UNIVERSEL · IGH · the body of the building
A building begins with the way it is drawn. The precision of that drawing decides everything that follows.
Our role
We take the files that come out of design (AutoCAD DWG, ArchiCAD IFC, Revit RVT, SketchUp SKP, Rhino 3DM, SolidWorks STEP) and we reassemble them into a single coherent model, up to two hundred and fifty storeys when needed. Fourteen disciplines work on it in parallel, each in its own version. We catch the clashes before they turn into site disputes. We produce the 4D schedule, the 5D quantities and the bill of works. Along the way, we verify that the whole thing holds against Eurocode, IBC, NFPA, DGBR Dubai, RE2020.
Why a Body before a Brain
A seismic sensor bolted onto a wall is useless until it is tied to the precise IfcBeam it rests on. An NFPA smoke-extraction cascade remains an intention until it is anchored to a fire zone declared in the BIM. An insurance Risk Score remains a fuzzy figure until it is tied to precise floor areas and disciplines. Everything SENTINEL will do over the next thirty years depends on how precisely we freeze the building on the day it is handed over.
The conversation between the three platforms
We freeze the IFC of the building. SENTINEL takes it as is for operations. NEXUS-URBAN takes its geographic coordinates to make it sensitive to its city. And the conversation does not stop there. When SENTINEL detects that an acoustic wall measures thirty-eight decibels instead of the forty-five specified, it sends the observation back to us. We record it as an IfcAnnotation on the model, and it survives all our later re-freezes. When an architect reopens the project five years from now to refurbish it, the annotation is still there, anchored to the wall, readable.
Fourteen disciplines, one workspace
Architecture, structure, fluids, electrical, fire safety, façade, acoustics, thermal, lifts, landscape, internal mobility, security, building management, operations. Each one has its own model version, its own rights, its own deliverables. But they all coexist inside the same Common Data Environment. No more contradictory files shuttling over FTP. No more forgotten version sitting on a workstation. Every modification is traced, every clash between disciplines is caught before it turns into a site dispute.
Zurita Tower, our virtual reference building
Zurita Tower is our virtual reference building. The building itself does not exist, but every datum that animates it is a rigorous simulation, derived from real supertall standards: five hundred and twenty-five metres, one hundred and eight storeys, Y-shape geometry twisted 0.33 degree per storey between levels twenty and one hundred, sited at Marsa Al Arab Dubai. Its model lives with us, its operational runtime with SENTINEL, its urban context with NEXUS-URBAN. It lets us demonstrate the entire chain, from IFC freeze through to the eIDAS-signed claim pack, without depending on a live project.
The standards we respect
Eurocode one, two, three, five, eight for structural calculations. IBC and NFPA for safety. RE2020 for energy performance in France. DGBR for Dubai. IFC 4.3 as the canonical exchange format. BCF 3.0 for coordination remarks. None of these standards is invented. None is paraphrased for appearance. When a Eurocode 8 calculation says a structural node must hold, it holds.
Our commitment
Zero shortcuts. Zero invented APIs to ship faster. Zero mocks that linger past a demo. If a Eurocode norm exists, we read it before writing the line of code. If a format is undocumented, we document our interpretation and we attach it to the project, so that those who come after can read it. Tests live in the same commit as the code. The frozen BIM is signed. The handover to SENTINEL is a versioned event that can be replayed ten years from now.