Zero Drawing Construction

How Zero Drawing construction works

Traditional perception is that drawings are essential for building any structure. At Sweco, we always question established ‘truths’ – which we believe limits thinking – and have conceived a Zero Drawings approach that is  proving the merit of more innovative digital and BIM-focused thinking.

Innovation meets emotion – our Danish colleague Øystein Ulvestad shares his story and explains the benefits of Zero Drawing construction.

Out with the old…

Traditional methodology involved creating 3D models, but then compressing them to a 2D drawing which became the basis of 3D construction. This effectively ‘downgraded’ the project design at the most crucial stage, and left lots of room for error in each of these linear and ‘flattened’ processes.

In with the new…

Using a Zero Drawings approach, we now take information from the core 3D model, and implement it to a 3D structure directly using contextual digital data capture and visualisation, which eliminates a lot of the transformational risks and ‘points of failure’ of traditional methodology. Sweco UK’s BIM Manager, Dinos Ipiotis explains more…

If we only produce 2D drawings as a construction guide, we only communicate a small part of the data that lies within the 3D model of a design. For example, a pipe may be presented as a single line in a basic drawing with limited information available such as pipe size and system abbreviation.

 

But if we make it possible – and simple – to refer to the actual 3D model itself during the build, engineers can see the space that pipe inhabits, its insulation, the properties of the pipe, the material which is made of and other relevant data such as system, length, installation height and even flow rates. With so much ‘rich’ data to hand, errors are reduced and value is added to every stage of the process.