Alexandria Center

Alexandria Center at Kendall Square includes 1.7 million square feet of state-of-the-art office and laboratory space including the 307,000-square-foot Biogen Idec building to the Boston area. It also encompass five high-tech facilities, including Biogen’s six-story build-to-suit home.

Alexandria Center Project Overview:

• DBM Vircon worked directly for fabricator, Cives (Mid-Atlantic), both in the capacity of modeler/detailer and onsite project coordinator. The scope of work included 4,800 tons of BIM modelling and structural steelwork.
• Daily coordination meetings were held with all trade parties present to finalize design and trade interfaces in a model environment (Navisworks). Based on the outcome of these coordination meetings, DBM Vircon’s onsite “project coordinator” updated the fabricator’s Tekla model on a daily basis and resubmitted to the CM for further coordination. As a result, actual construction was able to start 9 months sooner than a traditional Design/Bid/Build delivery.
• The model coordination was commenced at 25% DD’s and continued thru 50%, 75% and 90% DD’s.
• The bulk of these model revisions were in the form of beam penetrations for MEP trades, however there were also gusset changes due to pipe & duct clashes.

Alexandria Center Highlights & Challenges:

• Substantial cost savings by being able to incorporate beam penetration in the shop rather than in the field.
• Due to the collaborative design coordination and dynamic incorporation, actual construction was able to start 9 months sooner than a traditional Design/Bid/Build delivery.
• Impacts of design iterations could be reviewed and evaluated the same day.