by ArchitectureWeek

At its annual user conference in May 2005, design and construction software maker Bentley Systems, Incorporated announced the recipients of the 2005 BE Awards of Excellence. These awards showcase the imagination and technical mastery of organizations that use Bentley design and construction software to design everything from small buildings to major highways.

Nine firms received excellence awards in the building category, each project demonstrating various ways to apply Bentley's suite of building design software, which integrates work in design, construction, and facility management. Most of these projects involved some degree of building information modeling (BIM) which could well be the foundation for future changes in many processes within the AEC industry.

One of the selected projects is the Ford Centre of Engineering and Manufacturing Excellence (CEME) in Dagenham, United Kingdom, by British architecture firm Sheppard Robson. The new CEME building provides nearly 108,000 square feet (10,000 square meters) of high-tech learning facilities, office space, information technology (IT) and business centers, and four specialist CAD/CAM rooms. This energy-efficient building is expected to cut CEME's annual utility bill by about 25 percent.

In designing the building, Sheppard Robson applied BIM principles using MicroStation, TriForma, and Bentley Architecture. Throughout the project, the integration of MicroStation DGN data with intranet-based databases was critical in ensuring the efficient management of whole-building data.   >>>

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The Ford Centre of Engineering and Manufacturing Excellence in Dagenham, United Kingdom. Photo: Sheppard Robson Spallation Neutron Source at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Image: U.S. Department of Energy   Click on thumbnail images to view full-size pictures.