The City of Hyvinkää tested a 3D service when judging work submitted for a residential construction ideas competition. The service enabled ordinary citizens to comment on the work.

What kind of problem did this project try to solve?

It is important to promote digitalisation and interaction with citizens in the built environment, construction and architecture sectors. In architectural competitions, for instance, it is necessary to provide the means to work independently at any time and anywhere, and to allow anonymous feedback to be given. Citizens should likewise have the ability to easily comment on work submitted to competitions, as our built environment affects everyone, not just a competition’s judges.

The project run by the City of Hyvinkää experimented with judging the work submitted to the competition for ideas on residential construction in the Sveitsi area using a browser-based 3D publishing platform. Sveitsi is a forested recreational area in the northwest part of Hyvinkää city centre.

The items of work submitted to the competition were created as 3D information models and published in a browser-based service through which feedback from citizens was collected on the entries. The browser-based 3D service enables agile working at any time and anywhere, accelerates the process of digitalisation in the architecture sector and promotes new business.

Objective: to promote the use of 3D processes and openness in architecture competitions

The objective was to perform a practical experiment on a new operating process in which the anonymity of competition entries is ensured through browser-based information management.

Additionally, the project aimed to encourage the deployment of 3D processes based on information models and the utilisation of existing data. Increasing openness and interaction with the city’s residents was also one of the project’s aims.

What was done in this project?

The project ran a practical test on the suitability of a browser-based 3D service for judging an architecture competition. The 3D service allowed the judges to review the work submitted to the competition at any time and anywhere, and from different perspectives.

A designated project interface in the 3D publishing platform was created for every architects’ office participating in the competition. The participants superimposed their own 3D designs over a three-dimensional model of the city. The competitive teams were also allowed to save camera views of the designed areas in the 3D city model. Each team had access to its own material only, and the names of the creators of the submitted designs were not revealed.

Sova3D Oy checked the content and functionality of all the work. Once the deadline for the designs had expired and the entries to the competition had been uploaded to the service, the entrants’ user IDs were deleted.

The judges reviewed all the competition entries and compared their results through an internet browser. They were not informed of the designers’ names or IDs, as the projects were named using the initials provided by the contestants.

The city’s residents were given the opportunity to comment on the entries through the 3D service, using a browser. The comments were compiled and sent to the panel of judges before they selected the winner. A total of 89 people commented on the competition entries. The winner of the competition was the entry entitled “Terve metsä, terve vuori” by Architects Anttila & Rusanen Ltd.

What outcomes did the experiment produce?

The experimental project greatly accelerated progress in the browser-based information management of 3D city models. A lot of new insight was gained into what is required for browser-based publishing of 3D models and about the optimisation of 3D models created with various software.

The experiment showed that browser technology is more or less ready for the publishing of 3D models on the internet. Browser-based 3D publishing adds an interesting element to city development projects and allows residents to be more involved in the city’s activities. Thanks to the browser-based solution, 3D competition entries can be quickly viewed anytime, anywhere.

The information management and interactive environment of the browser-based 3D service used in the experiment can, with minor customisation, be applied to architecture competitions held by other municipalities. This means that other municipalities can now anonymously judge work submitted to their architecture competitions, publish them on the browser-based 3D service for all to see and collect comments from citizens.

Moreover, the 3D service used in the experiment can also be applied to other interactive city development projects, such as in commenting on the land use projects of municipalities.

The experimental project also developed several features in the 3D service that can be widely utilised in such areas as the publishing of construction projects. For example, the City of Hyvinkää already enables the public to view conceptual images of the final appearance of a construction site through a browser-based solution that can be accessed on the national Lupapiste.fi service.

Who benefits?

Architects, the judges of architecture competitions and citizens.

Judging the entries to an architecture competition arranged as a part of a 3D city development project and publishing them through a browser-based 3D service
Duration: 17 March–31 December 2017
Implemented by: City of Hyvinkää and Sveitsin Kiinteistörahoitus Ky
Partners: Sova3D Oy

FURTHER INFORMATION

Päivi Tiihonen, Information Service Manager, City of Hyvinkää
Tel: +358 400 813 498
Email: paivi.tiihonen(at)hyvinkaa.fi

3D publishing platform:

Petri Kokko, CEO, Sova3D Oy
Tel: +358 50 551 1252
E-mail: petri.kokko(at)sova3d.fi