Queen’s Wharf architects overhauls its workflow
Cottee Parker now uses BIM software, Bluebeam Revu to mimic its paper-based workflow and cut the documentation process on its Queen’s Wharf Brisbane project.
BIM Today reports Australian architecture and design firm Cottee Parker is currently the lead architect on the biggest project in the company’s history, the Queen’s Wharf Brisbane.
The $4 billion mixed-use development, set to open in 2024 will include 2000 apartments, 1000 premium hotel rooms, 50 restaurants, a 1000 person ballroom, 12 football fields’ worth of public space, as well as a casino and retail space.
The project is projected to create more than 8000 jobs once operational and add 1.4 million additional tourists to the city per year.
“Queen’s Wharf is one of the largest projects in Australia,” according to a Cottee Parker director Naveen Dath.
“It is a truly transformational project,” Dath added.
“I remember when we were doing the initial schematic design stage in 2015, there used to be reams and reams of paper hiding beneath people’s desks,” he said.
Cottee Parker’s paper-based workflow quickly became a challenge with such a complex project.
“One of the biggest challenges was the sheer number of documents I had to check,” documentation manager Charles Simons said.
“We normally go through a process of printing out every single sheet that’s going to be issued to the client,” architect Steph Cook said.
This manual circulate-and-review process was time-consuming.
Documents would sit on one architect’s desk for a day, with as many as 10 architects needed to review a set of documents.
Moreover, conducting such document quality assurance – the process of preventing errors in design documents before they are delivered to the client – on paper came with issues around legibility and accountability.
“Documents would get lost with just the amount of paper that is around,” documentation team leader Erina Tibaldi said.
A few Cottee Parker architects working on other projects introduced the team to BIM Software, Bluebeam Revu.
“We thought that we might be able to develop a system that made it easier for us to get through that document review process,” Simons said.
The challenge in the roll out, however, came with convincing the less tech-savvy team members.
“Our approach was to mimic the actual real-world workflow that we already had in place,” development and training manager Quinton Cooper said.
“The paper-based workflow that people are used to, we were able to mimic that nicely.”
Cottee Parker’s Queen’s Wharf team found quick use of the overlay and tool pre-set tools in Revu.
The team also took to using BIM software Bluebeam’s Studio Projects for document management and Studio Sessions for document collaboration.
This helped the team cut down on the amount of time it was previously spending circulating paper documents.
With Sessions, team members in different locations are able to annotate and comment on documents in real-time, without having to transport them to different offices.
“The amount of time that it took was much, much less,” Cook said.
Brisbane’s Queen’s Wharf starts to take shape
Four new towers are emerging from the ground near George Street in Brisbane’s CBD.
The Brisbane Times reported last week the new towers are part of the $3.6 billion privately owned Queen’s Wharf resort and casino development.
For three years, since construction began in early 2017, development has been underground or along the Brisbane River.
Now, the precinct’s first four towers – including hotels, private apartments and gaming areas – are materialising between George and William streets.
Queen’s Wharf project director Simon Crooks said the next phase would mark the change from when “the people of Brisbane looked down into the buildings and instead, looked into them.”
The tallest tower is the Queen’s Wharf Residences, which is being built on the corner of Margaret and George streets.
The next two towers facing South Bank will house Star’s five-star Grand Hotel and the casino’s gaming operations.
“These two towers make up the river-facing side of the integrated resort and form the platform for the Sky Deck that will sit more than 100 metres above street level,” Mr Crooks said.
“These towers will include more than 330 new five-star hotel rooms, along with new gaming facilities to replace the 25-year-old Treasury Casino.
The Treasury Casino will close and become a high-end retail centre in the final stages of development.
The fourth tower is near the heritage-listed old Government Printing Office, which is set to be preserved.
