by Tracy Ostroff

Reason has it that an academic building housing the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems, and the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy with some of the best and brightest students, researchers, and instructors in America should be a “smart” building. And the Ray and Maria Stata Center for Computer, Information, and Intelligence Sciences definitely fits the bill.

As might be expected, MIT shows no timidity about implementing state-of-the-art technology in their buildings. The Stata Center, by Gehry Architects with associate architect Cannon Design, embodies the forward-thinking approach that school President Charles M. Vest and school officials are following in the $1 billion campus makeover. The exterior of Gehry’s 720,000-square-foot building features 12,800 brushed and polished steel panels, a million bricks, painted aluminum, and 70,896 square feet of glass. The $30 million building, located on a 2.8-acre site in Cambridge, is named for MIT alumnus Ray Stata, the cofounder of Analogue Devices, and his wife Maria. It intends, like the rest of the new campus plan, to create a more coherent sense of campus community and its neighborhood.

3D modeling and collaboration
“Computers and ways of thinking and crumpled paper and ideas slowly became a design,” Vest said at a press conference marking the building’s official opening in May. At the same event, Cambridge Mayor Michael Sullivan remarked, “The angles and curves of this building represent our ability to solve problems.”

These distinct angles and curves—steel, glass, brick, and aluminum—are possible in part by CATIA, the highly specialized computer technology the architects used in the design of the building. “CATIA is software we’ve been using for about 15 years now. It was originally an aerospace software and then became useful for aerospace/automotive design,” explains Jim Glymph, chief executive officer, Gehry Technologies.

Gehry Partners started on Stata at an advanced stage of Version 4 of CATIA, which they had adapted for use in their office, Glymph says. They trained their contractors on the software and installed CATIA stations on site. “All of this was 3D-data exchange between the architect and engineers and the contractors fabricating the steel and exterior metal wall system components of the building,” he explains.

The program allowed digital layout of the concrete work and other project elements. Construction administration staff from Cannon Associates, Gehry’s local partner, spent nearly 18 months in Gehry’s Los Angeles office learning the system and working on the construction documents before moving to the Cambridge site.

“They did a lot of layout from the computer model and they used it for visualization, so the trades could come into the trailer and see what they were going to build,” Glymph further explains. “They began using CATIA Version 5 toward the end of the project, which has knowledge-ware capabilities.”

From design through details
Glymph notes how the Stada contractors collaborated with the architects, citing as a good example the work on the exterior metal-panel cladding systems. The panels were all CAD/CAM fabricated, using CATIA for 3D modeling and to automate the detailing functions. “The engineering group worked in close collaboration with our office, where we used all the data in 3D during the development of the wall system,” he says. “Simultaneously, the steel structure was being developed in 3D by the steel detailer. We established an interface between the two systems so all the tolerances could be worked out in the 3D computer model.”

In turn, the fabricator used those data to drive CAD/CAM fabrication machines that cut components to shape and length. “They would go into production with this sort of ‘kit of parts’ that they put together at the end of the individual panel,” Glymph says. “These were then shipped to Cambridge, where the contractor either placed indents—using lasers from the same computer model—or built the steel structure and verified its position using lasers from the same computer model. That means that the panels, when they arrived, would be attached to those embedded elements and assembled into the shapes you see on the building.”

The whole process is in digital 3D, from Gehry’s design to field direction. It’s true, Glymph says, that “there was a lot of paper, because the paper world is still there, but there was a direct transfer to digital information among those parties.”

The technology is spreading
Glymph says that there are a number of contractors in North America, and more in Europe, who have worked on Gehry projects or have worked with other people doing other high-end 3D modeling. “We will introduce people to the technology who don’t have it or who have other technology,” he says. “They need to decide whether they need it to be competitive.”

The technology, like the MIT campus, is evolving. “At Stata, what we have is reporting functions where we can either report coordinates for geometry for placement, assembly, or fabrication, or we could report quantities—pieces and parts, quantities and volumes—to use as a verification for bidding or, in some cases, to negotiate a price. Those reporting functions would report out to other spreadsheets and provide data,” Glymph notes. The newest technology, he says, is an Internet browser viewer that allows the user to look at the data and a 3D visualization at any time.

Future success
Glymph asserts that the MIT project was a good example of a lot of “human things that happened—excellent teamwork, an owner who wanted it to be a team project and a good contractor, good architect, and good engineering team.” The group, he says, saw the technology’s advantages and potential for the industry. “I think a lot of people are believers. But it’s going to take time.”

“We are currently working with Dassault Systèmes to take our experience and their software and combine it into a version for architects, engineers, and contractors. The next generation of projects, with full parametric modeling, will be intelligent models,” Glymph concludes. “We’ll have something available for the end of the year that will include the knowledge-ware. We will be launching it on a number of pilot projects, on both Gehry and other architects’ projects, and we’ll see where it goes from here.”

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