HKU students win the champion in CIC BIM Competition 2019
BusIMan, a team of students from the University of Hong Kong (HKU) won the champion at the inaugural CIC BIM Competition 2019 held earlier by the Construction Industry Council (CIC). They will join the CIC Innovation Expo in the coming December to promote the adoption of BIM and other innovative construction technology.
BusIMan comprises students from the Faculty of Architecture and Faculty of Engineering. They are Karson YAM (Team Leader) (Real Estate and Construction), Owen MIU (Architecture), Edward Li (Urban Planning and Design), Jacky LEE (Civil Engineering) and Kenny SIU (Civil Engineering). The team demonstrated interdisciplinary collaboration and coordination with the adoption of BIM technologies.
CIC BIM Competition aims to promote BIM technology to tertiary students and practitioners in Hong Kong through a collaborative and competitive learning approach, and provides an excellent platform to reveal the potential of the new generation.
The theme this year was “BIM for design collaboration”. Participants were required to prepare a design for redeveloping a campus into a “Digital Design & Construction Centre”. The HKU team demonstrated in their innovative design interdisciplinary collaboration and coordination with the adoption of BIM technology.
BIM, Building Information Modelling, is an innovative technology that facilitates the digitalisation of the traditional construction industry. It helps to generate 3D digital representation of building data to facilitate the collaboration between architects, engineers, surveyors and other construction professionals.
Since 2018, the HKSAR Government has mandated the use of BIM for government projects with project estimates more than HK$30 million. At the same time, the Financial Secretary has set up an HK$1 billion CITF (Construction Innovation and Technology Fund) to support the development of BIM and innovative construction technology.
Professor Wilson Lu, of the Department of Real Estate and Construction and Associate Dean (Research) of the Faculty of Architecture, HKU, believes that BIM can further digitalise the construction industry with the integration of Big Data and VR technology.
“BIM acts as a common platform to bridge the communication between different construction professionals which saves a lot of time and effort. BIM also enables cross-territory collaboration by synchronising the building data with real-time information,“ said Professor Lu.
Ms. Ada Fung Yin-suen, Chairperson of the Construction Industry Council Committee (CIC) on Building Information Modelling (BIM) and an architect by profession, said: “The council organises the CIC BIM Competition for the first time, aiming to reinforce our new generation’s understanding towards BIM by providing comprehensive trainings for tertiary students. Participants who received trainings handed in quality works, not only did they fully utilise BIM technologies but showcase creative and unique designs. I eagerly look forward to our participants pushing the industry’s innovative frontier forward when they join the future workforce.”
“This competition is a rewarding learning opportunity to simulate the BIM project in the real life,” said Karson Yam, team leader of the winning team.
The winning team was invited by Construction Industry Council to participate in the IBEW2019 (International Built Environment Week) international conference in Singapore during September.