Zayed National Museum

The Zayed National Museum is an iconic project to celebrate Sheikh Zayed’s legacy as the founding president of the UAE.

We were awarded the MEP services for the museum following the initial contractor’s abrupt removal from the project. To enable a fast and cost-effective construction process, our goal was to utilize BIM for the project’s MEP services, including as-built engineering works and all outstanding future deliverables. However, with the project stalled and no handover from the previous contractor, we had to overcome a number of challenges to move the project forward.

First, we had to rectify the lack of existing BIM records. Re-doing the whole BIM strategy, however, would have caused further significant delays to the project timeline. The client was planning on mobilizing a large, on-site team for this, but we didn’t believe this would be in their best interest and instead, proposed a blended, two phase solution to help the contractor move forward with construction.

The Saadiyat Island Cultural District centerpiece to showcase the Emirate’s history, culture and social and economic transformation

First, we would create an immediate stopgap solution, before working on a more comprehensive solution to meet all project standards at a later stage.

For the immediate solution, we splintered all 12 sub disciplines into different worksets within the same BIM
model, using NavisWorks to allow the contractor to select and isolate particular services for review. This allowed the contractor to meet the client’s construction timeline and budget, and with construction making progress, we are now working to unify all project standards within the BIM model.

Solutions

Fast Approvals

To streamline approvals and maintain project momentum, we used BIM360 to create submission workflows with consistent hierarchies, allowing the contractor, engineers, and client to review deliverables at speed and scale.

Technical Excellence

To model the as-built areas of the project, we incorporated the contractor’s manual site survey and the client’s as-built data in our BIM model to show where all the existing services are in the site, including their dimensions and level of completion.

We then used a phasing methodology, which allows us to isolate the existing MEP work within the model, assisting with clash detection and BOQ creation for all project stakeholders.

Onsite — offsite collaboration

Our blended resourcing model allowed us to complete the high number of deliverables in a short time scale. On-site, we deployed five Senior Engineers, one BIM manager, and one Quality Controller, who were supported by 37 offsite BIM Engineers and Modelers. Through close collaboration with the Technical Leads from each of the project’s services, we were able to save the client time and money, while solving a major construction headache.