Project

After nearly 50 years playing basketball in the city of Oakland, the Golden State Warriors’ ownership decided to move the team into a new space in San Francisco for the 2019-2020 National Basketball Association season. The USD $1.4 billion Chase Center includes an 18,000-seat arena, as well as two 11-story office buildings, a broadcast studio, a retail center featuring more than 20 shops and restaurants, 3.2-acres of publicly accessible plazas and open space, and a 925-space, below-grade parking structure. All these elements needed to be constructed within 31 months when the Mortenson | Clark joint venture broke ground on the project and the start of the season. Additionally, construction would need to account for existing buildings and other construction sites in the area.

Solution

In anticipation of being awarded the project, Mortenson | Clark created a 4D model of the proposed arena in SYNCHRO. This visualization separated the facility into definable features, clarified the relationship between the base structure and the façade, and influenced the progression of work. During planning, Mortenson | Clark determined that all five campus structures would be constructed simultaneously. The team approached the construction of the arena by breaking it into four pieces and progressing all levels of a quadrant simultaneously. The organization also used the 4D model to demonstrate the full impact of construction on the neighborhood to stakeholders and the public.

Outcome

Chase Center’s construction schedule involved over 36,900 individual tasks and over 92,800 relationships. Visualizing the project allowed Mortenson | Clark to identify and address 468 sequence issues. The company found numerous ways to improve efficiency through the 4D model, including minimizing the length of costly crane rentals. All cranes have been modeled to accurate heights and placed in areas that would not interfere with helicopter flights to the nearby medical center. Automation within the project, which was established using innovative software technology, saved the team an estimated 720 resource hours. Using SYNCHRO software enabled the team to meet the extraordinarily tight construction schedule and deliver the project on time.

Software

SYNCHRO’s 4D visualization capabilities fleshed out the design and construction schedule through iteration. Schedulers, superintendents, trade partners, and more than 1,500 craftworkers used it to ensure the quality and accuracy of their work. Additionally, a SYNCHRO update in 2018 allowed designers to auto-match code based on the scope of the work and the level of detail in the project, which eliminated errors that came from hard-coding tasks into model elements. Mortenson | Clark brought the full SYNCHRO 4D visualization into Microsoft’s HoloLens, finding ways to improve collaboration and create more advanced AR model engagement in 4D as the project progressed.

Project Playbook: SYNCHRO