Mixed-generation living in Rosenheim
BPS International is developing the first residential project in Germany , which design is fully powered by Building Information Modelling process. Located in the Municipality Wohnanlage bei Rosenheim (Southeast Upper Bavaria, administrative district Rosenheim), it is an ensemble of three five-level houses, including two attic floors and partly residential basement with the underground parking.
Municipality Wohnanlage bei Rosenheim is in a 40km ride from Munich, the capital and largest city of the German state of Bavaria, and 25km ride from Alps, the home of beautiful waterfalls, scenic glaciers and cozy alpine villages. That perfect location combines business city opportunities and great vacation and sports entertainment.
The ensemble is adjacent to the municipality´s historical center with it´s reknown church Wallfahrtsbasilika Mariä Himmelfahrt, and echoes its architectural heritage with it´s pitched tiled roofs and clean stucco facades. In a meanwhile the project is keeping up with the times through implementing energy-efficient modern construction materials and contemporary design elements.
The new houses are to provide 38 apartments with a wide variety of types and sizes for customers of any generation, including spacious family apartments, flexible barrier-free accomodation for elder and disabled people, functional studios for young and business-oriented occupants.
The Association of German Pfandbrief Banks (VDP) determined that the real estate prices in the second quarter of 2015, compared to the same period in 2014, increased by 6% for residential properties in general and even rose by 7.6% in multifamily apartment buildings sector. Prices grow exponentially as well as household demand. According to several researches the highest expected demand growth in Germany – up to 16% in the next 10 years – will be in the area surrounding Munich. Therefore the team of BPS International was particulary exited to apply its BIM experience in large office and infrastructure projects on the housing design in this region.
Though BIM is apparently reaches it´s maximum efficiency on large and complex projects, the BPS team was surprised how the approach changed and improved design process while working on Mixed-generation Housing. Finding an optimal solution is much easier when you use all the flexibility and accuracy that BIM offers.
For example, full and precise landscape modelling for both existing and planned relief allowed us to calculate the excavation volume already on a concept design stage and test various house placement options to minimize the amount of earthwork. The key advantage of BIM here is the fast and unlimited calculation ability. The design team had an opportunity to instatly compare efficency of multiple options, including utility and residential area balance, apartments quantity and size, attic floor low areas usage, etc.
Plumbing and heat supply engineers joined the project on the early stage for energy analisys, heat balance calculation, riser placement optimisation and preliminary design of technical spaces. And all those processes took place at the same time and developed with the model through all the improvements in architecture.
BIM-powered instant quantity takeoffs hastened the start of bidding and supplyers selection and provided information for the cost estimation. Multiple problems and inacuracies that usually could be noticed only on site were spotted and solved. Now BPS International team is proceeding with the project, willing to bring it through all the design stages and prefabrication to construction site and, even after that, provide potential customers with flexible and customisable apartment design to adapt it to special requirements. BPS International is feeling now that the risk of bringing housing on BIM wheels has already justified itself and looking forward to find out how else design routine can be optimised.
BIM is driving the integrated approach of design and fasten the process without limiting the final quality and performance. In fact, it is a way to perfection which is particulary significant both for a private sector, where each house owner has individual requierments, and for apartment housing, where each saved square meter by space optimisation appreciably affects the ROI.