TowerLabs @ MaRS Research Alliance

Tridel is Canada’s largest builder of condominiums. Since 2006, the company has initiated development of approximately 8.5 million square feet of new construction in 22 highrise communities pursuing certification by the LEED green building rating system. Tridel is committed to building towers that are healthy and significantly reduce energy and water usage. As part of their effort to incorporate green technologies in their new projects. The Tridel Towerlabs team was created. Tridel designs new projects using 2D-Autocad tools, rather than 3D-REVIT. The 2D-Autocad drawings are less expensive to produce however, do not support Building Information Modelling (BIM), which permits for improvement and optimization of the building design as well as creating a platform for building monitoring. Towerlabs would like to work with George Brown College to convert a set of 2D-Autocad drawings into 3D-REVIT Drawings, as a case study to demonstrate the possible return on investment of to Tridel. Towerlabs has requested that we could work with them to convert the new 20 story MaRS Tower Plan into 3D-Revit.This 20 story tower was designed a few years ago when LEED was less established. There is interest to use this project to incorporate late stage charismatic elements, interactive kiosk / high efficiency light systems. There is the possibility to link this project to AutoDesk and their new product DASHER, which uses REVIT to create a framework for monitoring building wide energy usage.