Recently, China’s tallest building under construction—the Suzhou Zhongnan Center—has adopted Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology. The project owner emphasized, “Once completed, this building will become a new landmark for Suzhou city. To ensure the project proceeds smoothly, we are applying BIM technology throughout every stage—from design and construction to completion.”
To facilitate seamless collaboration across multiple organizations and disciplines on this super high-rise project, the owner partnered with Guanglian Cloud to develop a multi-stakeholder BIM organizational management and collaboration platform, guided by professional consultants.
The Suzhou Zhongnan Center stands as the tallest building currently under construction in China. The project covers an area of 16,573 square meters, with a total construction area of approximately 500,000 square meters. It comprises 137 floors above ground and 5 basement levels, reaching a total height of 729 meters.
Behind these impressive figures lie numerous challenges: stringent project requirements, complex design and construction techniques, involvement of many collaborators, long construction timelines, and intricate management demands.
Before implementing BIM, the project owners were highly cautious about the BIM coordination platform. Their selection criteria extended beyond software functionalities to include future management considerations. Specifically, they required a platform offering core features such as document management, organizational permission control, model browsing, task workflow management, and local data backup. Additionally, they emphasized factors like technology development trends, usability, functional scalability, and sustainable service capabilities.
After more than six months of research, technical evaluation, and organizational trials, Guanglian Cloud was ultimately chosen as the BIM collaboration platform for the Suzhou Zhongnan Center project, based on proven results.
Let’s examine the key benefits this BIM collaboration platform brings to the project:
Facilitating Cross-Regional and Cross-Team Collaboration
A large volume of model files and documents are uploaded, exchanged, shared, version-controlled, and task-managed among the owner, consultants, and design institutes. The BIM consultant issues files that the design team applies, while the owner’s team uses the platform for model browsing and task processing. This platform streamlines cross-regional coordination, making collaboration more efficient.
Ensuring Data Security
As the sole data input and output platform for the project, Guanglian Cloud guarantees data uniformity, accuracy, and security. Its online browsing capabilities support professional engineering files such as Office documents, DWG, RVT, and IFC formats, effectively serving the owner’s management teams during site visits and business trips. These features greatly enhance data usability. Additionally, cloud triple backup combined with local data synchronization ensures robust data security.
Enhancing Drawing Management Efficiency
The project involves approximately 100 GB of drawing files, ranging from initial designs to current construction documents. During early expansion phases, over 50 drawing revisions were made, covering all disciplines and project information. The platform organizes and manages these files by categorizing directories and transmitting updated versions and change notifications to all stakeholders. This reduces confusion caused by multiple drawing versions, minimizes construction errors due to outdated information, and preserves historical files for convenient review, auditing, and traceability.
Supporting BIM Design Coordination Based on Platform Models
Compared to other projects, the Suzhou Zhongnan Center’s overall system and specialties are highly complex. Designers often require detailed information about specific areas during design and revision of construction drawings. Traditionally, BIM coordination meetings required face-to-face discussions, which limited communication and collaboration efficiency. Using the platform, 3D visualizations of problem areas are presented, alongside annotations and briefings. Stakeholders can communicate issues and make decisions directly on the platform, producing official documentation and discussion records. This approach resolves inefficiencies caused by geographical separation and enhances design quality while reducing project costs.
The benefits of the BIM collaboration platform do not come from creating new advantages but from reducing risks and resource waste. These infrastructure projects have transformed management methods, improved document and data security, and streamlined organizational management. This lays a strong foundation for the future BIM implementation throughout the Suzhou Zhongnan Center.
Currently, BIM collaboration platforms are still in the early stages of market adoption. Platform selection reflects more on the management philosophy and vision of the owners and BIM decision-makers. We hope that the experience of choosing and applying this platform in the Suzhou Zhongnan Center project will offer valuable insights and guidance for BIM decision-making teams in other projects.
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