Danish municipality adopts Autodesk Spacemaker ROUND UP

GT Strudl 41 launches

Hexagon has launched GT Strudl 41, the latest release of the structural engineering software for a range of industries, including power, civil engineering, marine, and infrastructure. The new version supports more than 25 international structural code standards ■ www.hexagon.com/products/gt-strudl

Vectorworks BIM

BIMcollab and Vectorworks have announced an integration to provide Vectorworks users with direct access to the BIMcollab Cloud issue management platform. Users will no longer need to export and import BCF files manually ■ www.bimcollab.com

Rebar placing robot

IronBOT is a new construction robot that can lift, carry, and place up to 5,000-pound bundles of rebar in a transverse or longitudinal orientation without the need for heavy lifting from crew members. It can be combined with TyBot for tying horizontal rebar intersections

■ www.constructionrobots.com

WholeHouse

Travis Perkins, the UK’s largest builders merchant, has launched WholeHouse, a design platform for SME housebuilders. It offers 3D visualisation, drawing creation and generates a full bill of materials with ‘detailed and accurate pricing’

■ www.wholehouse.uk

Data exchange

Autodesk has launched beta data exchange connectors for Autodesk Dynamo and Grasshopper. The connectors could be used to send attachment points from Revit to Rhino for façade design or send tailored data back into Revit for curtain wall designation ■ www.autodesk.com

PlanRadar docs

PlanRadar, the digital construction, and facilities management platform, has added a new document management function that is said to offer a painless way to track plan and document approvals to make it easier to maintain an audit trail and a clear picture of all sign-off during projects ■ www.planradar.com

Danish municipality Rødovre is to use Autodesk Spacemaker to help better visualise and optimise future urban development projects. The AI-based early-stage planning software will initially be used for three urban development projects totalling around 200,000m2. All three projects contain mostly housing, including new social housing.

“With 42,000 inhabitants in 12 km2 –an area that makes us the third smallest municipality in the country – Rødovre is one of the most densely populated areas in Denmark. This places great demands on land use, which is why we are constantly working to apply the latest and best digital solutions to our planning work,” explains the municipality’s now former city architect, Jesper Pagh, who has since moved to a position in Horsens Municipality.

“Municipal urban development is a complex process that takes place in close cooperation with politicians, developers, external consultants and other partners. Spacemaker makes it easy to visualise what is practically possible, enabling stakeholders to understand a project easier and make key decisions.

“Even though we are in the development phase, the tool provides measurable data on sun, wind and noise on the finished building, making it much easier to compare different project proposals and choose the best one.

“New housing projects in Rødovre often have to be especially mindful of noise. The Motorring 3, a major ring road, runs from north to south in Rødovre, and in addition there is a lot of traffic from the municipality’s through roads. Now we can easily measure and visualise traffic noise in a concrete way and ensure that in our new urban development projects we can better shelter citizens and users from noise, prevent health problems and provide quality of life. These are key elements of good architecture,” he adds.

■ www.autodesk.com/spacemaker