Business Services Industry

New South Wales Department of Commerce Wins BE Award; Concept Master Plan for the Dee Why Town Center Named Top Project in ''Building: BIM for Simulation and Visualization'' Category

Business Wire, March 22, 2006

EXTON, Pa. -- The NSW Department of Commerce, a government agency of New South Wales, Australia, has won a BE Award for its concept master plan for the Dee Why Town Center. The award category was "Building: BIM for Simulation and Visualization."

The BE Awards of Excellence, which are selected by an independent jury of industry experts and presented at an evening ceremony during the annual BE Conference (www.be.org), honor the extraordinary work of Bentley users improving the world's infrastructure. These projects set benchmarks for their industries, and showcase the imagination and technical mastery of the organizations that created them.

Dee Why is home to about 135,000 residents. It covers 153 square kilometers and supports diverse land uses including low-density rural residential areas, medium-density town centers, commercial and retail areas, and light industry.

The Warringah Council engaged the Government Architect's Office to prepare a concept master plan for the Dee Why Town Center. The goal was to develop a vision for the city center as a vibrant, attractive place to work, live, and shop. The master plan was developed over a five-month period with landowners to ensure an economically viable outcome could be achieved.

The decision to use Bentley building information modeling (BIM) software for the design work was based on past experience. "My organization has been using Bentley technology for close to 20 years," said Arthur Farmakis of the NSW Department of Commerce. "During this time, we have had a very stable and reliable environment that has delivered consistent and productive solutions without restraining or limiting the creativity of our designers."

The project involved the use of MicroStation and Bentley Architecture for 3D modeling, visualization, and animation of the town center. The models were generated from constantly changing guidelines, and the workflow and production cycles between the design team and the visualization team were complex.

The ability to work in the single Bentley software environment for modeling, visualization, and animation simplified workflows, allowing ideas to be quickly tested and developed without being restricted by the technology. Extensive use of reference files and models allowed the team to organize and manage the large amount of modeling data generated during this project.

For more information on the NSW Department of Commerce's winning project and all of the other BE Award projects, visit www.be.org/2005beawardwinners. For more information on the Bentley products used in this project, visit www.bentley.com/en-US/Markets/Building and www.bentley.com/bim.> About NSW Department of Commerce

The NSW Department of Commerce is a government agency of New South Wales, Australia. Its role is to make doing business in New South Wales simple, accessible, and fair for employees, consumers, and industry while providing best value for government. The department comprises five offices: Office of Fair Trading, Office of Industrial Relations, Office of Public Works & Services, NSW Procurement, and Government Chief Information Office. For more information, visit www.commerce.nsw.gov.au.

About the BE Conference

The BE Conference, which consistently scores a 99 percent attendee satisfaction rating, is a once-a-year learning opportunity for Bentley users and their managers offering professional training, technology updates, keynotes, and best practice sharing. At these sessions, attendees better themselves, better their organizations, and better the ways they can improve the world's infrastructure.

To pre-register for BE Conference 2006, being held May 21-25 in Charlotte, N.C., go to www.be.org/preregister.> About Bentley

Bentley Systems, Incorporated provides software for the lifecycle of the world's infrastructure. The company's comprehensive portfolio for the building, plant, civil, and geospatial verticals spans architecture, engineering, construction (AEC) and operations. With 2004 revenues exceeding $300 million, Bentley is the leading provider of AEC software to the Engineering News-Record Design 500 and major owner-operators.

To receive Bentley press releases as they are issued, visit www.bentley.com/bentleywire. For more information, visit www.bentley.com. To view a copy of Bentley's June 2005 Annual Report online, go to www.bentley.com/june2005annualreport.> Bentley, the "B" logo, BE, BE Awards of Excellence, MicroStation, and Bentley Architecture are either registered or unregistered trademarks or service marks of Bentley Systems, Incorporated or one of its direct or indirect wholly-owned subsidiaries. Other brands and product names are trademarks of their respective owners.