Selected Contribution 05 | Simulation Case Stories from Beihang Hangzhou International Campus

Editor’s Note:

From blueprint to operation and maintenance, digital simulation is redefining the life cycle of buildings. The practice at Beihang Hangzhou International Campus vividly illustrates the trend of the times that “everything can be simulated”—how the wind sweeps over the rooftops, how people move through the corridors, and how light and water intertwine into an ecological cycle, all of which can be transformed into data and models.

Here, simulation is not merely a tool; it is the underlying logic that integrates safety, aesthetics, green principles, and intelligence. It reveals to us that when everything can be simulated, future campuses, cities, and even every inch of space will first come into being in the digital world and then be precisely realized in the physical world.

Simulation Case Stories from Beihang Hangzhou International Campus

Beihang Hangzhou International Campus is the “smartest” campus in China—a distinctive park that combines the dual attributes of an academic campus and a science and technology park. From blueprint design to operation and maintenance, simulation technology has always served as its core support. This technology runs through the entire life cycle of campus buildings. Through precise simulation and iterative optimization, it not only upholds the bottom line of building safety and highlights the quality of design, but also achieves ecological energy efficiency and operational efficiency. The following presents three typical practical cases on campus, telling the story of the application value and empowerment effects of simulation technology in building construction, ecological control, and operation and maintenance management.

I. Construction Stage: The 395-Meter “Flying Roof” — Simulation Fortifies the Safety Foundation of a Super-Large-Scale Building

During the construction phase, digital simulation technology served as the “advance scout” for design implementation, precisely aligning with the research institute’s positioning as an “International Hub for Aviation Education and Research in the Yangtze River Delta.” The campus covers a total area of 670,000 square meters, was completed and put into use in 2023, and was designed by HENN Architekten. It integrates Liangzhu culture with the concept of the aviation industry, adopting a “dual-axis layout” and a “three-layer site structure.” Among its features, the “Flying Roof,” measuring 395 meters in length and 168 meters in width, stands as a model of technological application. As “one of the world’s largest suspended roofs,” it is built around the core concept of aviation engineering, employing a lightweight tension structure—like a giant, precisely tensioned piece of “aviation-grade silk.” Using only one-third of the material weight of a traditional building, it covers an area equivalent to eight football fields. Its concave profile resembles an enlarged aircraft wing; when wind passes over its surface, it naturally diverges just as airflow glides over a wing, not only reducing wind load impact but also making the roof appear like a “silver bird” hovering above the campus—a striking blend of technological sophistication and aesthetic appeal from afar.

Hangzhou’s monsoon-prone climate makes wind load a critical safety concern for the roof structure. In the summer of 2021, Hangzhou experienced historically rare, persistent severe convective weather, with maximum gusts reaching Force 10 on the Beaufort scale—a severe test for the 395-meter-long “Flying Roof.” If constructed according to the initial design, the cables at the roof edges could have snapped under uneven stress from strong winds. The design team urgently initiated digital simulation, constructing a 1:1 full-scale model to simulate eight typical wind conditions, including typhoons, monsoons, and gusts. On the screen, red warning zones clearly identified stress exceedance regions at three cable node locations, providing precise guidance for subsequent optimization. Based on the simulation results, the team optimized the roof’s concave profile and edge curvature, allowing strong winds to glide naturally along the curved surface and reduce impact. At the same time, they adjusted the connection methods of the tension structure nodes and the density of cable arrangement, preserving the roof’s light and expansive visual effect to the greatest extent while ensuring structural safety.

Ultimately, with the full support of digital simulation, the “Flying Roof” achieved a high degree of unity among aesthetic value, practical function, and structural safety. It not only perfectly met the spatial coordination requirements of the campus’s “dual-axis layout” but also provided replicable technical experience for the construction of similar super-large-scale buildings in the future, highlighting the core role of digital simulation in solving complex structural design challenges.

II. Ecological Control Stage: Multi-Dimensional Simulation Creates a “Quantifiable” Green Campus

During the ecological control stage, digital simulation technology transforms green concepts from abstract ideas into perceptible and quantifiable campus scenarios. Relying on the three-layer structure of “natural terrain layer, low-rise building layer, and roof grid layer,” the research institute has built a campus ecosystem characterized by “low energy consumption, high ecology, and recyclability” through multi-dimensional simulations of sunlight, vegetation, rainwater, and pedestrian flow, ensuring that every green design is supported by data.

(I) Pedestrian Flow Simulation: Optimizing Traffic Efficiency of the “Dual-Axis Layout”

The north-south academic axis of the campus converges the core teaching and research buildings, while the east-west landscape axis connects green spaces and walkways. The central plaza at the intersection of these two axes serves as the pedestrian hub. Through pedestrian flow simulation, the design team modeled changes in crowd density during different periods—such as class hours, lunch breaks, and nighttime research activities—and found that the initial walkway width was prone to congestion during peak class transition times. The original walkway was designed to be 3 meters wide. In the simulation of the 8:00 a.m. peak class period, “congestion hotspots” appeared on the route from the central plaza to the teaching buildings, with pedestrian flow speed at only 0.8 meters per second, requiring 12 minutes to reach the destination. After optimization, the walkway was widened to 4.5 meters, and two additional diversion paths were added. When the simulation was run again, the congestion hotspots completely disappeared, pedestrian flow speed increased to 1.5 meters per second, and it took only 6 minutes for faculty and students to reach their classrooms. The “rush-hour anxiety” during morning and evening peaks was thoroughly alleviated, ultimately achieving efficient circulation across all functional zones while preserving the landscape experience of “changing views with every step.”

(II) Energy Consumption and Vegetation Simulation: Climate-Adapted Energy-Efficient Design

Given Hangzhou’s humid subtropical climate, the design team employed energy consumption simulation to compare the natural light utilization and natural ventilation conditions of different building orientations. The main orientation of the teaching and research buildings was optimized to 15° east of south, reducing daytime artificial lighting energy consumption by 30%. Concurrently, through vegetation ecological simulation, the team selected species such as camphor, osmanthus, and weeping willow—native trees with high shading efficiency and strong carbon sequestration capacity—from over a dozen local tree species. These were arranged into multi-layered plant communities, which, combined with campus water features such as islands and canals, created a pleasant microclimate. In summer, the average campus temperature is 2–3°C lower than that of the surrounding area. Every midsummer, the temperature in Hangzhou’s main urban area often exceeds 35°C, but upon entering the campus, under the intertwined camphor and osmanthus tree-lined avenues, a gentle breeze blows, and the perceived temperature is noticeably cooler. Measured data show that the average temperature on campus is 2.8°C lower than that on the roads outside. During lunch breaks, many faculty and students bring books to sit in the shade by the river, enjoying the coolness of the natural breeze while avoiding direct sunlight. “You can study comfortably without having to hide in an air-conditioned room” has become the most direct evaluation of the campus ecology by faculty and students.

(III) Rainwater Simulation: Practicing the Sponge City Concept

Based on Hangzhou’s annual rainfall distribution data, the design team simulated the flow rate and loss of rainwater within the campus pipe network, optimizing the layout of sedimentation tanks, filtration tanks, and the recycling pipeline network. They designed a complete pathway of “rooftop rainwater collection—courtyard infiltration—underground water storage.” After simulation verification and actual implementation, the campus achieved an annual total runoff control rate of 82% and a comprehensive SS (suspended solids) removal rate of 45%. The recovered water resources can meet 30% of the campus’s annual greening irrigation needs and 20% of its toilet flushing demands, thereby realizing the recycling of water resources.

III. Operation and Maintenance Management Phase: Digital Twin, Driving Smart Campus O&M Upgrades

After the campus was put into use, digital simulation technology was deeply integrated with BIM and IoT technologies to create a digital twin campus, establishing a full-process O&M system of “everything interconnected—data integration—intelligent control,” enabling more refined management and faster response.

Nearly 40,000 IoT sensor devices, 2,600 cameras, and 6,000 card-code-face recognition devices on campus are uniformly connected. Based on a VxLAN-based SDN network architecture, dedicated networks for teaching, management, and IoT are partitioned to ensure secure and efficient data transmission. The core creation is the smart operations cockpit, which presents the overall campus space in real time through a digital twin, monitoring key information such as equipment O&M status, water and electricity energy consumption, and security dynamics. On the evening of March 12, 2024, the system suddenly issued a yellow alert: the power consumption curve on the third floor of the research building showed an abnormal rise, clearly indicating that an air conditioner in a certain laboratory had been running continuously for 28 hours, with the indoor temperature stable at 22°C (the threshold set for unoccupied nighttime hours was 26°C). When O&M personnel received the alert via the mobile app, it was accompanied by the laboratory’s location, the air conditioner’s ID number, and a remote shutdown button. The issue was resolved within 15 minutes, preventing energy waste. At the same time, for abnormal situations such as perimeter alarms and speeding violations, the system can also automatically issue alerts and quickly dispatch responses, replacing the traditional manual inspection model and improving O&M efficiency by 60%.

In addition, the data hub aggregates over ten million data entries from nearly 800 data tables and 12,000 data fields, providing support for the optimization of operation and maintenance strategies. The establishment of the Beijing-Hangzhou dedicated line has enabled network interconnection and authentication interoperability between the main campus and the Hangzhou campus, strengthening cross-regional operation and maintenance collaboration. Digital simulation technology has shifted campus operation and maintenance from “passive response” to “active prediction,” significantly reducing operation and maintenance costs and ensuring the long-term stable operation of the campus.

From the safe implementation of the “flying roof” to the precise construction of the green campus, and then to the efficient operation of smart operation and maintenance, digital simulation technology has run through the entire life cycle of the buildings at Beihang Hangzhou International Campus. These vivid practical cases have not only shaped a distinctive campus landscape characterized by “dialogue between history and the future, and integration of academia and industry,” but have also demonstrated the broad application value of digital simulation technology in the construction and management of large-scale campuses, providing replicable practical models for the full life cycle construction of similar campuses.

About the Author

Wang Meng

Postgraduate Student, International Simulation Technology Science and Innovation Center, Hangzhou International Innovation Institute of Beihang University