Awardees and Programmes:
Liu Kei-yiu, Tsang Tsz-hin, Lam Ka-chun and Man Hoi-yan, BEng (Hons) in Civil and Environmental Engineering
Im Ka-sing and Cheung Yan-loi, BEng (Hons) in BS Engineering & Sustainable Development

Competition:
CIC BIM Competition 2024

Award:
First runner-up

Organiser:
Construction Industry Council

Details:
Six students in two HKMU engineering programmes — Civil and Environmental Engineering and Building Services Engineering and Sustainable Development — teamed up to participate in the challenging CIC BIM Competition 2024 and took home the second prize.

The CIC BIM Competition is an annual key event organised by the Construction Industry Council (CIC) aimed at promoting the practical use of Building Information Modelling (BIM), a process of generating and managing data of buildings and other physical assets throughout their construction lifecycles, among tertiary students. The theme of the competition this year was the CIC Innovation Academy, a purpose-built building dedicated to educational and learning activities for higher education students. Participants were asked to develop the Academy at the current site of the CIC-Zero Carbon Park (ZCP) with specific design requirements, assuming that the ZCP will be relocated and the existing building converted for other purposes or demolished.

The competition comprised two stages. In the first round, which spanned as long as five months, students had to learn the relevant tools, design and complete the BIM models and submit the deliverables together with other supplementary materials. Shortlisted teams then advanced to the onsite competition, in which they updated the BIM models according to new requirements in 12 hours and presented their final output to the judging panel on the next day.

The HKMU team was among the 12 finalists out of 42 teams formed by 217 students from local universities and higher education institutions. Their innovative ideas and impressive performance on-site convinced the judges to award them the first runner-up place.

The winning project aims to create a hub for interdisciplinary knowledge exchange and collaboration among students, in areas including smart city, Internet of Things technology, artificial intelligence, robotics and carbon neutrality. Taking inspiration from the signature volcanic rock landscape in the Hong Kong Geopark in Sai Kung, the building is designed in a hexagonal shape, which brings it stronger resistance against lateral forces, a greater load-bearing capacity and more effective illumination.