Innovating and Winning: Artelia's Sustainable, Outcome-Based Design with Autodesk Forma

LARS PETER LENNERT: Hello, and welcome to our presentation. We are going to talk about our sustainable, outcome-based design with Autodesk Forma. We are two presenters in this session. My name is Lars, and I have my co-speaker with me, Jesper. This is the mandatory safe harbor statement. I won't say much about it, but just continue with the presentation.

So today's agenda is that we are going to briefly introduce who we are. After that, we will deep-dive into the case study, where we will introduce the project that we have been working on. And the case study is split into two parts.

We will do the introduction first, and then we will also tell a little bit about the tender phase, where we did something unique. We tried to distinguish ourself from our competitors. And after that, we will show the use of Forma, how we did some conceptualizations.

And when we have shown the uses of Forma, we will talk a little bit about the variant analysis. And, lastly, we will end up our presentation of the methods that we used regarding the implementation.

To start with, here's my name is Lars, and I'm the Corporate Technical Director for Digital Transformation and Innovation at Artelia Denmark. And I've been working with digitalization for more than 10 years. I used to be a BIM coordinator for quite many projects. And since then, I've moved forward to a corporate position. And now I have my colleague with me, Jesper.

JESPER TRIER HENNINGSEN: Yeah. As Lars mentioned. My name is Jesper. I'm a Corporate BIM Technology Manager in Artelia Denmark. I've been working with CAD and BIM for more than 25 years. My job in Artelia Denmark, is to have an overview of all our different programs, platforms, workflows, and standardizations leading up to optimization and, initially, AI over the last couple of years.

LARS PETER LENNERT: Going forward, we will do a brief introduction of the company that we represent.

JESPER TRIER HENNINGSEN: Yeah, as mentioned, we are from Artelia Denmark. In Denmark, we are a little more than 1,300 employees. We have more than 80 years of experience in engineering. We have eight offices in Denmark in 11 divisions, and we basically work in three business areas.

Artelia Denmark is part of the Artelia business unit called Business Unit Nordic, which is around 1,400 employees. And apart from the eight offices in Denmark, that includes three offices in Norway, as well. And our position in Artelia Group is that we are one of 10 business units divided between different geographies and markets around the world.

And, group-wise, we are more than 9,000 employees in more than 40 countries. And one of our big strengths is that we are actually 100% owned by employees. As I mentioned, in Denmark, we work in three business areas. That's buildings, energy and industry, and infrastructure.

And apart from being a company which, of course, works with engineering, we also have a big culture that we are very proud of. We have an annual business trip. We have a Christmas party and some parties. We have study trips, and we have a family outings, as well-- big part of our culture.

LARS PETER LENNERT: So now back to the presentation or the session itself. So we are going to talk a lot about the project. It's a project that we call DTU Space. And I will briefly tell you why we call that.

Yeah, the showcase that we are going to present is for the client of the Technical University of Denmark. It's the campus itself that we are working for. So our focus is on designing and constructing a new building for DTU Space. DTU Space is an institute for space research and space technology.

We have just completed the variant studies as part of the conceptual design phase and have entered the outline proposal phase. By the time we will do the session in AU, we will be in the project proposal phase.

Going back to talk about the client, DTU Space is the largest space research institute in Denmark and is a globally recognized science and technology partner. The institute collaborates with some of the world's most known space organizations, including NASA and the European Space Agency. So, for me, working for client like this is really huge.

Going further, the project that we will showcase is a new building that contributes to the expected growth and strategic focus on education and innovation-- also, research. The building includes classic laboratory space while also providing rooms for innovation and learning. It will also be a place where new ideas can thrive and where research and creativity come together with advanced knowledge and learning.

The project is located on a site currently used as a parking area, and there's quite a lot of old, valuable oak trees. Sustainability is a key focus, and we aim to preserve as many of the trees as possible. Architecturally, the building will align with DTU's cultural heritage, blending in with nearby buildings.

It will also have hosting exhibitions and host, also, events. The building will cover approximately 7,000 square meters and has a budget of 245 million Danish krone, which is approximately $36 million US. And the project was awarded to us through public tender, where we were one of three prequalified teams.

To fully understand the project on which this session is based upon, it is important to review certain aspects of the material and, in general, the deliverables that we used to work on in Danish construction industry. We will begin to talk about the tender material, and, afterwards, show you some aspects of the mandatory information and deliverables that is common in the Danish construction industry.

In general, the tender material is strongly emphasizing the need to find a solution that aligns sustainability with digitalization. Therefore, there was a call for solutions on how to conduct a variant analysis or a variant study with a minimum of three proposals which must be carried out in the early stages of the project.

Additionally, a clear strategy and action plan was required to outline how the client will be involved in the decision-making process, especially concerning the variant studies.

The tender material also had significant requirements on a clear and consistent and transparent digital communication strategy. In other words, all the project materials that we were expected to perform had to be uploaded on a project portal accessible to the client. And we needed to do that quite often to be open with the materials that we were producing while we were designing.

So traceability was also of very high importance. We will come back to that soon. So in three major bullets, we can say that the tender material also had really specific requirements regarding the carbon footprint emissions that was allowed. And this is also due to national regulations.

The project must meet the DGNB Gold certification. I will talk about that in the next slides. And, also, we meet these-- we must comply with the specific coherence requirement within the deliverables related to the project documentation.

And, lastly, the 3D models from the project should be integrated into a facility management system. This was also something that we needed to think about, but this presentation is not about it. But I just wanted to highlight it. So, as mentioned, there was a threshold of 12 kilos CO2 per square meter per year for the entire-- and this only covers some phases within doing calculations of LCA.

Briefly about DGNB, it's a German-- what do you call it-- the international certification system. It's a framework used to collaborate on and promote sustainability across the built environment. And it helps foster decision that enhances the environment, human well-being, and society as a whole, covering everything from building interior to the entire urban area where the building is situated.

So in short terms, you could say that the DGNB covers topics such as biodiversity, indoor climate, harmful chemicals, CO2 footprint, how it impacts on social conditions, and its overall durability-- the building's durability.

Moving forward, this is just a slide that I've chosen to take with me on this presentation because we can see that, in Denmark, it was introduced in 2023, 1st of January, where building regulations were made. And we had to reduce the CO2 emissions.

So right now, it is on 12 kilos per CO2 per square meter per year. And it is a requirement for constructions over 1,000 square meters. And you can say that one thing that we could add is that the 30th of May this year, an additional agreement was made to tighten the CO2 limits starting from 2025.

What is also really trending in our market is the use of voluntary low-emission class. But this project had a threshold of 12 kilos. Let's move forward.

For those of you who might be not familiar with how we do carbon footprint calculations, it's pretty much straightforward. We have the bill of quantities that we extract from our 3D models. We multiply the quantities with the environmental data.

We call them EPD. EPD stands for Environmental Product Declarations. And when you multiply the values that are specified in these documents, yes, then you end up with the carbon footprint.

Now, going back a little bit to talk about the coherent project material that we also are facing in the Danish construction industry. What is something that we have to think about, especially in the early stages, is that our conceptual 3D models do not have the information embedded to accommodate this demand. So this is particularly when we talk about the bill of quantities.

So we need to be creative in terms of how we do this coherence for the project. To address this, we tend to use technologies such as Forma and combine them with straightforward and scalable methods to assess a building's anticipated climate impact, if it's the thing that we should do, and operation performance.

Additionally, these approaches, they should be considered with the building's adaptability throughout its lifetime and align with the requirements for future renovation and flexibility. Yeah, that leads to this slide. Jesper.

JESPER TRIER HENNINGSEN: Yeah. When Lars talks about the coherence in the project material, that comes from our national description of services for building and landscape, which is usually the foundation that we work under when we work on the building projects. We usually work under the requirements of the coherence between the specifications and quantity takeoff and the drawings and models in the projects. Cool.

And the usual way that we get this coherence in the project is to use classification codes on building parts. And they are a pervasive element throughout the project. Especially in regards to when we do sustainability and LCA calculations, it's very important to have the classification codes in the quantity takeoffs, and we can find that in the specifications and the models and the FM assets, as well.

LARS PETER LENNERT: So now let's talk a little bit about the tendering phase. In the last quarter of the previous year, we submitted our bid as one of three teams competing for this project. So in order to try to distinguish ourselves, we tried to demonstrate our capabilities, especially regarding the engineering part, but also our digital competencies. So we sought to offer something unique to the client.

And within these discussions that we had internally, the conversations turned quite quickly into the use of Forma, after I've kind of shown, OK, this is a path that we might also could be interested in. And also, given the extensive digitalization requirements in the tender material, we quickly figured out, OK, this is something that we needed to do.

So Forma became quickly part of our bid, something that we also describe in our documents. So after we submitted our bid, we engaged some dialogue, some discussions with the clients and their advisors. And what is maybe a little bit amazing in this phase was that we got the ability to show what Forma could do.

The project team and I were quite struck by the fascination and curiosity Forma generated, both internally, but also regarding the client itself. So we conducted rapid solar analysis and daylight simulations, which quickly shifted the dialogue towards potential design solutions. And this was done even though we, as a team, had not been selected yet.

Subsequently, the client, they completed their final evaluation to determine who of the three teams should win. And in late December, just before Christmas, we got the important message from the client that we have been awarded the project. And following, this year, we begin the work of addressing the project requirement with Forma playing a crucial role, especially in the really early stages of the project.

This is a picture that was part of our bid, and it illustrates the concept of-- we wanted to use the concept that we call conceptual mass modeling. The tender document-- our bid material was also supplemented with technical description of what Forma was, detailing its functionality and the benefits that it could give for our project.

Another picture also from our bid material showcasing daylight potential. We also showcased the sun and shadow conditions, before and after scenario. And yet another image-- this is showing the early-stage analysis that could be conducted in terms of potential area for solar panels in the roof. Also, wind conditions.

Now we are going to show a video. It's an attempt to recreate some of the processes that we went through with the client using Forma. And, remember, this session is not intended to be technical, but, however, we have chosen to include this brief video showcasing the simple use of Forma.

So creating a project in Forma is quite simple. Just click New Project. Give the project a name. And you can use the address. Here, I'm just typing in the Technical University of Denmark. It zooms into the area of interest.

I adjust my framework. And Forma then starts to collect data, where from can start to do the site design. You can order various data. I don't know if that cost in other countries, but in Denmark, we have OpenStreetMaps, which is free of use.

I add all of the things that I need to use, including terrain. And here you can see the roads and the terrain. Afterwards, I can add the generic buildings, existing buildings on the site. I do a little bit review about what I should do, what I should use.

And then I can start to model the place where the site should be located. After that, I can start to do the conceptual mass modeling. And there are some various parameters that you can tweak on.

So I expected the buildings should be approximately this size. And we can now start to do the analysis. I'm running the sun analysis and daylight potential. Also, the wind conditions-- that is shown here.

As I was showing this stuff to the client, the client, of course, said, OK. It possible to turn the building, like, 90 degrees? I said, yeah, why not? Then we did that on site. And then I thought, yeah, why not do the analysis also where I compare the building in horizontal and vertical? And you can see the analysis is quite fast.

So this is my, again, attempt to recreate some of the meetings with the client in the early stages. And I've shown that, for the client, what it can do, how we can play around with the color codes. It was a dialogue tool that we used to show, OK, how is it maybe best to replace the building?

And it's quite significant here that the building itself would have some sun hour problems if it was on the left side. And it's the same with daylight potential. So a little bit material from the actual project itself-- you see that the 3D conceptual mass modeling is not as detailed, but nevertheless, it was enough.

Here, I'm doing a daylight potential from a variant that we played with. The first variant is pretty close to the neighboring building. And you can see that it has some issues related to how much daylight will reach into the building.

This is for 12-meter distance from the neighboring building. And I can investigate, Why is it? and doing this shadow analysis. So quite quickly, we figured out, OK, what's the best distance that the building should have for neighboring buildings? But also the orientation, how high it should be, and so forth.

Variant X was the ended solution, which we will come back to later. You can do multiple comparisons, like we're showing, even also compare side by side, as shown here, but also compare something that might not be like, OK, microclimate versus wind conditions. Yeah.

Remember, our variant analysis-- this was the task given from the client. So in terms of executing this, Forma cannot, as of today, stand alone as a complete solution when it comes to conducting variant analysis. There's no doubt about that Forma can provide valuable insight to the design team. But when it comes to variant studies, the volume models must serve many other purposes.

The volume model needs to be approached differently. Instead of thinking about what can be modeled beyond the volume to gain insight, one should definitely think differently. Focus on how the model can leverage an inherent data that the model volume provides.

The following slides, we will talk through a few examples to illustrate this point. It's crucial to ensure that every variant that we worked on, solution is analyzed fairly without any variant being prematurely [? failed. ?] It's also really vital that the decline receive the proper guidance to make informed decisions. And we will show some examples on how subjective and objective solutions can be developed.

Let's dive in. OK, this slide is a presentation of-- it's a visualization of a timeline where you can see the meeting, the variants that we are going to analyze on. It was a really good visualization that demystified the process that we were going to do while we were analyzing these different variants.

Remember, the client requested a transparent strategy and action plan. Therefore, we decided to visualize the process from A to Z, focusing on workstreams we created with an emphasizing on sustainability, the disposition-- disposition is maybe also called the building layout. And, also, worked quite a lot about the structural principles.

And each team, they were tasked with different variants, all of which had to be treated equally. Even myself, I was kind of struggling with this, not having a favorite. But it's really important that we do the same type of analysis for each variant that we do.

And after doing all the analysis in that is quite done in week 22, we, of course, sit together, and we might find a hybrid solution that may be something that we found unique in variant 1 could be implemented in variant 3.

But the most important thing was that each of these variants, we needed to promote them to the client. And we thought about a mechanism or a way of doing benchmarking. The benchmarking, we will come into a little bit later.

JESPER TRIER HENNINGSEN: The three variants that we worked closely with the architects on are these three buildings that we came up with. The one on the left, called Layers, is the typical solution that we usually work on when we work with DTU, the Technical University of Denmark.

We have done quite a few buildings at the university, and most of them is built from this concept of having all the technical rooms, mechanical, in the basement and working in layers with laboratories and offices on different stories in the building.

Variant 2, called Blocks, we have a taken the basement away-- that can be a quite expensive construction-- and actually placed all the technical, mechanical stuff in one end of the building, having laboratories in one side of the building and offices in the other side, making it easier for the users to go between the different facilities in the building.

And variant 3 is called Core, which works a little bit with both. There's a part basement and part mechanical on the roof. But there's an atrium in the middle, which should be good for getting daylight into the building.

These are the three variants on the left. You can see the geometrical footprint of the building, which would, of course, be some of the variant studies that we did on daylight and sunlight and shadow, as Lars has mentioned earlier. And, again, we can see on the right side the differences between the three variants and how they should be constructed.

LARS PETER LENNERT: So all of these variants, they should be benchmarked somehow. So we quickly figured out, OK, if we should do that, a radar diagram or chart could be a possible solution. And this, we quickly found out, OK, it's a good idea.

So we tried to figure out, OK, which KPIs is it that the-- KPIs, in terms of Key Performance Indicators-- is it that we want to measure-- the things that we wanted to measure, some of them are subjective, meaning that I might have a meaning about it, it's my personal views, whereas many of the analysis that we also did was objective.

The objective data, in terms of putting this into a benchmark using this method, is quite easy, whereas the subjective can be somehow difficult. So, ultimately, this resulted in a score between 1 and 10, where 10 represented something really good, and 1 represented really poor. And these ratings should be done from the client, the client advisors, when we talk about some of the subjective values.

So at the end, when everything has been rated, it could look like this. This was the concept. So let's dive a little bit into the subjective data. It can be the architectural potential. Here is a variant one, the Layers.

You can see on the picture, on the footprint, that we decided to have this "wow effect" of the building and center it in the building. Some people can have an opinion on it and so forth. But, nevertheless, the architectural potential that we sought after is also kind of illustrated in the pictures that you can see.

Going to the next variant, 2, the Blocks, we change the "wow effect" room pretty close to the forecourt of the building down south and had some ideas of, OK, we will introduce some stairs that are turning around. It can have a "wow effect" for nearby passing pedestrians.

Yeah, these were some of the thoughts that we have regarding the architectural potential for this. And for the third variant, we called it Core, you can see there will be, in the center of the building, quite many staircases.

And we did some quick renderings to try to figure out, OK, this is something. Is it something that the client also can see themselves into? And, also, same as the variant 2, the "wow effect" of the building was placed down south, near the forecourt of the building.

I'm engineer, so I like these objective data. This was something that the Forma, of course, gave an indication about the daylight. But we needed to do a more detailed analysis. So these three variants that you can see, it's something that we have calculating using a program called ClimateStudio.

It supports their plugin, so fairly easy to import to this system. Anyways, I won't dive into the numbers because they are quite nerdy. But I could say that the sDA300/50%-- it's a method that says, OK, more than 300 lux is there for at least half of the daylight hours.

And the percents indicates how much of the floor that meets these requirements. And you can see in the block 2, the darker part in the middle is where the daylight doesn't come in. And it's the same in variant 3.

Continuing, some of the other objective data that we looked at was the ventilation. And you can see from variant 1, many of the ventilation aggregates, they should be placed on the basement, whereas in variant 2, the Blocks, they would be situated along the floors. So we would have a core in the building where all these aggregates was placed.

We can say, OK, many of the ventilation system, they supply clean rooms, also some standard laboratories where we didn't have to use HEPA filters. But now we start to go into really ventilation-heavy subjects. And I won't dive deeper into that, OK, this is the method that we used in order to quantify the objective data because this tells us-- this is maybe also a little bit subjective, but more objective data.

And, also, we did some sensibility analysis for the building envelope. This is done primarily for getting an idea for the energy consumptions. Again, it's a little bit nerdy slide. But what I can tell is that it's a method that we have developed ourself. It's a in-house-developed application.

It's used, especially in the early phases, where there are many design variables and considerable uncertainties. Traditionally, it's challenging for the engineers to assess the design performance under such uncertain and rapid-changing conditions.

We call this system for MIBS-- Multivariable and Interactive Building Simulations. It addresses the issue by providing timely decision support indicating favorable decisions for the design. And it can lead to improving building performance and reduce the workload in later stages.

So if we dive a little bit into the results, what we do here is we kind of do a solution space. The solution space shows an upper and lower limit and solution area. So if we put that in numbers, as I've done here on the slide, out of 15,000 simulations, 6,000 are shown in the plot, with approximately 40 solutions meeting the desired criteria.

So what can impact these analysis? Solar panels have a significant impact on how the energy consumption can vary. The cell value also has substantial influence, while the U values of the building envelope, it has less significance.

Anyways, all of the variants was-- this is quite engineering nerdy. And we did that, and you can see that everything was placed within the same assumptions of classing percentage. And from this, we cannot see, OK, which is favorable. Of course, the client-- we tend to tell the client, what is it that you are looking at?

Other stuff that we do was, OK, we looked quite deeply into the slabs as part of the climate impact analysis. This is a hollow-core slab. Next one is a CLT slab with steel connection. CLT stands for Cross-Laminated Timber.

And now we also had a third option with a CLT slab with concrete assembly. And when we do the CLT calculations, you can see that the orange one was favorable. But some of our engineers, they couldn't accept that the one in the middle was so high.

So they did an iteration more, where they recalculated the steel connections, and we optimized the steel profiles. And we could actually get the carbon footprint for the uses of this way of constructing a slab quite significantly lowered.

What we also did was, based on the deck type investigations, we also examined column configuration options, leveraging on our experience with typical dimensions and spacing between the columns. We could say that, the greater the distance between the columns, the more crucial it is to choose a deck type that is stiff and rigid and has the necessary load-bearing capacity, of course.

All of the investigators shared the common feature of having steel connection at both top and bottom. And these were the results that we came up with. The configuration with 400 times 400 millimeters, where the distance is 6.4 times 6.4, was preferable solution.

This is, again, quantifying stuff that we could implement on the projects. This is the stuff that you can do at the really early stages of a project.

Another thing that we did as part of the climate impact analysis was the facade, the building envelope. We did quite many variants, as you can see. I won't dive deep into what they consist of, but, again, it's a guesstimation, we could say, but based on assumptions, of course.

So 5.5 meters times 12.8 meters-- we could have a fairly good idea of how these different building envelopes would perform in terms of carbon footprint. Variant 5 and 8 are significantly distinguishing themselves. And these were, of course, the variants that we suggested towards the client.

So all in all, when we have done the LCA analysis, all of them with a uniform building envelope with 30% glazing in all calculations, we ended up with these numbers. Of course, there's some uncertainty in all calculations. But at the given time and the given detailing-- here, I'm referring to the lack of 3D model-- this was the analysis that we could do.

And going back to our benchmark, these are the results that we represented to the client. All the results and analysis were made accessible through an online platform. So how this was created was that, OK, the client entered this platform and interacted with all of our analysis, of course, with description of what they are looking at.

So in terms of subjective values, the client could rate each configuration from 1 to 10. And we gathered all this information in our system. And then they could see how it performed as soon as they started rating the different KPIs.

Of course, there was restriction on who could do the evaluation given, of course, the roles and education of the client and their advisors. For example, an architect was expected to assess aspects regarding the MEP systems, vice versa.

So all of these variants was-- again, we ended up with a final report to the clients. And we then talked with the Architectural Council of DTU, which then gave us a go for the project. So the final decision was something a little bit hybrid, you could say, from all three variants.

You can see that we have at least some basement near the forecourt. The "wow effect" was also near the forecourt. But the Architectural Council, they wanted us to switch between where the offices should be placed and where the laboratories should be placed. That, we did.

And we also kept, as part of the "wow effect" created the study environment in the middle of the building. So all the technical installations were placed on the roof.

And these are some of the first renderings that we are currently working on. We expect it to look something like that. And it's a typical DTU building, one could say, OK, we have key several learnings within the variant analysis. Each variant analysis helps us to identify the most effective design solution by comparing multiple options before we finalized it.

And regarding risk mitigation, assessing various configuration early did some mitigate risk associated with the design changes later in the project. And in terms of the interdisciplinary coordination that we did, it highlights the importance of coordinating across many disciplines to ensure that each aspect of the design is considered and integrated effectively.

And in terms of cost and performance trade-off, early analysis allowed us for better understanding of the trade-off between cost, performance, sustainability and led to a more informed decision in the short period that we had. The lessons are crucial for optimizing buildings, designs and improving project outcomes.

So this was about all the variant analysis that we did. Of course, prior to do all this, we had an implementation process. And Jesper will guide you through this process.

JESPER TRIER HENNINGSEN: Yeah, implementation of new technology in Artelia Denmark-- when it's not a corporate platform that we're rolling out, we are firm believers of "just in time" training. And since this was-- Forma was a part of a specific project, this is also the concept that we did with Autodesk on Forma.

We held a one-day Autodesk-led Forma workshop. We invited different participants in the company. First of all, of course, we invited the users who we expected to be working on this DTU project as the number-one participants.

Then we also invited future-- people who would work on Forma in the future projects. And then we invited project managers and others to inspire them to select Forma as a platform in the future to work on projects where we could use the strengths of Forma.

The workshop was designed to have just a introduction to Forma by an Autodesk employee, which took a couple of hours just to go through the different aspects and functionalities of Forma. Then Lars had put together an exercise, which was done in small groups, with no other introduction to Forma than what the Autodesk employee had given them.

And, afterwards, in the afternoon, the different groups presented what results they had gotten from the exercise. And it was amazing to see how far these different groups actually got from just an introduction and did the different analysis and stuff in Forma. So I'm quite sure we're going to use Forma on future projects, as well. So can you do a small recap, Lars?

LARS PETER LENNERT: Yeah, we can do a small recap. So, first of all, I would say that Forma is here to stay. But as of today, Forma's capabilities in terms of variant analysis may be lacking a little bit. So maybe some of the stuff that we have shown here could be, in future, integrated because you really don't need a 3D model to do some of the analysis that we have done.

But, still, Forma played a crucial role in the early stage because it helped us quite a lot defining how close we should be for the neighboring buildings. Also, because the client had such high sustainability demands, we could see, OK, they are also focusing a lot about biodiversity. Microclimate analysis could say something also about the biodiversity.

In all these stuff that it can do, it played a crucial role. So I expect Forma to be a bigger and bigger part of our design culture, I would say.

Yes. And then regarding the implementation process, yes, this is something that we know gives the best value for us as a company, that we do these hands-on. I'm just looking forward to the future. It's a bright future. Yeah. Anything you could add, Jesper?

JESPER TRIER HENNINGSEN: No. Just as you say, it's here to stay. And it's going to be exciting to see what the roadmap is for Forma for the future.

LARS PETER LENNERT: Definitely. So we have used all the time. And we would say thank you for listening to our session.

JESPER TRIER HENNINGSEN: Thank you for watching.

LARS PETER LENNERT: Thank you. Bye-bye.

JESPER TRIER HENNINGSEN: Bye