Count yourself fortunate. You live in a time where every detail of a project’s design and construction can be captured, preserved and understood with digital clarity. This virtual insight helps advance efficiency from design and construction through the entire project lifecycle, yielding a digital twin that lives in perpetuity to serve owners in countless ways, including operations, maintenance and even reconstruction.

Yet as bold as this promise is, it’s no secret our built environment too often remains a fractured, fragmented place characterized by solutions and processes that constrain rather than speed collaboration, communication and delivery.

Today many voices are performing outstanding work in convincing owners, architects, engineers, code officials, trade and general contractors and other project stakeholders to adopt Connected Construction principles more aggressively. These change agents include:

• The National Institute of Building Sciences through its U.S. National Building Information Management Program designed to help create a BIM standard.
• The Construction Progress Coalition, which is made up of many of our industry’s leading players, including Trimble.
• The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which allocates $100 million to speed the use of 3D modeling software and digital project management platforms.

We cheer these efforts and the ongoing work of so many others.

Yet, some say there’s something missing in this conversation: A practical, streetwise way for construction practitioners worldwide to actively learn from each other. Imagine a global digital archive that makes available the steps building or infrastructure project teams used to leapfrog analog 2D methods with 3D collaboration, communication and speed.

Welcome to The Great Library

Trimble’s The Great Library reveals the constructability story of Connected Construction in unmatched detail. “The Great Library answers the question ‘How do we take all the productivity gains made on a project in one area and share that knowledge with project leaders elsewhere?’” explains Trimble Senior Director of Marketing and Project Lead, Matt Ramage. “The Great Library shares revealing, highly engaging insights on how Connected Construction best practice really works.”

This online reference tool will present insights gained worldwide. “For example, you’ll be able to look at an amazing detailing-to-procurement workflow used in a Hong Kong project. Or, inspect a fascinating 3D mechanical model used for a UK project or discover how a Finnish steelmaker used 3D modeling for parametric fabrication. No blue-sky theory or conjecture,” Ramage explains. “The Great Library is a real-time, central clearinghouse for proven, practical Connected Construction applications worldwide.”

Structural detail model for Hong Kong International Airport 3RS Project

Drawing its inspiration from the great libraries of antiquity, The Great Library serves as a next-gen nexus for insights on existing condition analysis, conceptual design, engineering design and detailing, prefabrication, procurement, project controls and resource management, owner management, operations and maintenance.

Library of Celsus (left) & The Great Library Conceptual Design (right)

The Great Library itself, a virtual reference tool, will be created in a step-by-step manner as if it were commissioned for construction, from initial concept and design all the way through the final delivery. The project team will digitally re-invent the ancient Roman Library of Celsus as a 21st-century facility using the latest digital design and construction techniques. Ramage says it’s an apt metaphor for the project: “The construction insights the ancient Romans made were lost to humanity for a millennium. The Great Library aims to preserve and continuously refresh the construction insights rapidly being developed today for all to use and benefit from.”

Join us on an amazing journey

In the coming months, you’ll learn more about this remarkable initiative. First up is the initial episode of a multi-part documentary chronicling The Great Library’s step-by-step digital construction process. Episode one will be released in November 2022. The Great Library is supported by a diverse array of other materials, including:

• Ebooks
• Webinars
• Blogs
• Videos
• Industry presentations
• Infographics
• And much, much more

“This is an extraordinary opportunity for Trimble to extend our service to the industry in an innovative, highly engaging manner,” Ramage says. “We can’t wait to share more details in the coming weeks.”

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