Swire tests 'clash-free' building

Swire's largest commercial block is going up based on a computer model that replaces the old method of separate architectural and engineering plans to instead prepare a 'clash-free' design, potentially leading to huge savings through less waste.

Swire paid $10 million to acquire the licence for the Digital Project software, which generates 3D models of a building at every stage of the development cycle. The company's 70-storey One Island East in Quarry Bay, on which construction began yesterday, is the first in Hong Kong to be designed using the software, it said.

'In a traditional design process, the architect, structural and mechanical engineers work separately in their own office,' senior project manager Kenneth Ng Kar-wai said. 'They rely on conventional plans drafted by each other that might have many conflicts and incompatibilities and lead to unnecessary waste of materials.'

Construction often begins before the design is finalised, but with software Swire says about 2,000 clashes were identified beforehand. Waste from design clashes is estimated to account for 15 to 25 per cent of total waste.

Swire says it also used a more expensive demolition method to reduce noise and waste when two old industrial blocks on the site were being demolished. A concrete crusher was used to 'bite' debris into pieces, instead of using large machines to break it. This also allowed more debris to be recycled.