Over the last few days, I have been taking an in depth look at BIM, not within the CAD community, who are very singular in their approach, to which CAD package they use, but to the wider understanding. By this I mean the clients who pay for buildings, and commission work, together with a fair number of manufacturers, who together have a very low understanding of CAD, BIM, and the new Architectural design process they are engaging.
Take a look at the CAD users, the Technologists and Architects, who are deeply immersed in the CAD technology, and embrace a lot of the new ideas that the creators of the current CAD programs have to offer. They are very singular in there approach, but they have to be, it’s would be a folly to design in one package and switch to another to detail, I have seen it done, and the confusion and mistakes pile up. Their knowledge of BIM, driven in part by the governments wish to use it on all their projects, and in part by the CAD companies who see it as a way to enhance their programs and sell upgrades, is constantly being upgraded, so often by experiment, but often by the background office teaching that goes on, hey have you seen this, the sneaker approach, they are usually at or just beneath the current end get of CAD, but the singular approach means they only know one side of a vast industry.
Clients on the other hand know so little, they rely on their team to advise and so often they accept what’s offered, after all they just want a building, paying little to the technology that’s going to design and help create it. This is a vast mistake, if a client is going to spend in the order of millions or even billions on a new building, part of his research, apart from the actual design, costing or material look of their build, is the CAD that’s going to create it, the impact of this technology on the running and maintenance of their building for it’s lifespan.
Next comes the manufacturers, and my starting point in all of this, they see BIM are the great messiah, the road to increased profits, we are BIM compatible, yet so many when questioned have little or no idea, they do not use CAD, and apart from a small section of the company probably have not even seen a CAD program being used. Yet they are going to increasingly be reliant on it, they thing bold words in an advert campaign will sort it out, and a web site with some downloads will do the trick. There are exceptions to the rule s I found out, but these manufacturers are small in number.
Then there are the marketing companies, the people who create the magic words that go to make the articles we read, that should convince us to use a certain manufacturer over another, I know most if not all the marketing companies I looked at are even farther behind the knowledge curve than the clients they purport to advice, and the companies they want to sell to.
So what’s the answer, my view is simple spend time to research the market, keep abreast of the constant changing CAD areana, and look further than your nose. For each individual sector there are going to be different rules, where do you stop, for a building owner, it’s the point of commission, the point at which he or she, appoints their architect to design a new building, once the line in the sand is drawn, he can’t change. For the manufacturer it’s going to be never ending, and not singular, they have to keep up to date with all different systems, and keep their products live in all of them.
For the Architectural staff, well we have never been far from the front end, but as I said before, we are very singular in our approach, and probably for good reason, we are there to design, detail, and communicate, in what ever CAD package we are asked to use, and may well stick to that package for a few years, only adding upgrade to solve bugs or add simple enhancements. But they also keep an eye on the CAD market, watching, learning, as the need arises, always wanting the next best thing.
For me, I sit back and watch, I have to lecture about, as well as use CAD, and the BIM technology it is encompassing, I need to stay on the cutting edge, so I read and try out all the different packages, watch the training videos. I also have to lecture on materials, their use and performance, and how CAD affects their use.
I post some of my lectures online, but they are so often geared towards students studying Architectural Technology, I have other, more selective lectures pointed at the client, and manufacturer, which I am prepaired to give to selected audiences. The dates, places, and method of these lectures I will post in the coming weeks.
Today’s photo is part of a CDM lecture I give on the need to record safety points on a site drawing.
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