New Dimensions in Design

With 3-D Drawing Software,
Freedom Tower Architects
Put Mind's Eye on a PC Screen

ByAlex FrangosStaff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

NEW YORK -- It will be almost two years before steel rises even toground level in construction of the iconic Freedom Tower, whose cornerstonewas laid at Ground Zero in an emotional ceremony Sunday. But a few blocksaway -- and far removed from public view -- a group of architects designingthe tower are stretching design technology in ways that will change howbuildings are created.

Architects at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, the firm hired byprivate developer Larry Silverstein to complete Daniel Libeskind's visionfor the signature skyscraper, are using an innovative kit ofsoftware-design tools for the first time on such a massive project. Amongthe equipment: a three-dimensional drawing program that's part of anindustrywide revolution altering how architects transfer ideas from theirbrains to paper.

The $1 billion-plus Freedom Tower will house offices, stores andrestaurants and will have a 72-story twisting body, a cable skin, aconcrete and steel core, and a 600-foot latticework cage on the top thatwill house broadcast antennas and wind turbines.

The tangled guts will be equally complex and difficult to keep straight.The architects predict the job will require 3,000 official constructiondocuments -- as many as a large airport. Close to 50 Skidmore staff are onthe project; their drawings will be done in batches and won't be completeduntil the first quarter of 2006.

On a recent morning in Skidmore's 23rd floor Freedom Tower project room,David Yanks, a staff architect, used a 3-D design program called Revit tograb the massive sides of the tower on his computer and twist them fromside to side. In so doing, each floor adjusts its size according to Mr.Yanks's moves, something that would take weeks with standardtwo-dimensional drafting programs. "I'd have to make different floors" inthe regular program, he says. Using Revit, a product ofAutodesk Inc., San Rafael, Calif.,he says, "we have one template with two 'knives' on the each side that cutthe floors to the right shape."

The shape of the Freedom Tower, a parallelogram that twists as it rises,is particularly suited for the new software. Mr. Yanks enjoys using it somuch, his colleagues rib him that his wife will be upset about the "Revit"tattoo he might get.

The revolution Mr. Yanks is experiencing now -- from 2-D to 3-D -- is inmany ways a logical next step to the emergence of computer-aided designsoftware in the early 1970s. In its day, CAD, as it's known, transformedarchitecture by digitizing drafting, sending the blueprint productionprocess into warp speed. (Skidmore was one of the first firms to use CAD;it developed its own version.)

From a creative perspective, however, CAD wasn't a huge leap. Like itsmanual predecessors, the T-square and compass, CAD is a tool to make a setof abstract drawings -- basically instructions to the construction crew --of what the building should be. A wall is represented by a set of lines,rather than by an actual picture of a wall.

The first 3-D programs emerged 20 years ago. They were good for flashypresentations but not powerful enough to actually design whole buildingswith. The latest generation of 3-D programs changes the game.

"In the past, architects carried in their head what thethree-dimensional conception of the building was and mentally translatedthat into two-dimensional drawings," says Charles Eastman, an architectureprofessor at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. Now, they createon the screen exactly what they envision in their mind's eye.

Instead of drafting abstract instructions, the 3-D modeling has thearchitect design what the building actually looks like, and then spits outthe old fashioned drawings for the contractor to use as a result. "Drawingsbecome the byproduct of the model," says Michael Jarosz, a tech expert atSkidmore. "A staircase is a staircase, not just a set of lines."

More than that, the computer models act like actual buildings do.Designers can travel into the computer models at almost any angle or fromany cross section and see the tiniest details. On the recent morning atSkidmore's offices, Mr. Jarosz was having fun showing how it works. "Let'stake us into the toilet" he says, while zooming through the Freedom Tower'swalls into a bathroom on the lower floors. On the screen was a bird's eyeview of a bathroom with a series of stalls and commodes.

Traditional CAD software takes months to achieve the same views. Eachcross section -- and angle -- has to be individually drawn. In the case ofthe Freedom Tower, Revit lets the designers peer into the structure'scomplex core, which contains structural columns, elevators, stairwells andutilities. Looking at the building from any angle helps the various teamssort out what parts should go where without interfering with eachother.

Architecture is one of the last design professions to latch onto 3-Dmodeling. Design of cars, consumer products, even airplanes, turned to full3-D design in the 1980s and 1990s. Some architects, such as Frank O. Gehry,have used industrial 3-D design programs not meant for architects. But thepromise has yet to reach architecture because of the complexity ofbuildings and the one-time nature of giant construction projects.

"The economies of scale in product design, you design it once and sellit millions of times," says Omer Akin, a professor of architecture atCarnegie Mellon University. "In buildings, you design it once, build itonce and use it once." He adds that the sheer number of parts in a building-- half a million for a 100,000-square-foot structure -- has until nowoverwhelmed 3-D modeling programs. The Freedom Tower will have 2.6 millionsquare feet.

Autodesk isn't alone in promoting these new design tools. BentleySystems Inc.'s architecture package boasts similar capabilities. The Exton,Pa., company says the reconstruction and renovation of the Pentagon usedmany of its tools. Graphisoft NV, based in Budapest, says its ArchiCAD 3-Dproduct was the primary design program for the 80-story Eureka Tower inMelbourne, Australia.

Exciting as the new programs may be, they aren't perfect or even readyfor full use. Skidmore is using Revit on a limited basis, mostly for thedesign of the lower floors of the Freedom Tower. It will use traditionalCAD programs for the remaining floors. Another hitch is the size andcomplexity of the files the programs create. "There's a huge amount of datamost civilians can't interact with," says Phil Bernstein, an Autodesk vicepresident.

To solve that, Autodesk sells another tool, a file-sharing programcalled Buzzsaw, that allows the architects to share simplified versions ofthe design files and other paperwork to clients and consultants. "LarrySilverstein can't look directly at a Revit model," says Mr. Bernstein."We'd have to send him away to training for a year to jockey thisthing."

Because of the Freedom Tower's high profile, keeping constructiondocuments safe is a prime concern. Buzzsaw stores files in a sort ofvirtual lock box. Keys are distributed only to those who need access.Skidmore is also afraid of another sort of intruder: "people who may havebeen taken off the team and are pulling information down for their ownportfolios, which is always a problem," says Ken Lewis, Freedom Towerproject manager.

Whatever the potential problems, the promise of efficiencies makes theappeal of the 3-D programs clear. "It cuts down a lot of time and saves atremendous amount of money," says Georgia Tech's Mr. Eastman, a pioneer inthe design-modeling field. "You're building the building in the computerwith all the three-dimensional parts before you build it on the site.There's no chance of a pipe boring through a beam, the kind of thing thatrequires a change order on site. Those errors disappear."

Also, all the parts in the entire building model are logged in a centraldatabase. So each toilet object has data associated with it such as size,cost, and source. Skidmore won't be utilizing that feature to its fullextent on this project. But Autodesk and others such as Mr. Eastman seethat as one of the product's biggest potential payoffs.

"Now, someone scans over all the drawings for product counts," ofeverything from air conditioners to faucets. "Everything gets counted byhand," says Mr. Eastman. With the new programs, he says, "you should beable to click on any object in the model" -- say a lighting fixture -- "seethe specification, where it is, the status, whether it's on site ready tobe installed."

The snappy new technology also lets Skidmore keep its money-mindedclient, Mr. Silverstein, happy. Neil Katz, a Skidmore computer guru,customized another 3-D program it is using to let the designers tweak theshape of the tower while simultaneously measuring changes in the rentablesquare footage. "That's something the owner of the building is veryconcerned about," says Mr. Lewis, the tower's project manager.

Write to Alex Frangos atalex.frangos@wsj.com

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