Tekla Structures for seamless fabrication and stunning design of the Mons Parking Garage

The stunning yet intricate parking garage caters to the passengers using the new railway station of Mons (Bergen), Belgium, and was designed by renowned architect Santiago Calatrava. Hurks Delphi Engineering and Hurks Prefabbeton addressed the challenges with advanced utilization of Building Information Modeling (BIM). In addition to enjoying the benefits of choosing BIM, they also emerged as winners in the Precast Concrete category at the Tekla Global BIM Awards.

The parking garage boasts architectural wall structures with complex shapes and fascinating, smoothly contoured yet substantial beam elements featuring intricate reinforcement. The beam and wall elements interconnect and support the massive cast-in-place concrete deck above. Owing to their complexity, frames and wall elements presented challenges to Hurks Delphi Engineering and Hurks Prefabbeton, who collectively undertook the detailing and prefabrication of the concrete elements with some assistance from a structural engineering office.

Tekla Enables Seamless Fabrication of Complex Structures

The structure would have been susceptible to errors if the team hadn't used BIM cleverly. The intricate shapes of the frames and wall elements posed challenges for the engineers. Conveying such shapes accurately to mold-builders and rebar workers using only 2D drawings is highly challenging. Tekla was not merely a design and detailing technology: It served as a model-based communication platform between the main structural design and detailing offices, enabling seamless fabrication.

Hurks Prefabbeton utilized the model data in production planning, leveraging their ERP software. The in-house detailing office, Hurks Delphi Engineering, modeled all the reinforcement using Tekla, ensuring that the data describing the complex structure could be exported from the precise Tekla model to the rebar fabrication software and production machinery. However, fabricating the organic shapes presented difficulties.

“For this project, we were unable to produce all the elements using our large welding and bending machines, but we did manufacture all bars, whether individual or part of a mesh, using some of our machines and directly from the model data,” 

Robbert Sterk, Application Developer at Hurks Delphi Engineering.



Opting for BIM in production and installation helped avoid errors, but Hurks also required additional drawings. Derived from the models, these drawings exhibited excellent quality and featured clear dimensioning that considered the unique shapes. Implementing various export features of Tekla Structures ensured a smooth production process. In the end, the reinforcement fit perfectly.

Read how BIM was used to build the best-looking parking garage in the state of New Jersey