BIMcollab Twin | From Rotring via floppy to the cloud

Sometimes there are moments when you do something you have done or experienced before. That flashback brings the past back to the present. At the beginning of this year I had such a moment in Helmond when I visited the Oranjekade project of our customer BanBouw. For a moment I was 25 years back in time.

In the coming years, BanBouw will be building a large housing project with 269 homes in 15 residential blocks on the site of the former Dutch retail chain Edah in Helmond. I was given a tour of the construction site of the ‘Oranjekade’ project where the work is in full swing. Then I was thrown back in time and realized that innovation in construction has made great strides.

Rotring pens

The moment we wanted to enter the ‘construction office’ of BanBouw, there was the moment of the flashback. I had been here before. I had already seen the inside of this office 25 years ago. At that time, it was still the headquarters of the Edah. That first time I had picked up handmade, extremely detailed overview drawings of a renovation. Those drawings were still made with the well-known red Rotring pens.

Floppy disks with AutoCAD

The second time I entered this office was 10 years later and Edah had just been acquired by Konmar. There were plans to convert former Edah branches into Konmar branches. And again I had to pick up drawings. But that time I came out with floppy disks and printouts of AutoCAD drawings.

BIM model in the cloud

And last month I had to be there again. I walked back into this building that has since been converted from a logistics food center into a construction office. Edah and Konmar no longer exist and the distribution halls have disappeared. It is now a complete construction site and that is how I realized that in 2022 state-of-the-art 3D BIM models are being used. The construction process is fully automated.

I am proud to say that BIMcollab Twin plays a role in this in the digital real estate file. Our platform unlocks all data for the construction process in the cloud. The great thing is that Architecten|en|en & Christoph Kohl Architekten have taken history into account as designers of the Oranjekade. This is how past and present come together. It is great to see what innovation brings us as a sector. From a Rotring pen to AutoCAD to a 3D BIM model. Wondering when I get to experience my next flashback…