Photo: Nyréns

Agnes kulturhus, Gävle, Sweden

Fire Consultant: Briab – Brand & Riskingenjörerna AB
Contractor: NCC
Architect: Nyréns Architects

Agnes kulturhus in Gävle is the construction of the city’s new cultural centre, with services such as city ​​library, art gallery, auditorium, café, movie theaters and areas for creative creation and study.

The Story

The chosen fire engineer of Agnes kulturhus is Briab, Sweden based fire consultancy with almost 20 years experience of fire and risk. Briab is also a changemaker within digital fire safety and BIM. Architect is Nyréns and the design of the new building will blend well into the surroundings with a modern touch regarding shape, colour and material.

The Project

The fire design of Agnes kulturhus by Briab has been designed with the help of 3D-modelling. This project was advanced in terms of fire technology with several connected planes, sprinkler systems, fire alarms and other technical aspects. When Briab first was contacted, the client first and foremost wanted to recieve fire classes on doors in BIMEYE. However, when they were showed what could be done with BIM the client wanted to explore the possibilities further. 

BIM Advantages

Andreas Johansson is fire consultant and project manager at Briab. He emphasizes the importance of working with BIM-integrated design in more advanced projects. 

BIM helps when we are working with issues such as door specification sheets, not only fire rating requirements but other parameters such as minimum free passage, fitting requirements and ability to re-enter. It is important to have a clear set of requirements around this as doors are a complicated part of the design.

Working with BIM gives us a much higher level of control of our fire data and clash detection becomes significantly smoother. For example, construction documents get the opportunity to include our fire parameters in the VDC coordination. This makes the process much simpler and is highly appreciated by the architects.

More about Agnes kulturhus

The goal of the new culture- and education centre is to create a central meeting place for various forms of culture and learning. As the population of Gävle grows the city has found a need to expand their services in these areas.

The new centre is expected to be completed by the end of 2023. The cost will be about SEK 400 million. Of these, 370 million are budgeted for construction and 30 million for equipment.

Agnes kulturhus, or “Agnes’ Culture Centre” is named after Agnes von Krusenstjerna, a famous author who depicted the life in turn of the century Gävle. Especially her novel series Poor Nobility has been highlited as an important piece of work that illustrates the lives of women at the start of the 20th century.