Collaborative Creation: Quick wins for architects using Smart City platforms

Enhance collaboration and streamline project efficiency with Smart City platforms for architects. Discover how 3D city models like VU.CITY can revolutionise communication and decision-making in architecture.

Utilising 3D city design and planning software like VU.CITY, it becomes feasible to engage in real-time communication and collaboration with all project stakeholders. In this article, our primary focus is on one specific group of stakeholders – engineers – and the benefits that a more collaborative approach can offer.

But first, what are Smart City platforms? And how do they make collaboration easier?

What are the benefits of Digital Twins in architecture?

Smart City platforms are a digital twin – a 3D virtual twin of a real city.

In essence, Smart City platforms enable you to:

Visualise your designs within their actual context, viewable from various angles and locations.
Experiment with and assess the feasibility of your designs.
Examine potential limitations.
Fine-tune your plans for optimisation.
Foster seamless and secure collaboration.

With VU.CITY's 3D Cities, you get highly precise models, accurate down to the nearest 15cm. These models are multi-layered, immersive, and completely interactive in 3D. You can share different design iterations or final plans within this environment, complete with comprehensive data. This allows all stakeholders in your project to grasp your ideas within the broader urban context and comprehend them instantly.

And because this technology is fully interactive, feedback can be shared and decisions made in real-time. Suddenly, the process of taking a project from conception to completion is made much more streamlined and expedites the process, benefitting everyone involved.

But how do Smart City platforms make communication and collaboration so much easier?

Streamlined communication between architects and project team members

Both annotated tags and The Hub provide a way of streamlining communications throughout the lifespan of a project between architects and other project team members.

Annotated Tags

Tags can be added to your design or surrounding environment with information that needs to be documented, considered or shared. This allows visual information for a project to be shared in a way that increases engagement, and can also help optimise design and delivery.

With engineers, for example, Tags could be used to...

• Detail information that's specifically important to them – to obtain feedback or a decision

• Show CGI's – to illustrate aspects of the design that may affect their part of the project

• Label the phasing stages of a project

The VU.CITY Hub

The Hub serves as a cloud-based collaboration platform that allows all project stakeholders to actively engage in brainstorming, providing feedback, and making decisions, whether or not they have access to the 3D model outputs, all within a single interface. Moreover, when utilizing the Hub, you'll gain the capability to add annotations to images within the hub.

Improved decision-making

When everyone involved in a project can see a detailed 3D architectural visualisation of what is being proposed, it makes it much easier to understand the whole context of the design. Stakeholders can not only see what the building will look, but see it in the context of its urban environment.

Collaboration fosters the development of a collective vision that all parties aspire to see succeed. It encourages the solicitation of opinions and feedback, which, in turn, results in more informed decision-making. Enhanced decision-making, in consequence, leads to improved designs and, ultimately, better project outcomes.

Three real-world examples of successful projects using Smart City platforms

Here are three different projects where Smart Cities have been used in a collaborative way to design and present plans to stakeholders and the public.

• Sovereign Centros, a property developer, along with their project team, utilised VU.CITY to showcase their masterplan for the extensive redevelopment of Glasgow's St Enoch Centre to the public. Read more here.

• Weaver's Cross, a substantial renovation of a major transportation hub in Belfast, has seen collaborative use of VU.CITY by developers, architects, and other project contributors to optimise the development and visually demonstrate its integration into the surrounding environment. Learn more about how VU.CITY is being used on projects in Belfast here

• Taylor Wimpey has partnered with VU.CITY to create a comprehensive masterplan for the proposed redevelopment of the former RAF airfield in Wisley, Surrey. Through use of 3D city models, the project team has engaged stakeholders and local residents in shaping the appearance of this significant new development. Find out more here.

Future trends of Smart City platforms in architecture

The incredible detail of Smart City 3D modelling together with its immersive functionality are certainly playing their part in the growing adoption of Smart City software. And not just with architects.

Local authority planners are also increasingly using this technology for exactly the same reasons. Instantly, they can see and fully understand a project. As a result, many are insisting that 3D platforms such as VU.CITY are used not just in final planning applications, but at the pre-app stage too.

Why VU.CITY should be the 3D modelling platform of choice for all architects

Smart Cities are transforming cities through enhanced design and planning. The best designs are achieved when everyone can visualise and understand a project. This way, collaboration is fostered and decisions can be backed by data and made faster.

With Smart City 3D modelling platforms like VU.CITY, you can do just that. Just think, with one tool your whole architectural workflow will be streamlined from conception to completion– everyone wins.