Digital Twin for the Tallest Tower in Hong Kong

Together with SHKP (Sun Hung Kai Properties), SBI was awarded the BIM Project Award at the CIC Celebration of BIM Achievement 2022 for our effort with ICC (International Commerce Centre), the only commercial building to win this award.

The International Commerce Centre (ICC), completed in 2010, is the tallest building in Hong Kong. Designed by KPF Architects and developed by Sun Hung Kai Properties (SHKP), standing at 118 storeys tall, it has a combined total gross floor area of three million square feet, including 2.5 million square feet of Grade-A office space premium office space, commercial, hotel, entertainment and leisure facilities.

ICC was awarded the 10-year Award of Excellence by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat in 2021, recognizing the outstanding value and performance it has demonstrated, and the high occupancy rate and tenant satisfaction maintained during its operation in the past decade. To uphold high standards of services, ICC strives to explore, pilot, and adopt ground-breaking technology to optimise building performance, efficiency, and sustainability.

From no BIM to Digital Twin

Through the influence of SBI over the course of their BIM journey, SHKP engaged SBI to look at the past, present, and future by turning ICC, an existing flagship project of this size, from no BIM to Digital Twin. 

Our vision for the first phase of this implementation was to use openBIM®, operation stage CDE to maintain ICC’s gold standard in quality and efficient facilities. Our team identified 4 areas of applications and piloted 10 use cases to streamline the daily operations of the property management team. The operation stage CDE also integrates sensor data with the BIM, converging silos of data into a single source of truth, and contributing to SHKP’s growing knowledge repository.

The project generated a significant amount of data, including around 1,000 drawings, 500 photos totaling 20+ GB, and 300 IFC files taking up more than 10 GB. Despite the scale of the project, the team was able to view the entire ICC in just 20 to 60 seconds.

Digitalized Tenant Handover 

The digitalized tenant handover and takeover process implemented by the team has led to a 75% reduction in the time required for retrieving information and explaining as-built conditions, down from 20.5 hours to just 5.1 hours per month. Additionally, the asset counting time was reduced by 92%, and the turnaround time for means of escape checking was cut from 21 days to 1-1.5 days.

Ongoing Enhancements

Today, ICC’s Digital Twin supports leasing and operations, linking a 3D representation of the building with analysis tools and system controls for precise management of the building’s systems. The digital twin provides visualization, analysis, and simulation to predict outcomes of proposed improvements. It also connects sensors and building information to support performance optimization.

The building has maintained a remarkable 99.9999% uptime reliability and received over 10,000 appreciation letters from occupants. The team has also saved more than 600 tons of waste and operates the building at just 3% of the energy usage of the top certified buildings in the world under the BREEAM Green Building Standard.