Back in the day you would find architects hovering over their drafting tables using a slide rule to design the next great architectural wonder (ie Mike Brady). Jump ahead to the computer age when designing using CAD (Computer Aided Drafting) was all the rage. As we all know, technology is non-stop and if you don’t pay attention you’ll get left behind. At Harris/Day, we’re proud to say we’re paying attention and we’re evolving too.
BIM or Building Information Model is the current best practice being used by H/D designers. What is BIM you ask? It’s not really a ‘thing’, it’s more of a change in philosophy vs a change in technology. Until now A/E design professions have created a 2-D representation of a vision of a building. With BIM, we essentially create a virtual model of that same building, but that’s not all.
In CAD, a door is represented by a 2-D line with a quarter circle. A 2-D elevation of that same door would have to then be drawn to indicate the height and style of the door. With BIM, as soon as the door is placed in the wall it has a thickness, a height, a material, a cost and anything else you can imagine a door to have (and more!). To the untrained eye, this might not mean much. However, to a designer this technological advancement is a dream come true.
But there are other benefits to using BIM besides making a designer’s dream come true.
Better communication of ideas between a designer, a client and consultants takes place. Now instead of looking at a drawing on a piece of paper and trying to visualize the design, a more realistic view is available. 2-D drawings are then produced directly from the virtual model reducing production time allowing for more design time up front. But most importantly, using BIM results in better project quality resulting in fewer change orders. Missed information and conflicts have a better chance of being identified during the design process while building the model.
As with any ‘new technology’ there are challenges. However, the challenges deal mostly with educating the more ‘traditionally minded designer’, and getting them to feel comfortable with a new way of doing things. Another obstacle is getting manufacturers to have their products available to be inserted directly into the model. But just like any other ‘new’ approach to something, it’ll just take time.
What can’t be denied is that the future of BIM is limitless. Everyone is familiar with 2-D and 3-D design methods, but few have heard of 4-D or even 5-D. With BIM, it’s just a matter of time.
4-D allows designers to identify construction conflicts before the first shovel is even put in the ground. BIM is able generate a project schedule by creating a construction simulation as part of the model. Budget and cost estimating come into play with 5-D, where every piece of steel, door and window in the model will have a cost assigned to it. A bill of materials and cost estimate can then be generated directly from the model. Facilities managers will be able to use the model to store/track everything from operations manuals to maintenance procedures. In the not-too-distant-future, BIM will also be able to predict a building’s energy consumption in order for designers to identify opportunities to further reduce the reliability on our natural resources. Currently buildings are responsible for nearly 40% of our energy consumption. This future benefit of BIM alone will save not only money, but natural resources too.
In the mean time, know that H/D has been using BIM for over five years, and that 100% of our projects are currently utilizing the most basic form of BIM. For the last two years, we’ve been creating virtual models for approximately 20% of our projects. By 2008, our goal is 50% of H/D projects will be utilizing the virtual model, and 100% by 2009!