The new Stavanger University Hospital, the SUS2023 project, led by the architects at Nordic Office of Architecture and the engineers at COWI, has been instrumental in the development of KitConnect – a revolutionary new plugin for Revit.

In 2018, the American software giant Autodesk named SUS2023 the best large-scale industrialization project at the AEC Excellence Awards in Las Vegas. The architects at Nordic and the engineers at COWI received the award for their groundbreaking work in industrialization and BIM.

Now, in 2019, SUS2023 has reached a new milestone: the launch of a Revit plugin that makes working with industrialized and modular construction projects much easier and more accessible. The plugin, named KitConnect, was developed by Autodesk’s partner Project Frog in collaboration with Nordic and COWI, and is based on the modules and industrialization concept developed for Stavanger University Hospital (SUS2023).

“New and more efficient ways of working, using advanced technology to improve both the design and construction process, are at the core of the entire SUS2023 project and are the foundation for the development of this technology here. We are entering a new world where incredible things can be done with a simple keystroke,” says Soren Shen-Lung Lin, Senior Architect at Nordic and Head of Module Development in the SUS2023 project.

Design Repetition and Module Production

KitConnect is a cloud-based software that offers a new way to model, catalog, place, and customize modules directly in Revit. Here, building parts and components can be connected into modules and create “industrialization packages” with detailed content lists.

“This will give multidisciplinary teams the opportunity to effectively use both repetitive design and modular construction, thanks to how the software handles Revit elements as packages composed of multiple parts, rather than as single components,” says Bridget White, Senior Architect and BIM leader at Nordic.

The software can be used throughout the process from design to production and across all involved disciplines. Once a module is inserted, all modules of this type used in the Revit model can be updated with a single keystroke. This provides a much more efficient modeling process and also helps ensure optimal quality control in projects. In this way, KitConnect can become an invaluable tool in projects that involve a lot of repetition of rooms and functions – such as hotels, school and office buildings, etc.

Kristoffer Tungland, BIM leader at COWI, is very pleased with the development. “We were fortunate enough to be involved in the development and testing of KitConnect early on, which saved us a lot of time and effort. We believe KitConnect will open up much more flexibility in future industrialized construction projects,” says Tungland, who was named Young Advisor of the Year in 2018 for his work in BIM and digitalization.

A Productive Collaboration

Already in the early phases of the SUS2023 project, the project group discovered that they lacked digital tools that could produce the necessary information with the accuracy required for the project. This need initiated a collaboration between SUS2023, Autodesk, and Project Frog, with the goal of finding new and more efficient working methods specifically tailored to industrialized BIM modeling. Helse Stavanger was also very engaged and supportive throughout the process, which was crucial for the result.

“The collaboration with the SUS2023 team has given us unique insight into how the designers wanted to work and what information requirements are in a project like this. Thanks to close collaboration and good input, we have been able to translate users’ wishes into the functionality we offer in KitConnect,” says Mike Eggers, VP of Product & Innovation at Project Frog.

An Important Milestone

Industrialization is one of the most important trends in both the architecture and construction industries. The launch of KitConnect is an important milestone in how the industry can now work with digitalization and industrialized construction in the years to come.