The challenge was the need to strike the right balance between redevelopment and preserving the historical architecture. Mongkok is a very busy district, so disruptions to traffic flow and local businesses had to be kept to a minimum during construction.

To shorten the design approval from several months to just one month, we used Revit and Navisworks for building information modeling (BIM) authoring and design collaboration, allowing all stakeholders to clearly visualize the new building design and its relationship with existing historic fabric.

We also created a digital twin from the BIM model to brief the contractor. This helped the contractor understand the construction detail and provided accurate works estimations during the pre-construction phase. It also allowed the building services and smart sensor installation requirements to be reviewed, avoiding clashes and preserving maintenance space.

Once built, Autodesk Forge was used to integrate the BIM model with IBM’s Maximo to deliver a BIM facilities management (BIM FM) centralized platform, linking the model with the internet of things (IoT) sensors installed on site and the building management system data.

This platform provides one centralized solution for operations and maintenance, which can be easily replicated and integrated into upcoming projects for the same client.

Future projects will be added into the dashboard and managed in the same environment. With this system, the site officer can retrieve the maintenance and equipment information effectively from within the system and assess what the problem is and how it can be solved and can do so often without being on site.

Hong Kong’s Urban Renewal Authority (URA) is a pioneer for BIM, BMS and IoT integration and in the future all URA projects will follow this model to take advantage of a centralized BIM-FM platform solution.