Arup has won the first prize in the Building Design and Construction category at the BIM&Digital Awards 2024, held in Italy on December 6th.
The new Milano Santa Giulia Arena will be Italy's largest indoor venue, accommodating up to 16,000 visitors. Built and after completion managed by Europe’s leading ticketing and live company CTS EVENTIM, it will debut at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympic Games in 2026, showcasing the men's ice hockey competition, before hosting a wide range of live entertainment and sports events.
Design for the Milano Santa Giulia Arena had a strong focus on innovation, using advanced tools developed specifically for the project and BIM methodologies to tackle complex design challenges. The entire geometry and data management workflow was automated through the BAM (Building Analytical Model) to BIM process, optimising interoperability between engineering software and the BIM environment. One of the most significant engineering challenges was designing the steel roof, composed of over 5,100 elements with a total length exceeding 10 km. This complex structure was designed using structural software and then exported to Revit through automated workflows.
The use of advanced digital technologies was crucial to the project's success, particularly the automated BAM to BIM workflow, which optimised the management of iterations and modifications. This workflow drastically reduced the time required to export and update the BIM model for each modification of the steel roof. Interactive dashboards linked to the BIM models provided real-time overviews of information extracted from the models, improving decision-making and collaboration among various teams.
BIM supported the Milano Santa Giulia Arena’s design, particularly for verifying material quantities and attributes (e.g., recycled content) for calculating the carbon footprint of the structures, guiding the designers' choices.
Our dedication to improving design and construction processes through advanced digital technologies has been recognised and appreciated by the BIM & Digital Awards jury.
Learn more about our BIM expertise
