Planning public buildings with a BIM software: The Daegu Gosan library

What are the real advantages in planning public buildings with a BIM software? Let’s discover some of them with the Daegu Gosan library planning

The opportunity of modelling a collective building allows us to make the most of the tools which we are using for the planning. Below the BIM architectural design case in details.

The project we have worked on features a library to be modelled in Daegu in South Korea and planned by Martin Fenlon Architecture studio. The project took part to the international planning contest in 2012.

Daegu-Gosan public library- the project

The project has a double purpose, a cultural one as it involves a place intended for studying and reading and a social one, acting as a meeting point for the community. The structure is delimited by a park on the north side and carriageable roads on the other three sides.

The park in the direction of the library is a public space made for pleasant walks and recreational spaces.

The building appears with an external terrace delimited by two partly sloping overhead slabs leading from the ground floor to the upper floors and surrounding the building. The terrace turns out as an extension of the external public walk that brings to the upper floors of the library directly from the park through a tree-lined promenade.

: Ground Floor

: First Floor

: Second Floor

: Third Floor

In addition, the building is extended on four levels disposed around a central full-height entrance hall and connected through stairs surrounding this wide space with a spiral shape. The entrance hall grants, through a wide staircase to the upper floor, the access to the offices disposed for books borrowings, studying rooms and a conference room.

The coverage results made of several differently pitched layers. The glass windows placed on this coverage is endowed with metallic bars working as a support and sun protection.

On the first and second floor we find wide spaces on which book shelves and reading and informatic stations are located.
The main reading room is exactly located on the second floor and it is made of a double-height space connected to the public terrace at the end of the external walk.

The external facade is instead made of orange weathering steel panels, reminding of the typical colours of the ancient Korean temples.

The overahead superior slab of the external terrace is made of weathering steel on the top part and of aluminium on the bottom part, with the purpose of reflecting the city view.

The material contrast which makes the building geometry standing out recalls the typical features of the Korean architecture.

: Section A-A

: Section B-B

Modelling the Daegu-Gosan public library with a BIM software

Having set the drawing plans with an image format we can import them in the architectural planning BIM software Edificius. Let’s scale the drawing plans according to a reference measure, thus having a referral for the drawing itself.

Let’s proceed with tracing some vertical and horizontal casings, some beams, pillars, stairs and some parapets. We can use the automatic generating function for inserting the pillars, consequently drawing them with a simple click after setting up the magnet grid on their location.

Due to the peculiar shape of its structure, the 3D magnet grids creation results useful to get specific 3D snap aids, and hence being used in both modelling the stairs parapets and tracing the metallic profile of the glass windows.

Let’s move on inserting the articulated building coating, which is made of several differently sloping layers, with the special roof editor. Let’s set the proper pitch to the individual roof slops over three points in plan view and then in the same way let's set it altimetrically in the 3D.

The automatic adapting function of the envelopes in the intrados of the roof slops results particularly useful.
Once defined the model from the architectural point of view, we can proceed with the planning of the lights.

As a final step we complete the project assigning materials in high definition and inserting furniture pieces listed in the BIM catalogue to make the project richer in details.