BIMania

Up for grabs

2008-09-06T14:14:00.000-07:00

After almost half a year without posting, I have come to the conclusion that it will not be possible to maintain all my blogs.

This one is going to sink.

So, if there is someone out there willing to carry on the torch, give me a whistle.

If not, it has been a pleasure.

Miguel Krippahl

Have to read those two

2008-02-18T07:29:00.000-08:00

Two fundamental papers for understanding BIM and the way it is going:

"The National Building Information Model Standard™ (NBIMS) is a key element to building industry transformation. NBIMS establishes standard definitions for building information exchanges to support critical business contexts using standard semantics and ontologies. Implemented in software, the Standard will form the basis for the accurate and efficient communication and commerce that are needed by the building industry and essential to industry transformations. Among other benefits, the Standard will help all participants in facilities-related processes achieve more reliable outcomes from commercial agreements."

Another essential paper is the Integrated Project Delivery Guide, by the AIA.

" Integrated Project Delivery leverages early contributions of knowledge and expertise through the utilization of new technologies, allowing all team members to better realize their highest potentials while expanding the value they provide throughout the project lifecycle.
This Integrated Project Delivery Guide (jointly developed by AIA’s Contract Documents Committee and the AIA California Council) is offered as a tool to assist owners, designers and builders to move toward integrated models and improved design, construction and operations processes. The goal of the Guide is to identify the characteristics of IPD and to provide specific information and guidance on how to utilize IPD methods to achieve enhanced design, construction and operations processes."

Lots of good stuff here...

A smart move

2008-01-08T00:56:00.001-08:00

I have been following Laura´s (BIM)x blog since the beginning.

She has been reporting on the implementation of BIM in a big construction company (Tocci).

Her blog has been very instructive, and was probably one of the main reasons I got interested in BIM for construction purposes.

Her most recent post refers to the (apparently unsurmountable) difficulties they have been experiencing over the implementation of Revit in this context.

They will now try out Graphisoft/Vico and Bentley, to see if these products can do what they need.

One of two things will happen: Either there is a better software out there, and Tocci lost some thousands of hours of work because they just let themselves be led by the vendor´s hype, or there exists no software to implement BIM on the construction level.

Either way, the outcome will be most interesting, and my fervent hope is that Laura continues to generously share her experience with us.

Trends

2008-01-04T06:30:00.000-08:00

Have been missing for 3 month now, on account of various stuff.
Hopefully I'll be back and blogging real soon.
But I had to share this with you: Google Trends applied to BIM (or to some comercial softwares selling BIM).
Interesting...

Of BIM and Paper

2007-10-08T01:00:00.000-07:00

One of BIM big promises is the end of paper.

The end of paper as in our project being a tri dimensional data base, where all the relevant information resides in the virtual model.

Actually, nowadays we have about the same situation we had a couple of years ago with text processing. Everybody thought digital text would make paper obsolete, when in fact it produced an enormous increase of paper consumption.

One of the main reasons for this happening is that most people where used to reading text on paper, having no training in reading it on screen. It was common on those days to print out a text just to make sense of it.

Hypertext changed this attitude, by being a much richer medium than analogical text, therefore, inadequate do be printed out without loosing information. Seldom nowadays are people unable to read text on a computer screen, or even having to print out their own text for error verification.

A good example is e-mail. Everyone has a vast e-mail archive, but rarely do we go to the trouble of printing a message.

What seemed unthinkable a few years ago – the existence of text in a exclusive digital format – is now reality.

As for projects, things are moving in the same direction. At the beginning, when CAD drawing where mere reproductions of their paper cousins, their ultimate goal was to be printed. Bits wanted to be atoms.

In the digital modelling advent euphoria, more than 25 years ago (the term BIM has 5 years, but many of us did it tens of years before it got coined that way), many thought paper was going to vanish from the architecture office.

A bit like with texts, paper drawings not only did not disappear, but increased exponentially. Nobody accepted drawings or models in digital format, demanding everything plotted out and, eventually, some CAD files to go into de CD archives.
But the virtual model, like hyper-text, is much richer than its printed part.
Frustration exists for those who use the virtual model as their work basis. Never, anybody, in any circumstance, asked me for the virtual model. I still have to produce all those meticulous drawings, plans, elevations, sections, constructive details, even when all that information is already in the model.

What will it feel like when, some day, a client asks me “only” for the tri dimensional model, not wanting any drawing? How much unnecessary work will be saved? How much easier will it be to interpret the project on site?

I know that this will not happen soon, but my hope is that, as with the written word, change will be gradual and imperceptible, and one day we will realize paper is gone.

Can you see where this is going?

2007-06-26T08:03:00.000-07:00

Can you see where this is going?
Do you realize what this will mean to us?
I can.

Student´s work

2007-06-14T02:55:00.000-07:00

I have been busy with final evaluations at the university, so there has been little time for blogging.

To compensate, I leave here 3 works done by my students.

Once again, the pupils exceed the master...

Second Life 01

2007-05-28T01:23:00.001-07:00

At 10.00 AM PST the 29th of May (I think that is 18.00 GMT), there will be held at the Autodesk island in second life a conference about Using Second Life as Part of Your Architectural Practice.

Architect Keystone Bouchard will talk about issues related with the use of the SL platform ( 'platform' and not 'game') as a complement to the architect's practice.

This is the SLurl.

If you are not a SL resident, you will have to register and download the software here.

You can also learn a bit more about this event here.

As for the BIM/Second Life connection, I am working on it. Probably will post something about it soon :)

BIM and Education

2007-05-01T02:09:00.000-07:00

This specific exercise was carried through at the 3^rd year level of the architectural course I teach in.

The students received a theoretical program that consisted of a fictitious schematic allotment, where each student would assemble a habitation.

The only design constrains where the implantation polygon and the maximum height of the buildings.

The semester was divided in two parts, being the first half dedicated to the conception phase and the second pertaining documentation production.

As a design methodology, pupils where discouraged (but not forbidden) to use any analogical support.

The purpose was that ideas would be developed exclusively in a virtual environment, and that the design options would be registered by the evolution of shapes and solutions.

The determinative factor of this exercise was that each project, although individually developed, resided on a common database.

Through ArchiCAD, a file was created with all the necessary templates, layers, stories heights, pens, materials, etc.

Each student had his own allotment and layer combination.

As all the Architecture Laboratory computers are connected through a net, each student worked in a local copy, making frequent uploads to the central file, downloading the colleagues work left there.

Hence we had all students working simultaneously on a common data base.

As predicted, development of individual design influenced each other, as the work got along.

It was thus possible to create unique operational conditions - 14 students working on one same virtual space, influencing themselves mutually in real time - only feasible trough the employment of information technologies.

This exercise, besides simulating and stimulating collaborative work, intended to demonstrate that the concept of digital databases applied to architectural design necessarily means a redefinition in the methodologies.

In the second half of the semester each student developed his project independently, into the documentation phase, with automatic generation of drawings from the model – floor plans, sections, elevations, details, perspectives and quantity takeoffs.

A BIM example

2007-04-05T02:37:00.000-07:00

Not wanting to be criticised for being to theoretical, this video was made directly from a 3d model, from where i also extracted all the technical drawings and numerical data.

It is an entry for a design competition over a elementary school in Seia, Portugal.

It represents about 3 weeks of intensive work, one person.

Of BIM and renderings

2007-02-24T09:10:00.000-08:00

Confusion between BIM and renderings is frequent. Mainly by it’s detractors, BIM is normally pointed out as being only a method of rendering production, fit for mass consumption.

This comparison can only be based on ignorance.

If there is something for which the BIM is not suited, it would certainly be for producing synthetic images.

The integrated model (virtual building) that we develop aims to:

Automatic drawings production
As such, it has to incorporate two-dimensional graphical information, for example wall contents in plan, and textual information, for example legends.

Thermal, acoustic, solar and safety verification, to mention but a few
To be able to test our model, we have to input all the data, like inertia and thermal resistance of the materials, weight, fire classes and many others.

Compatibility between specialties
To guarantee that all the specialties coexist in the same model, without colliding, we have to shape everything that one sees and that is not seen, for example structure, electric and water nets, HVAC, etc.

Quantity takeoffs
To extract from our model quantity takeoffs, we have that to introduce unitary prices.

All the above mentioned information has no utility to produce renderings. Such images do not need prices, thermal resistance, pipes and sewer, dimensioning, and a lot of other basic data resident in our BIM model.

Thus, to use BIM modelling methodology to produce renderings would be a nonsense, a waste of time.

Also, to reduce BIM to renderings presentation is, at the very least, fruit of an enormous ignorance.

Now just to cloud the issue: Despite BIM modelling not being suited for rendering production, that does not mean that we can not use our BIM model to extract photo realistic images from it.

After all, although architecture’s aim is not to make pretty images (hopefully), that does not mean we can not photograph buildings.

I have a dream...

2007-01-20T11:27:00.000-08:00

After more than seven years of intensive experience with BIM as an architect, I live in hope that software manufacturers will fulfil their promises for a brighter future.

One of those promises, perhaps the one that has seduced me the most, is of the instant budget, in real time, as your project is being shaped.

At each moment, for each insertion of each element, software adds partial costs and, in a simple window, shows the result.

Imagine the impact that this small window would have on architectural design, on construction itself.

The drawing is here. All you gentlemen programmers have to do is to build the code, if you please.

A matter of faith

2006-12-10T10:59:00.000-08:00

One of the biggest problems that the implementation of the BIM in the architecture cabinets raises is the choice of software.

Until recently, the brand of the tools used by architects was irrelevant.

Faber, Caran D'Ache or Pentel pencils, Rotring or Staedtler pens, the final result depended little on these personal preferences.

With the advent of the CAD everything changed. The choice of brand became decisive for the success of the cabinet. And, as it often happens, the majority of the architects did not choose what was more adequate, but what was more popular.

The situation was such that the majority of the converted did not even feel the need to test other software.

With BIM, things where again different.

The giant Autodesk did not have a product especially designed for the production of the Virtual Building, having acquired in 2000 the newly created Revit. But in this market other companies with strong tradition in this technology already existed, like Graphisoft and Bentley. Thus we have been witnessing rising commercial hostilities between the manufacturers.

Excellent for us users, for we have only to gain with the competition and to lose with monopolies.

But it is not the comparison between software that interests me, but the mechanism that takes each one of us to adopt, and especially to defend, his BIM software of election. Mine is ArchiCAD, for personal and circumstantial reasons. But it could be any other.

I work with it an average 8 hours per day, 5 days per week, for more than 6 years.

So I find it more than natural that, after thousands of working hours, to have developed a feeling for the program that resembles affection.

Otherwise, I would have destroyed my computer innumerable times.

I do not doubt that it is the same with other users, of other BIM softwares.

From what I have seen and heard, ArchiCAD users are as fanatic as Revit or Bentley ones.

I have also never known a top user of two competing programs. An Archicad Guru does not know Revit in the same depth.

What interests me here is the characterization of this feeling that each one of us nourishes for the software we use.

In certain aspects it comes close to the feelings that we have for our private partners, for our soccer club, our country, for our religion.

It is exclusive and irrational.

No matter how much we try to convince others (and ourselves) that we are totally opened to change our opinion, to compare our software with others in an exempt way, the fact is that we are biased in this comparison, focusing always on the virtues of ours and the defects of others.

It reminds me of a debate between representatives of some religions that I attended recently. All of them, in keeping with the spirit of the "ecumenical dialogue" so en vogue nowadays, deeply respected the religion of the others, considering that there is more than one way to reach God.

But, when confronted with the undeniable fact that, by definition, only one can be the true religion, being all the other false, every one of them sincerely believed his was the true one.

We have one or more mechanisms in our brain that allow us to firmly believe an exclusive truth.

As in religion, soccer clubs, political parties or BIM software.

To ignore this mechanism is to deceive ourselves, and become prey to the marketing of software manufacturers.

interoperacio… interoperabicio… interoperacionabi…

2006-11-26T07:10:00.000-08:00

One of the big changes introduced by BIM on the design of buildings is interoperacio… interoperabicio… interoperacionabi… collaborative design.

Traditionally, a Project goes trough various stages and intervenients.

From the topography’s survey, the architect’s design, structural and building services engineers, cost estimators and construction managers, each project has it’s own multi-disciplinary team.

The traditional method, inherited from the analogical practice, puts each speciality on a given timeframe of the project, receiving work from former intervenient and passing it along to later ones.

The so called “those who come next will fix it”.

Basically, errors and omissions get passed along, on the general hope someone will detect and fix them.

Each specialist takes responsibility only for his piece of work, without worrying excessively with it’s compatibility.

Traditionally, project coordination goes to the architect, at least in theory. With the ever growing complexity of the structural and building services, the architect rarely has the knowledge or the time to really coordinate the whole project.

The speed that projects have to be done nowadays make them more a assembly line and less a team work.

Thus, problems detected at a later stage (p.e. collisions between architecture and HVAC) are extremely difficult to solve in the project’s schedule.

The three-dimensional model of our building, linked to a material database, shared by all the intervenient, purposes to solve this problem.

The objective is that all the elements of the design team will share a single data base, in constant improvement. The architect’s work, from the early stage of development, will be accessible to the engineers, allowing them to help in the search for solutions. All the projects will be correlated, insuring total compatibility. Authorship will be shared by all, as will responsibility.

Sounds great, no?

Of course, for this pink scenario to be reality, several hurdles will have to be surmounted:

- The architect won’t relinquish his prestigious coordinator role.
- Nobody is really set on saving the client’s money. All those extras that designers receive from construction material companies (voyages, abatements, work publications and even money) could be jeopardized if decisions are more transparent.
- Nobody wants to assume responsibility.
- Nobody wants to share his work.
- Nobody wants to submit his work to criticism.
- Nobody really knows how to work in a team.

Of course, most of these problems depend on the designer’s civic education, but professional education also has a big role in the acceptance or rejection of the BIM model.

As an example, we can see the work done by Jim Plume at the University of South Wales, as witnessed in his recent presentation in Lisbon.

Students of various courses like planning, architecture, structural and building services engineers, interior design, construction management, cost estimators, sustainability designers and landscape architects cooperate on a same project, simulating (what should be) the real world.

If we think how Portuguese universities work, closed up in each little backyard, it is easy to see our reality is very different.

For all these reasons, I believe implementing interoperability will be much harder than spelling the word.

The Easy Way

2006-11-19T05:48:00.001-08:00

Nobody doubts that BIM adoption by designers has multiple advantages over traditional CAD.

Like the former passage from RAD (Rotring Aided Design) to CAD translated into an evolution in work methods, CAD to BIM will increase design office productivity.

Projects will be done in less time, with less errors, more precision, more adequate to schedule and clients, on the whole better project quality.

This increase in project quality represents also an increase in architecture quality. While architecture is not exhausted in the project, increase of project quality reflects in the architecture itself.

This being said, I would like to demystify some emerging concepts.

The one that brings me to the computer today is this: Designing in BIM is easier than designing in CAD.

Nothing could be further from truth.

Only one who never designed in a BIM environment could say something like that. As a matter of fact, this “accusation” usually comes from people that never worked with BIM tools, or even CAD tools, and think that the alleged easiness that comes from developing a project in virtual format is such that the architect looses a significant part of his creativity.

For those who, like me, have been adventuring into the uncharted territory of BIM in architectural design, it is obvious that there is a significant increase in effort and work.

That effort comes, firstly, from the necessity of solid construction knowledge and experience. It is impossible to develop a digital building that aspires to be a faithful reproduction of reality if you don’t know how buildings are built.

Then we have the ability to handle complex digital tools. BIM software, which is still in an infant stage, is of enormous complexity, and demands discipline, speed of use, and considerable knowledge of computers.

Finally we have the Project concept itself. While CAD consisted of mere RAD reproduction in digital environment, keeping the temporal structure of projects – from program to management – BIM tends to mix the intermediate phases, demanding from the designer a holistic vision of the whole construction process. Thus it becomes possible – and desirable – to design details from early stages, but also possible – and desirable – to make major design changes on later stages.

These heightened difficulties are obviously compensated by all the advantages that the tool provides, like speed, accuracy and quality.

But this increase of project production complexity means that architects will have to learn new competencies, adapt their production methods, if they want to retain what is rightfully theirs: Architecture productions.

The interface

2006-11-06T06:49:00.000-08:00

I believe that the computer/user interface is one of the main reason digital design has evolved so little in the last 20 years.

I have written about this here and here

Still, whenever I talk about interface, architects look at me sideways, as if thinking that I am not in the real world, not tuned to today's problems.

Once I talked to Graphisoft (ArchiCAD developers) about interface improvement, and they simply asked me "Will there be a market for that?".

That's a good question. How the hell should I know?

I believe, as designers, we should MAKE that market. We should demand a better interface from them, because clearly the mouse /keyboard is not adequate.

For those who think I am a dreamer, please see what these gentelmen are doing.

While you are at it, also take a peek at this.

Evolve or die

2006-10-30T00:55:00.000-08:00

One of the recurrent themes whenever I talk to an architect about BIM, and IT applied to architecture in general, is that “Computers are inadequate tools for architecture”.

Whether trough the “pencil as a brain extension” argument, or others like “computers are too precise”, “creative thinking takes time”, “you can not feel scale on a computer screen” and many more, architects in general offer great resistance on incorporating computers into their design process.

What they often fail to realize is that architects are currently in risk of becoming inadequate for computers.

Worse, architecture itself could become inadequate for computers.

We tend to think of our profession as immutable. After all, architects as we know them have been around for more than five centuries.

But we forget that architects themselves replaced older professions, like the master builder.

With the advent of technological improvements (perspective, plans and section representation) and social evolution (the nobility taking over the process) the design of buildings was transfered from construction site to office.

But the conversion was not linear. Master builders did not recicle into architects. They got extinct.

This is a lesson that should be kept in mind, now that modern architects face a new technological (computers, industrialisation) and sociological (democratization of architecture) revolution.

There are many things in this brave new world that architects just don´t know how to handle:

Industrialization. Unlike other areas (cars, furniture, clothings) architecture is still to be truly industrialized. When this happens, we are ill trained to deal with it.
Public opinion. Architecture is now a field where everybody has an opinion. We don´t like this. We would like to remain aloft.
Information technology. Unlike engineers, architecture descents from the beaus art schools, therefore highly suspicious on technology. We are in big pains on integrating computers into our practice.
Decreasing importance of architecture in the whole building context. As buildings incorporate more and more technology, architecture could eventually loose it’s leading role in the building process. We do not like this, because we see ourselves as having the leading role in the design team.

Of course these problems don’t appeal to us. We want to create ART, and not loose our precious time with all this side issues. Things have been working fine for hundreds of years, so why fix them? Right?

Wrong!

Regardless of architects opinion, thing are changing.

The building industry, one of the less industrialised industries (!) is starting to pick up, and there will be a ever growing demand on digital designers. People that are able to deliver properly build virtual buildings, that are able to understand the needs of the market.

If architects don´t do it, somebody else will.

I fear that, as architects are trying hard to ignore the problem, things will certainly overtake us, and render us extinct.

Where are those Blogs?

2006-10-20T05:50:00.000-07:00

I have been doing some extensive search on BIM (or VB) blogs, and found out this:

- There is NOT ONE blog done by ArchiCAD users about BIM (besides mine).
- There are dozens, maybe hundreds of blogs on BIM done by Revit users.

This got me a bit upset.

My first reaction was, hey, these blogs must be in some way produced or sponsored by Autodesk. And sure enough, some of them (most?) seem to be.

But there are also blogs that wellcome different opinions, like RobiNZ's , so my former theory lacks proof.

Besides, why are there NO archiCAD blogs?

I can only think of one explanation:

1- The vast majority of ArchiCAD users are "oldies", for whom blogging is an alien concept, and
2- The vast majority of Revit users are "newbies" for whom blogging is second nature.

If this is true, boy oh boy are we in trouble...

Care to prove me wrong?

ArchiCAD 18

2006-10-19T00:57:00.000-07:00

Despite London traffic, I managed to arrive at the office at 9.00 sharp. The email I received on my mobile yesterday asked me to be at the building site at 14.30 local time, so I had about 30 minutes to get there.

After checking all my mail, I phoned Betty, just to be sure she would also be there. She was staying at home today, and told me she already was at the site since 5.00, doing some last minute changes.

Activating all the sensors, I donned the spectacles, and let myself get immersed in the system. It was a beautiful afternoon in São Paulo, with that special light that comes after a cleaning rainfall. As I entered the building, I saw that Betty was in animated conversation with the Santos couple.

Having said hello to everybody (no handshake or kisses - yet), we got right down to business. Apparently Teresa Santos had been fooling around with the living room ceiling last night. She had seen in some magazine a domed ceiling, so she had tried to modify it, with disastrous results. Betty was trying to explain that it was impossible to curve the ceiling, as we had the boys bedroom over it. After some shoving around with the walls and the windows, we managed to extract the living room from the main volume of the house, thus enabling us to provide the much desired domed ceiling.

Thinking it would be a good idea to have an specialist present at this point, I asked our engineer Gunter from Germany to come over and have a look at the ceiling.

Having gotten her way, Teresa was in animated discussion with what I presumed was a furniture salesman that had arrived recently at the site. They where testing some couches and tables, changing and dragging them all over the place. The salesman had almost no facial and body expressions, so I presumed it was a local firm, riding on a low band connection. Reminded me of the software we had to work some 10 years ago, where our avatars glided trough space without moving their legs or arms, went straight through walls, and only had 4 or 5 preset facial expressions.

Nowadays we had the new VRF009, installed right into our web cams, that read every movement of our bodies, including lips, eyes and ears (really, I tried to move my ears once and my avatar duplicated the movements, to much surprise of my clients).

The salesman seemed to be off balance, which probably meant that he was using one of those old head mounted displays, that always showed a small delay between the head movement and the image it displays.

After making sure that our junior architect and Gunter where managing the situation, I came outside to have a look. The house was building up quite well. Although there was still little definition on the materials, the retro 90s look did fit well into the neighbourhood background. On the lawn there where 4 swimming pools side by side, left there by a company for the Santos choose one. On housing projects, we usualy let the clients pick the swimming pool, so I was not very worried if it was going to be rectangular or kidney shaped.

This is when I noticed that the horizon was particularly pixilated today. At a 2 mile distance, São Paulo landscape started to loose definition. This could only mean that someone at the office was taxing our system quite heavily, so I got curious. After a quick search, I discovered that about 20% of the computers resources where being drained into our Bejin project.

So I took a jump there. Beeing a senior architect has its advantages, and one of them is that I am allowed to drop in almost any project.

It was night at the new Beijin concert hall was wholly illuminated. One of our team members told me that they where testing acoustic and light conditions, so I went right into the main auditorium. The orchestra was playing some Beethoven, and the 800 seats where about half filled with grey simple avatars. Mei Ling, the head engineer of the acoustic team, was moving the ceilings around, while his technicians where reading the output from some giant monitors placed on stage. There was a couple of Chinese man in suits, which I suppose where representing the client, that where helping Mei place the 1000 plus square foot curved panels, arranging them so they would dampen sound in the right way.

This was being supervised by Damien, the head architect of the project, who would probably be still at home recovering from that nasty car accident. He informed me that the project was in its final stage, doing the last tune ups, and they would start producing all the technical drawings next week, since construction was programmed to begin in a fortnight.

Cheking my watch, I saw there was still half an hour to kill till lunch, so I decided to take a peek at what the Rashid team was up to. I found them at the Berliener Computer Virtual Museum project.

This is our newest team, dedicated solely to VR jobs. They don't build any real structures. Everything they do is Virtual, like this project, so they tend to use young architects fresh out of school.

As I walk into the museum, the first thing that strikes me is that there is no up or down. People, walls, grids, are all over the place, most of them moving smoothly around. There is a cluster of architects in what I could call the main hall. They are bend over a scale model of the whole museum, and I glimpse inside this model a representation of me , 2 inches tall, looking at a cluster of people around what seems a tiny model.

This new generation is quite different from mine. They think differently. Whenever they need to develop a idea, they just start building. I never saw one of them do a sketch or a drawing. As a matter of fact, I never saw one of them period. Some of them work from home, wherever that is, and most of them just wear their computers, and stroll around while they work. It is said that they are starting to implant some hardware into their bodies. Apart from being illegal, I really can't imagine myself physically connected to a chip, even if it gave me much greater memory capacity…

But then, I’m an old architect. My first computer was a ZX81. I tried to keep up with the professions evolution. We where one of the first British offices to use ArchiCAD, then running on a Mac platform (when we still knew which operating system we where using). I really was into the virtual building idea, and when most of the offices where still using 2D software, we where making the jump into Virtual reality space.

Around 2014 we converted the whole office into VR. At first this was difficult, because the hardware was expensive and cumbersome. I still remember our first cave, where 5 or 6 persons would squeeze into a 10 foot cube, wearing big heavy spectacles and brandishing our wands around. Clients would come to our office to immerse themselves into this 3D environment and our way of doing architecture gradually changed.

Formerly, architects used to do their work alone in their offices, and would present it in stages to the client, who made little or no contribution to the creative work. These young architects find this hard to belive, how could we possibly work without the clients at our side. But I guess this change was the main reason why so many architects ceased to practice. It was a difficult adaptation to new working methods but for those of us who made the effort it was worth it.

Looking at the museum, I realize that despite all my efforts to keep up, this next generations does things I cant even imagine. In another couple of years I will retire, and enjoy my grandchildren while they are still young. Well, I’m off to lunch now. I have a lunch meeting with a possible client. A real lunch.
VR will get you only this far…

Miguel Krippahl 2006

The “pencil as a brain extension” BS

2006-10-09T00:55:00.000-07:00

Whenever I talk to a senior architect about BIM (senior being older than 40), the “pencil as a brain extension” argument crops up.

According to this theory, the architect designs using the pencil (and to a lesser extent the physical model) to draft solutions, and trough this line over line process, sometimes intentionally others by chance, the architectural solution emerges.

This method allows (allegedly) the creative subconscious to integrate all the problems data and, free from the rational side of the brain (left or right, I tend to forget which), creates ART.

This argument is used to point out the computer limitations, as a design tool, on account of it´s absolute precision, leaving no room for chance and subconscious.

Pardon me for putting it this way, but this sounds like bullshit.

That architects who defends this method thinks this is the only way THEY can be creative, this I accept. To each his own, and if someone thinks his creativeness depends on going barefoot, hearing to Bach or eating a tuna sandwich, thats his problem.

But to state, dogmatically, that designing with a pencil in your hand is The Best way to do it, demands evidence.

As far as I know, there is no proof in neurological or behaviour sciences pointing to a physical or procedural part of our brain with pencil using propensity.

Especially when creating tree dimensional spaces, therefore less apt to be represented bi dimensionally.

It is plain for me that a architectural idea is tridimensional, and it is processed by the brain (and not by the hand or the “hearth” or the “soul”). The pencil is used to give body and form to this idea, helping the designer to gradually focus his attention on each relevant section.

But this pencil, with all its limitations as an imprecise and two-dimensional vehicle, is not by far an adequate tool for expressing three-dimensional ideas.

It has been, for the last 500 years, lacking a better one.

I can even imagine that if it where as easy to do three-dimensional physical models as it is to draft with a pencil, models would be used from the first phase of a project, on account of being much closer to the ideas that develops in our brain.

For these reasons it seems obvious to me that the virtual model replaces the pencil with enormous advantages. It allows us to explore alternative designs in real time, it is accurate, it provides quantity (costs) and quality (perspectives), data that allow us to make better design decisions.

Evidently, if the architect is a dummy in the use of information technologies, then he has to use the pencil. But he can not state that he does it because it is the best way to design. If he is honest, he can only say that it is the best way for HIM to design, by inability or laziness.

This whole matter would be inconsequential if each architect was allowed to design his own way.

The analogical ones would do it with a pencil (and a battalion of drafters, of course), and the rest of us could integrate these new technologies into our design process.

But the problem is in architectural education. In most Portuguese universities architecture is taught as it was in the last century, spending thousands of hours drawing by hand.

This happens because architects teach the same method they where taught.

Thus university loose their natural investigation role, and reduce themselves to perpetuating out of date practices.

On a personal note: If the pencil is seen as a sword and CAD/BIM technologies as a automatic rifle, one can speculate that many “older” architects would prefer to fight with a sword, where they are highly proficient.

After all, sooner or later they will have to duel with their former students in the market, and the choice of arms will determine the outcome..

Architects do it with models

2006-10-06T10:20:00.001-07:00

Finally I understood why the majority of architects won't have anything to do with the Building Information Model.

There has been presented a number of theories that explain this phenomena, from the known difficulty that the artistic architect´s side has to deal with technology, the fact that senior architects are info excluded, to the blue collar connotation that comes with the use of computers.

They are all wrong!

Here is the explanation, plain and simple: "Architects do it with models".

It is highly understandable that Architects don't want to “do it” with Virtual Models, or even worse, Architects don't want to do it with Building Information Models.

Go blame them...

GET OUT OF THE TREES!

2006-10-06T00:57:00.000-07:00

Whenever I think about the steps that make someone go from 2D CAD to 3D BIM, this image pops to mind.

Hominids have left the safety of the trees to hunt in the Savana, gradually evolving into Homo Sapiens.

The same thing happens with CAD users. The evolution is done in a gradual way, through small steps.

In my personal experience, there are 4 distinct steps, although they can overlap:

1.º – Drawing automation. The biggest motivation for a designer to dump 2D CAD in favor of 3D CAD is undoubtedly the possibility to produce drawings (plan views, sections and details), that update automatically whenever we change the model, and have no inconsistencies between them.

2.º – Renderings. Once we have our virtual model, it is quite easy to produce renderings for free. Instantaneously.

3.º Design decisions. As the software usage becomes more intuitive and less toilsome, one finds out that producing simultaneous and diverging design solutions on a 3D virtual model replaces, advantageously, all those scaleless sketches with distorted and misleading perspectives. I will return to this polemic subject on another post.

4.º True BIM – When becoming proficient on all the above mentioned techniques, it is possible to use the true potential of our 3D Virtual Model. It produces all those hardy boring documents, like material quantities, doors and windows schedules, estimates and others. And we can do this almost from the very beginning of our project, in real time and error free.

This whole evolving process usually takes some years, because it demands a change of the very way we structure our design method.

When people ask me what is the best way to persuade someone to drop 2D CAD in favor of the 3D discipline, which can scare the bravest architect, my advice is:
Take small steps. Focus on the immediate gain, on the first step, automatic drawings.

And GET OUT OF THE TREES!

What about drawing automation?

2006-09-14T01:08:00.000-07:00

Since all powerful Autodesk entered the Virtual Building scene, about 6 years ago, with the acquisition and subsequent publicity of Revit, we have seen, especially in the EUA, an enormous mediatization of the BIM (Building Information Modeling) concept.

It should be pointed out that, long before Autocad owner joined in this adventure, others have been working hard on the Virtual Building.
Bentley and Graphisoft , to name but two, have been defining the rules for three-dimensional data base handling, as applied to design and construction.

When these software manufacturers saw the American colossus enter their market, with the subtleness of a elephant in heat inside a porcelain store, they had no other choice than to go along, claiming loudly that Revit was not the wheel invention, but only another version of Bentley Architecture and ArchiCAD .

With all this buzz about the integrated information model, with it's embedded data base, which can be used for testing (acoustic, thermal, illumination), for construction (automated quantity billing), and for the building management, they apparently forgot one thing: Drawing automation.

Software developers and BIM gurus apparently try to undervalue automatic drawing production, putting the emphasis on numeric data.
But, honestly, what made most of us BIManiacs adopt parametric design software? My bet is on drawing automation.

I realize that full automation of all the drawings (floor plans, sections and details), with no 2D fiddlings, is still a chimera. Even the 95% automation we can squeeze out of any BIM software requires a huge effort in method, discipline and modeling.

But that should not be a reason for software developers to give up!

And I do perceive they are giving up. If you take a peek at the new features in Revit 9 , they make a big deal on 2D detail integration. Also new ArchiCAD 10 boasts PDF drawing sheets integration.

My guess is, 100% drawing automation is really a bugger, on the code level, so they are throwing all kinds of things to distract us.

Barring very big construction projects, priority goes for drawing automation, without errors and constant updating.

Otherwise, sooner or later, I will be forced to hire a drafter (or a architect trainee, which is always cheaper...).

The screw detail

2006-09-12T03:07:00.000-07:00

I have often read on BIM dedicated papers a theory that risks becoming dogmatic.

This theory states that 2D detail drawings will not disappear, since 3D detailing to the screw level does not make sense.

I think there are two fundamental reasons behind this statement.

First, much ignorance over computer evolution; Secondly, a more or less covert aim to underrate the Virtual Building concept.

As for ignorance:

Quite recently (3 or 4 years ago) it was common knowledge that digital photography (and movies) would never replace film, simply because computers and cameras would never be able to deal with the huge amount of bytes involved in the recording and editing of high resolution images.

As we all know now, this presumption was completely wrong.

Computer and cameras evolved, acquiring enormous storage capacity, multiplying processing velocities. New software and compression codes allow us to photograph, film, edit and visualize on 'out of the shelf' digital equipment, with as high or higher quality than former analogical one.

There are still digital detractors, but they are a minory and condemned to extinction.

Therefore, it is perfectly reasonable to assume that, with the hardware/software evolution, namely processing, transmission and storage speed and capacity, soon BIM software will be able to include, in it's virtual model's, 3D details to the screw.

As for 2D agenda:

This intent is not new. For more than 20 years there has been on the market 'BIMlike' software, first on the Mac platform and later on Windows.

But only recently has the AEC industry adopted the BIM acronym, which was invented by the biggest CAD manufacturer, who, till 6 years ago, had no virtual building dedicated software.

I find this motive clear and simple: Inasmuch as a BIM user does the work of 3 CAD users, only on account of drawing automation, it is much more profitable to sell 2D CAD software than BIM, especially if they cost the same.

Therefore, although it is plainly worse for the user (architects, engineers, drafters, builders and building element manufacturers) to use 2D CAD, the truth is that the mentioned 2D CAD manufacturer keeps on making loads of money selling something that is little more than a digital drawing board.

Thus, be it by ignorance or greed, I think 2D detail advocates are plain wrong.

Soon we will have libraries of objects, developed by building element manufacturers, that will go to the screw detail.

Which is, after all, from what I learned in school, the right way to design architecture.

The death of CAD

2006-09-12T01:27:00.000-07:00

BIM.
For the distracted, Building Information Model.
If you thought this would be a blog about Ballistic Intercept Missiles, please click on the upper left hand corner little arrow.

If you are one of the very few who know something about BIM, you will find here some personal opinions which, I hope, are a little polemic.

The first is: The CAD Is Dead.
And here is a colour drawing, for the slower ones.