Established by CITIC Architectural Design and Research Institute Co., Ltd. (formerly known as Wuhan Architectural Design Institute, hereinafter referred to as “CITIC Design”), the Urumqi High-Speed Railway Station project showcases their architectural expertise. Titled “Tianshan Snow Sea, Pearl of the Silk Road,” the design draws inspiration from a smooth, streamlined pearl rising gracefully from the earth. The project involves a pre-investment of 2.7 billion yuan and a total station building area of 100,000 square meters. CITIC Design fully implemented BIM technology throughout the project, achieving remarkable results. Liu Yijiang, Director of the Information Department at CITIC Design, stated, “The application of BIM technology has brought a transformative shift in architectural design methods, greatly enhancing design quality, facilitating communication, and enabling more advanced and intuitive concepts for construction, operation, and maintenance management.”
Comprehensive BIM Application Across Disciplines and Processes
The Urumqi High-Speed Railway Station is a large-scale, multifunctional building with complex architectural demands. Its innovative design features predominantly two-dimensional and three-dimensional exterior facades, posing significant challenges during design and construction. Additionally, as a railway station, the engineering design spans typical civil building specialties and requires seamless coordination with railway-specific disciplines such as rail lines and signaling systems.
After thorough analysis, CITIC Design chose to adopt BIM technology to overcome common issues in traditional 2D design workflows—namely, unclear 3D information expression and difficulties integrating structural, architectural, and installation drawings. BIM allowed for seamless interdisciplinary integration, early problem detection, and enhanced efficiency and quality throughout the design process.
The BIM approach for this project emphasizes comprehensive, full-process design integration. This includes two core aspects: continuous team collaboration throughout the project and the entire project lifecycle—from conceptual design to construction documentation and future operations.
Integrating BIM Throughout the Project Lifecycle
The primary goal of BIM application in the Urumqi project is to unify modeling, detection, calculations, simulation, and data management within a 3D building information management framework. This covers every stage of the building’s lifecycle, including engineering design, detailed design, manufacturing, construction management, and ongoing facility operation.
During the conceptual design phase, CITIC Design used AutoCAD Civil 3D for terrain modeling, leveraging terrain data imported from Google Earth. This facilitated 3D design, simulation analyses, and site elevation assessments. The Autodesk Infrastructure Modeler (AIM) was employed for 3D data management and real-time virtual city visualizations, supporting rapid project planning and layout decisions.
For interior design, virtual reality software enabled realistic visualizations, allowing clients to experience different design options interactively. Designers could navigate and interact within the 3D environment, identifying subtle design flaws early, which reduces costly changes later and improves project evaluation quality.
The BIM model contains detailed information to support all stakeholder needs throughout the building’s lifecycle, promoting green principles such as energy, water, land, and material conservation, as well as environmental protection.
Due to the architectural complexity, parametric design was used during the initial scheme stage to refine building volume and form details, quickly integrating function and aesthetics. In the construction drawing phase, the BIM model was imported into Autodesk Revit, integrating information from multiple platforms. This enabled model-based design, coordination, detailed performance analysis, 3D review of construction drawings, and accurate graphic calculations across all disciplines.
Supporting Collaborative Design Through BIM
CITIC Design established a standardized BIM collaborative design system grounded in domestic standards, prior BIM experience, and project-specific requirements. This ensured smooth interdisciplinary and software platform integration, providing unified guidance for BIM workflows.
The project’s BIM platform centers on Autodesk Revit (Architecture, Structure, and MEP), supplemented by over a dozen auxiliary modeling tools and analysis software like Autodesk Ecotect and Navisworks. This comprehensive platform has proven highly effective and serves as a valuable reference for future projects.
In the Urumqi project, the BIM model equates to the construction drawings. Construction documents are generated directly from the model, achieving a 100% model-to-drawing rate for architecture, 90% for structure, and 75% for equipment. Views are sliced from the model to create 2D and 3D drawings, with real-time updates reflecting any model changes. All modifications are made within the 3D model, preserving its integrity.
This model-centric approach improves coordination, especially for irregular building forms, by providing a more intuitive and reliable structural layout. Architects can better optimize spatial arrangements based on structural layouts, and structural engineers can more accurately simulate loads. The mechanical and electrical disciplines use the building and structural models as references for coordinated design, facilitating timely and accurate information exchange supported by visualization tools, enabling early problem detection and resolution.
Collision Detection and Structural Analysis
Collision detection plays a crucial role in this project. CITIC Design uses BIM technology to perform comprehensive pipeline clash detection with Autodesk Revit’s 3D modeling tools, quickly identifying conflicts and generating collision reports. Autodesk Navisworks further refines this process by resolving errors, omissions, and clashes common in traditional 2D designs. Adjustments are made to meet design and construction standards, owner requirements, and maintenance space needs, ultimately achieving a collision-free final model.
For the roof’s steel structure design, stress analysis determined the appropriate steel beams, which were coordinated with the architectural exterior design. The BIM central file was then imported into finite element analysis software for dynamic elastoplastic simulation of the entire structure.
HVAC engineers defined load conditions within the Autodesk Revit building model, generating load models exported in GBXML format. These files were imported into Hongye load software for detailed HVAC load calculations. 3D simulation software was used to visualize the original building model alongside the HVAC design.
Advancing BIM Integration and Expertise
CITIC Architectural Design and Research Institute Co., Ltd. implemented full lifecycle BIM applications on the Urumqi High-Speed Railway Station project—from initial design through construction management and future operations. BIM technology was leveraged to produce design and documentation, establish a BIM coordination platform, develop BIM design standards, and cultivate skilled BIM engineers.
Through collaboration with Autodesk’s customer service and partner design firms, CITIC Design enhanced its BIM capabilities and advanced BIM technology development across its design workflows. Deputy Chief Engineer Dong Weiguo expressed, “The application of BIM in the Urumqi High-Speed Railway Station project has significantly elevated design quality and effectively promoted BIM technology’s growth throughout CITIC Design’s entire design process.”
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