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The Great Library for Trimble
Realising the promise of “Connected Construction”
Overview
Trimble’s Construction division is on a mission to engineer and acquire end-to-end software and hardware solutions to revolutionise how we build. When used together, these products and services deliver on a methodology called 'Connected Construction', which has the potential to transform the industry, increasing the productivity and profit margins of everyone who works within it.
Despite this huge potential, real-world end-to-end Connected Construction projects are almost nonexistent. Trimble, and our project together, set out to change that.
Strategy
Set Trimble a construction challenge to capture the imagination of the industry and win over the sceptics, showing everyone from architects to plumbing contractors how “their bit” would work.
The Library of Celsus
The Great Library project's digital twin
Creative
Creatively we loved the idea that ancient sites present difficult retrofit construction challenges. How do you design and build around them while enhancing the heritage? So we looked for suitable places to site a virtual build. Once we saw the facade and heard the history of The Library of Celsus at Ephesus, we knew we’d found our site.
Through a period of stakeholder engagement, we convinced all Trimble Construction’s product divisions to unite behind the ultimate demo. We then got to work assembling our project team of industry experts, each with experience of using elements of Connected Construction, but never as the backbone for an entire project spanning phases and teams.
The Great Library documentary series follows our team as they embark on this ambitious virtual build project. We explore what happens when you build a new library on an ancient Greco-Roman ruin, all from opposite corners of the world having never met in person, or even visited the site.
Meet the team
Ayo Sokale
Series Host
Ayo is the epitome of multi-talented, with qualifications ranging from Chartered Civil Engineer to Royal Society of Arts Fellow… to TV host! As a dedicated sustainability and STEM advocate, she is a leader in creating a more resilient and equitable future.
Julie Smith-Clementi
Architect
Julie leverages entrepreneurial experience and leadership to guide complex teams to realize their vision. She traverses design boundaries across scales, from the urban to the intimate, revealing diverse approaches and creating compelling experiences.
Frank Clementi
Architect
Frank broadens design with innovative projects and teaching – integrating architecture, landscape, graphic and product design. His work celebrates place and culture. If you know the Hollywood Bowl or Austin City Limits, you know Frank and Julie’s work.
Øystein Ulvestad
Engineer
Øystein’s construction motto is “death to paper.” He put his passion into action as the BIM developer for the Randselva Bridge - the world’s longest bridge built without a single 2D drawing.
The content series
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1. Modern Tech <> Ancient Site
Journey with us to the Library of Celsus in Turkey. Accompanied by a local historian, we take a closer look at how old and new construction are more alike than you may expect.
As we contemplate the hurdles of contemporary construction we start a quest to evaluate novel approaches - steering a course for a more connected construction world.
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2. The Design Journey Begins
In this episode, the team faces their first major hurdles as they dive into the adventure of reimaging an ancient landmark as a 21st-century facility.
First, the surveyors have just two days to create a hyper-detailed record of the library for the architects, who will design the whole project from 7,000 miles away without ever setting foot on site! Then, it’s on to the architects as they explore the point cloud, layer on geometry, and begin shaping the creative vision in conjunction with the project owner.
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3. Bridging the Technology Gap
In this episode, Frank & Julie refine their conceptual model and present this to the project engineers to understand how much of their ambitious building concept will actually be achievable, as a real world structure.
We then travel to Norway to meet our lead project engineer, Øystein Ulvestad. Øystein introduces us to the Randselva Bridge Project; the longest bridge in existence to be designed without any 2D drawings.
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4. Nothing Left to Chance
Edging closer to finalizing our constructible model, our project engineers put the finishing touches to our structural engineering and MEP design. This is used to onboard our contractors, who build even more detail into our model, and move us into real world manufacturing.
As our digital twin goes through this final evolution, we see the extent to which our connected construction workflows enable incredible efficiency when we arrive at the business end of the project.on goes here
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5. Stepping into the Future
It’s hard to believe that a year on, having worked from the seed of an idea to a fully constructible model, our project stakeholders have never met in person or visited the site…that is, until now!
In this episode, we conduct all the final checks that would take place on-site before a project like this would move into the physical build. Mixing digital and physical, we overlay and explore our digital twin and all its detail, in the space where it would ultimately be committed to glass, steel, and concrete.
The metaverse experience
The Great Library is now open!
The ambition of this project didn’t stop at the release of the final episode. Using the digital twin as our foundation we created a metaverse experience where people could take a virtual tour of the library and explore the most extensive repository of applied connected construction knowledge to date. The curated content accessible through the experience includes all of the series episodes, full case studies of the featured projects, bonus content, 3D models and more.
The resource will continue to be populated with content over time. An ever-evolving digital destination where the entire construction industry can delve deeper into the topics explored in the series, helping them apply a connected construction workflow to their next project
What our client thought
“Nonsense have helped take our creative vision to a place of industry attention and dominance against our competition. In an industry full of generic content, they have always pushed to move us into a more creative space aligned to our prospect interest. In doing so, we’re delivered a truly unique experience which has far outpaced the performance of all similar media we’ve released in the past 12 months.
Their approach is thoughtful, diligent and daring, and their manner is engaging, progressive and inspiring. I wouldn’t hesitate to involve Nonsense in future projects.”
Matthew Ramage, Sr. Director, Marketing. Trimble
The project in numbers
>2m
Over 2 million
campaign views across all platforms, episodes and assets.
01:11
Series 1 wrapped!
5 episodes delivered with a total runtime of over an hour!
2 wins
Bringing home a brace from the prestigious Chief Marketer Pro Awards.
Best Use Of Video
Best Content Marketing
#1
Trimble’s best ever performing content
campaign with better results than the next 3 best campaigns combined!