provided feedback for use in

cost estimating and information was exported to excel and costs were applied to generate cost

estimate.

Lastly, DPR could provide easily and quickly the owner with site utilization and

renovation process, which lead to communicate better with owner and represent the intent of

the owner. BIM in this project enabled workers to deliver better work faster.

Visualizations and mockup test through BIM model requires less time and effort by workers,


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so the project could proceed ahead faster. Moreover, DPR use BIM model for quantification

of the building and value engineering. This model would be reused for similar project later

in estimating and planning. Also, the BIM model allowed design teams and constructors to

get more work done with fewer people. BIM resulted in less miscommunication and errors.

These benefits resulted in reducing the cost of changes and coordination in administration

process. Furthermore, BIM was used for budgeting and cost estimating. The cost

information and changes could be updated easier.

Figure. 21 BIM Coordination Model

The BIM application’s return on value achieved for the project

DPR was interested in knowing what the return would be on the value achieved for the

project divided by value expended in effort. However, JongHoon Kim, the senior BIM

engineer at DPR, said that it is difficult to evaluate the quantitative analysis. He thought the

benefits of using BIM application were that project participants and owner were entirely

favorable to how BIM improved the quality. The owner was so pleased with the outcome

that Kaiser decided after completion of this project to give their next two projects to DPR.

In addition, KIM could identify other BIM benefits by calculating the real construction

time and cost for coordination comparing them to the conventional method. Also, he could

estimate the BIM advantages through estimating the reduction of RFI’s by using BIM and

how much RFI response time was reduced during sharing BIM model. However, he said

that the results could not be absolutely evaluated.

Lastly, the cost reduction is subjective judgment, so it is difficult to calculate the accurate

Chuck

Sticky Note

these are all positive for using BIM. What were the negatives?


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value. Although it is better to have a coordination work effort as quickly as possible, the

quality of design can be low. Another reason that BIM cannot be a part of the process any

earlier is that early coordination can cause the delay of subcontractor selection.

Conclusion and Lessons Learned

The use of BIM software in the Kaiser Permanente Capitol Hill Medical Center project

was central to the designing, planning, coordinating, organizing, and constructing processes.

It allowed for important procedures such as clash detection, which is essential for all

mechanical systems but especially important when planning for large hospital equipment.

Additionally, the coordination and collaboration between members of the design and

construction team was made possible through the BIM application and the use of same BIM

model. In the Kaiser project, there were few problems with BIM interoperability because

the project members used tools having similar file format. We thought that it is necessary to

plan which BIM applications and which file formats would be interoperable before laying out

the project in the beginning.

This case study did prove several problems when applying BIM to real work. Firstly,

although it is better to have a coordination work as quickly as possible, BIM design and

coordination takes a lot of time. The designs can be of low quality because BIM engineers

may not have enough time to work. The results in many design changes and consequently

increase costs and the delays. Secondly, there were problems that the plumbing contractor

could not prevent while using AutoCAD instead of using 3D Revit because of fabricator’s

software requirements. Another problem was that the architect and other subcontractors still

had low-quality designs, which resulted in a number of design changes and cost increases.

In light of the current situation, we thought that it is necessary to improve the construction

environment and invest in the equipment for BIM application to make an easier transition in

to the use of BIM.

In this project, DPR performed all the metal stud framing, the drywall and acoustic ceilings,

the doors, the frams, and the hardware. DPR reported that next time they would like to use

BIM for drywall framing design, fabrication, quantity take-off, and continue with

coordination of MEP systems. In addition, JongHoon Kim who is a senior BIM engineer at

DPR said, “If we did not use BIM in this project, the project could not been completed on

time. Rather, without BIM, we might not even imagine the execution of project that is a

renovation from an office building to a hospital. If the project can be executed without BIM,

the construction cost would be increased significantly.” BIM allowed DPR to make the

impossible possible.


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References

Eastman, CM, Teicholz, P, Sacks, R and Liston, K:2008, BIM Handbook: A Guide to

Building Information Modeling for Owners, Managers, Designers, Engineers and

Contractors, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New Jersey

Kaiser Permanente, Opens New Medical Center on Capitol Hill, Jan. 2011,

http://xnet.kp.org/newscenter/pressreleases/mas/2011/012411capitolhillmc.html

DPR, Kaiser Permanente Station Place 3 Medical Office Building,

http://www.dpr.com/projects/mid-atlantic/detail.cfm?ProjectID=523

Digital Building Lab at Georgia Tech, http://bim.arch.gatech.edu/content_view.asp?id=528

DPR Contact : Jonghoon Kim PhD

| DPR Construction, Inc.

| Mobile: 650-714-3467

| eFax: 703-995-0816

https://mail.coa.gatech.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.dpr.com/projects/mid-atlantic/detail.cfm?ProjectID=523

http://bim.arch.gatech.edu/content_view.asp?id=528

Chuck

Highlight

kaiser capitol hill medical office building

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