Never say never...

People have been telling me to drop the drawing...

And guess what, I’ve been fighting back!...Who would have thought this could happen!

Seriously.... I’ve come across a number of projects recently where wise and well meaning people propose to eliminate the 2D drawings from the process and just ... ‘use the BIM for everything’.

Construction, shop drawings, sign offs.

Sadly, these suggestions aren’t coming from the design consultants. That would be something to celebrate!

Before you rush to condemn me as a hypocrite – let me clarify this:

I am all for BIM, I have documented buildings from very small to quite large-ones fully based around central, digital models.

Given the opportunity, I’d take on the challenge to document and construct a building with no drawings what-so-ever, but boy, would I require many special systems to be put in place for that to work?!

Ignorance may be bliss, but please think again!

If you need one example, take a relatively simple suspended ceiling system (with a couple of different levels, a combination of recessed, cove and pendant light fittings, louvers, bulkheads, maybe acoustic tiles, fire-rated boards here-and-there, sprinklers sticking through, glass partitions meeting up...)

Think through what information is needed for this structure to be built properly and then expand to an entire building!

You’ll need some serious input from manufacturers here, more on this later!