Sweco's Use of Autodesk and Esri Tech to Streamline Workflows in Architecture

ADAM SJODIN: So today I'm here to talk about Sweco's use of Autodesk and Esri tech that we use to streamline our workflows in architecture. I'll start with presenting myself.

My name is Adam Sjodin. I'm an urban planner, digital strategist at Sweco at our architecture division. I work as an urban planner in all kinds of projects, from early stages urban planning, property development, to master planning and regional planning. I work in Sweden, but I have worked historically a lot abroad as well, mainly in China, large urban development projects.

And I also have a role here at Sweco as digital strategist. So I'm responsible for our digital strategies, especially for our Urban Planning Department, make sure we have the best technology available, we have good efficient processes that support our employees and our projects.

And a little short about Sweco. We're an ASE firm. We're number one in the Nordics and in Europe. Like the biggest. We're about 17,500 architects and engineers. We have more than 100 offices all around the world. And we do over 50,000 projects a year in 70 different countries.

And we have quite a big Architecture Division as well, which is actually kind of the foundation of the company, that was founded in 1958 by Gunnar Nordstrom with a vision to bring architects and engineers together.

So our Architecture Division, I think we're the fourth largest global architecture practice. We have over 1,400 architects, mostly in the Nordics, but also in Germany, Poland, and Belgium. So I'm here today to talk about, how do you go from a place to a project? How do you go from an idea of a project to something that's ready to be realized?

So we're talking about the very early stages of the architecture process. We're talking about finding, analyzing, and developing a site. So finding a site, analyzing it, and coming up with an idea and the proposal for the site.

And traditionally, this can be quite an analog process, and sometimes a bit ad hoc. And it's usually done by very senior developers and architects. So just to zoom out a bit and look at this process, so this is a slide from Autodesk and Esri that lays out the whole architecture process.

From the planning stages with master planning, regulatory, and permitting, to the design where we have project planning and design, going into the build phase, commissioning handoff, and the operation phase with asset management and monitoring and enforcement.

So what we're going to talk about today is the early stages of that where planning and design meet. And just for some context, why we've focused on that at Sweco is-- one thing is that it's a really big focus in Sweden where we have a big focus from the government, actually, to digitize this whole process to find an unbroken flow of information between all the different stages in this process.

And some governmental agencies have actually done some calculations on this, which are these red numbers you see in the circles here that we're actually able to save up to 500 million Swedish kronas a year, which is about $50 million or euros a year in the kind of planning phases, and that goes up to about 3 billion or $300 million in the design phases.

And the big numbers come in the building phase where we have up to 40 billion. And up to 40 billion, that's quite a big savings, which is about $4 billion US dollars. But as you can see, there's kind of an exponential growth as you come further along in the process.

So to be able to save those 40 billion, it means that you need to have your data together from the early stages to be able to reap the benefits in the later stages.

So like I said, our focus today is in this borderland between planning and design. So what we do in these processes is we gather data, we identify sites, and we analyze the site. We come up with ideas for what to do with that site. We start doing some sketching, modeling. And then finally we're ready to start up our project.

So what are some challenges in these really early stages of architecture? One big challenge here is that it's very high risk since these projects might not be realized. Everything here is speculation. There's usually also a lack of data, or at least it's usually difficult to obtain good data.

Since here, we often work with private developers, so the municipalities might not be involved yet. So we don't always have access to their data. Although this is something that's getting a lot better year after year after a lot of municipalities and governmental agencies are opening up their data, making their data available as open data.

But since we have point 1 and 2, this leads to that we need very experienced people to do this that has lots of experience and knowledge doing these types of projects

Before. And another challenge is that we looked at before that we're in this borderland between different technologies with GIS and BIM, which traditionally haven't really spoken to each other that well, but that is also something that's getting a lot better.

So what do you do, then, in these kind of early stages, this traditional process? So the first step where you gather data, yeah, that's about gathering all the data you need to be able to make good, informed decisions and design and finding a suitable site.

It can be gathering strategic plans from municipalities or governmental agencies or regions. It's about finding out the limitations. For example, limitations due to cultural heritage, archaeological findings, nature concerns, any of these kinds of limitations where you might not be able to build or have difficulty building or realizing a project.

We need to have data on infrastructure. So power lines and stormwater infrastructure, district heating and cooling pipes, all those kinds of data. We need information about the transportation system. Where are the road? What kinds of roads are they? How is the public transport system built up? Do we have subway stations, bus stops, bus routes?

And a lot of municipalities and regions and governmental agencies in Sweden do large-scale analysis and simulations for larger areas. For example, for stormwater or noise pollution. So all those kinds of analysis and simulations to gather in as well in these stages.

So the traditional way to then start finding and identifying sites for this, I would say a lot is done by Google Maps, people sitting looking at Google Maps or driving around in their car looking for a site. Going to municipal or governmental websites where they usually have these interactive maps maybe where you can turn on and off different layers, but it's usually quite scattered. You have to be on 10 different sites at once.

You might have your own databases with information. And you also have your own experience. Then when you have found some interesting sites, you take it one step further and start generating ideas and sketches for that site. Traditionally a lot done by hand sketching. SketchUp, very well-used in these cases.

In some cases, we go into a bit more advanced software like Rhino or something, but usually the people who work with this and have these kinds of experiences are maybe not the people who are technically capable of handling advanced software like Rhino or something.

Or maybe you just use AutoCAD to get some basic information, get some scales. And then when you're ready for a project, that's when the more traditional BIM process starts.

So at Sweco, we've developed a process that we call DigiMAP. That's our take on this. How can we stay true to the traditional process but add new tools and technologies to help it make it more efficient? So-- and MAP there, it stands for Methodology, Analysis, and Process.

So we want to kind of take a holistic approach to digitalization. It's not just one tool, it's like a way of thinking and a way of combining technology and processes and experienced people.

So our way of looking at this in the early stages where we gather data. And we work in ArcGIS Pro. It's a GIS tool that Esri provides. There, we gather lots of data from different municipalities and governmental agencies in Sweden.

For example, Statistics Sweden, Statistics [? Central ?] [? Bureau, ?] which is the governmental statistical agency which has lots of different statistics about where people live, what people live where, how people move around.

We also have lots of data from Swedish Mapping and Cadastral Land Registration Authority, which is called [INAUDIBLE]. So there, we get lots of our base data, building footprints, classic map data, I would say.

We have a lot of data from county administrative boards, the Transport Administration, and all sorts of different agencies there. And we link that data into our big GIS model. So where everything is collected in one model instead of being spread out over a bunch of different websites or a bunch of different tools. We get everything in the same tool.

And that model is customized for each client's needs. Which city are we working in? Which part of the city? What are their ideal projects? What kind of projects are we looking for? Then we kind of customize the model depending on what we're looking at.

So the next stage is we have a workshop together with our clients where we use this ArcGIS Pro model as the tool during that workshop. We want to have that workshop because our clients, they have a lot of valuable information. They have a history. They know where have they done projects before, what sites have they already maybe looked at. They have lots of local knowledge usually.

So we think it's really important that we see them, we do this together with our clients, but we don't sit alone at our office and then just send them some proposal later. We want to do this together with them. And to this workshop, we also bring experienced architects and project developers from our own resources.

And during this workshop, which can be quite short, usually around two hours or something, we sit together and with this interactive map that we built up, then, in ArcGIS Pro, we go through a part of a city to find interesting sites and make small notes.

So we store all these interesting sites in an ArcGIS Pro database where we can continuously add on comments and input from the clients or from different experts that we have. So after this workshop, we usually have quite a big list of potential sites.

So then after this workshop, we go back and forth a bit with our client to find, OK, which sites are the most interesting ones? And those we can take a bit step further. Stop thinking of ideas, start sketching.

Here's where we use the Spacemaker tool, which has been a huge time-saver for us in these early stages, since here, you want to be able to quickly start drawing, not spend a lot of time on creating a base model, especially when you don't have that much data, can be quite difficult to set up this kind of base model to start sketching.

And with Spacemaker, we get all of that out of the box. We choose a site. We get a 3D base model kind of automatically from the program. And it's very quickly to-- very quick to just start testing and trying ideas, analyzing them on the fly.

So here, we generate lots of different alternatives. The alternatives we like the most, it's super easy for us to bring them back, then, into our ArcGIS Pro model where we have the whole city as a context. So we can see how these proposals affect maybe the skyline or something of a city or whatever it can be.

We're seen in space making maybe you work with a bit limited area around the site you're actually interested in. When we have that ArcGIS model, we have the whole city to continuously validate and analyze our proposal.

So then when we've gone a bit further, we have a kind of a final scenario or proposal in Spacemaker, we can then just import that into Revit. That's done with just a plugin, which is super easy.

Here, we also save a lot of time because setting up these kinds of models with topography and everything is usually quite time-consuming in Revit depending on the data you get. So here, it's super nice that we get that as well right out of the box.

And here, we can start adding a bit more design, a bit more detailing to the Spacemaker proposal, which is a bit more traditional white box model, not that high resolution. But then we can start to detail it in Revit.

And then we can continuously bring that back into Spacemaker to do analysis-- solar analysis or wind analysis or whatever it is we want to test, we can continuously bring it back. And also bring it back into ArcGIS Pro again to look at it at the citywide context.

Here, we can also bring it into our own tool we call [INAUDIBLE] C3, which is a carbon cost analysis tool, which actually, two of my colleagues are presenting at AU this year. So if you're interested in that, you can check out Class BLD501969 where my colleagues Colin and Matthias will talk about the C3 tool and where we can do carbon cost calculation in these really early stages in Revit or based on Revit models.

So if we zoom out and look at the whole workflow here, we see that we go from ArcGIS Pro into Spacemaker into Revit. So traditionally we've used a lot more tools for these different stages, but now we look at this as a linear process.

But people who work in these kind of processes know that they're anything but linear. And that's why we have these arrows underneath that we often have to go a lot of back and forth, and you take two steps forward two steps backwards in these processes.

And then if you have a lot of different tools and a lot of different software involved, it can be quite complex when you want to start move to move back and forth in this process. That's why we wanted to streamline the process.

We, of course, use other tools when we need to, but we have a base process that we're comfortable with and that we know works, and we have of good workflows to bring the different data back and forwards.

Going a bit more into the technical workflows of these different stages. So for example here, in the beginning when we're in ArcGIS Pro, we get a lot of the data-- streaming data as VMF streams or VFS streams that we get from municipalities or governmental agencies or whatever.

A lot of municipalities in Sweden actually use Esri software as well. So then we can connect straight to their ArcGIS servers, which is really nice. It saves a lot of time.

But then we can also get local data that you have to download from different websites or we get from clients or we've gathered up ourselves under other projects or other surveys that we've done as shapefiles or DWGs or whatever kind of local files. But it's GIS, we can even use PDFs or JPEGs of maps and just get them into the program.

But then we also have the BIM360 Connector, which is quite nice that we can straight into BIM360 and Construction Cloud straight from ArcGIS Pro. So we can get our BIM models and our CAD files straight from our Autodesk Cloud.

So you see an example of a map here where we have different layers of this background information layered about oaks and subway stations.

But I can show you a bit of an interactive version of this map. So this is the map that we create here. We have lots of different-- here, for example, we're looking at soil types, which is a streaming data set that we get as a VMS.

You can see what kind of soils do we have. And this is a layer that I think is really good. It's ground moisture index. It takes into consideration things like soil type, groundwater level, slopes. And it gives you an indication of where you might have difficulties handling stormwater.

And this is also quite a large data set all over Sweden. And that's been really useful because stormwater is something that's becoming a bigger and bigger issue in our projects.

For example here, we're looking at the regional scale. So this is the regional development plan for Stockholm. So here, you can like on a macro level see which areas are set to be developed or new connections that are set to be made.

Or if we go a bit more zoomed in, we can have things that-- for example, like sociotopes, which are like biotopes, but instead of for ecological life, it's for social values and social life, which is really good to have that. It gives a good idea for our property development.

Or here, for example, we have a noise analysis simulation done for all of Stockholm. So we can see where we might run into difficulties regarding noise pollution. But we also have transport networks. So for example here, this is the entire public transport network for Stockholm. All the bus lines, all the subway station and tramlines, commuter rail.

And here, we can do analysis as well. So we can put like buffers on the subway station. So how far is 500 meters around every subway station? Which is really good to have when you're trying to find attractive residential areas or commercial for that part.

But what's good is that you don't even-- you don't have to limit yourself to existing information. For example, this blue line is a proposed tramway that's supposed to be built later. So we can actually have both existing data and planned infrastructure, for example, which is really good when you are in these kinds of processes, because from idea to there actually might be a project, that might be 10 years in Stockholm.

So, then when we go back into Spacemaker, here, what's good is, like I said, we automatically get our base data from [INAUDIBLE], the Swedish Mapping and Cadastral Land Registration Authority. So like I said earlier, this saves us a lot of time to not having to set up these kinds of models in the early stages.

And if we have more accurate data or more up-to-date data ourselves, we can just import that from our base ArcGIS Pro model as shapefiles or as OBJs. So it's really good, for example, if we have more finely-detailed buildings that we modeled ourselves for an area or something, it's super easy for us to get back into Spacemaker from our ArcGIS Pro model.

And then when we're in Spacemaker, we start designing, testing different design options, testing different alternatives, and using the fantastic analysis functions that are built in into the Spacemaker so we can super quickly analyze sunlight, daylight, we can have noise analysis, wind analysis, or even solar potential on the roofs, for example, for a project.

Then when we get happy with our designs, when we bring them back then into ArcGIS Pro, we export them as IFCs so we actually get some information with them as well, not just the empty blocks, but we actually have some information coming back into ArcGIS into our big model. And then like I said, our final proposal is exported into Revit by a plugin.

And so when we're in this stage, we can-- really powerful to be able to see our 3D models in the city context with our analysis. For example here, we have a drive time analysis from Stockholm Central Station. So how far do you get-- five, 10, 15 minutes from the station.

So to be able to have our 3D models and our 3D context created in Spacemaker in this city environment, an overlay, this city-scale analysis is really powerful here, that we have a workflow that this doesn't require lots of exporting and importing. It's like one button, get it up as an IFC-- IOCM, open it in ArcGIS.

So for example, here, we're zooming in now on a Spacemaker project that's imported into this city scale model so we can see, how does it look on the larger scale? We have all the information. What is apartment? What is [? course? ?] If we would have other functions that [INAUDIBLE], we would get that information as well.

So then when we go to our next step, we have imported our Spacemaker model into Revit with the plugin, another stage that saves even more time, because setting up the base modeling in Revit can be quite time-consuming, especially with the topography.

And we don't have to spend that much time modeling the big surroundings of an area. We can focus on the closest buildings, because if we want to look at it that the larger context, we do that in GIS. And here, we have the connector from ArcGIS Pro into BIM360. So here, we can actually live connect the BIM model straight into ArcGIS model.

And here, like I talked about earlier, we were able to import the model also into our Carbon Cost Calculation tool, C3, and just to have a quick look on how this can look when we get our BIM models into our context scene, where we have the base models here.

We have a building that's a bit more refined, and that's done in Revit as well. And then as the project goes along, we can get our-- actually our full project BIM model into this collaborative ArcGIS Pro model. And when we get further, we can even use the GeoBIM where we can actually link these different models.

So we can link the actual BIM360 model straight into a WebGIS model so they live side-by-side. So that's like moving from very early stages of an idea of a project into a full project in BIM, a fully realized project, and we've only used like three softwares to make it easier and not having to spend too much time importing, exporting to all different kinds of formats. And so that's, we think, quite a powerful thing.

So some conclusions for this. It's the most powerful, I think, in these early stages, is that we're able to go from days of work to actually hours, which is really valuable in these early stages. As we said, everything here is more or less done on speculation by our client.

But shorting this time also, it's not only about shorting the time of the projects, it's very much like allowing us to focus on architecture instead of spending too much time on gathering data, building base models, exporting to run analysis in-- talking to special engineers for noise analysis or something in these early stages.

It allows us to really focus on architecture. And it has even allowed us to start moving into a fixed price model for these kinds of early stage projects, which we weren't really comfortable doing before since the processes I mentioned could be quite ad hoc and it could be quite difficult to find data.

But now that we've started building up these models and these workflows, we're much more comfortable and we're allowed to go into new business models with this.

So again, huge time savings across the board for us, which allows us to focus on architecture, which is what we want to do in our projects. And it even allows us to change our business models, which has been a really interesting and really fun journey.

Yeah, so that was my talk on our workflows in architecture using Esri and Autodesk products. I hope you liked it. Yeah. Thank you.