With the UK Government mandating that all public sector projects will be delivered using BIM by 2016….

…Starts another email… A second like this, this week.

And one in many that I receive these days as various poor AEC vendor-souls try to enhance their market-share by clinging onto this rickety bandwagon…

No one knows what it means exactly, but most like it.

They can spell ‘BIM’, surely they can make advantage out of a regulatory-move like this somehow….

I know what it means exactly and I do not like it.

I agree, that a government as a building owner has the responsibility to ensure buildings are created in the best possible way for their owners; They need to get their ‘taxpayers’ the best value for money while adhering to all sorts of technical and social standards.

In order to get the best results, they are entitled to describe the outcomes in extremely high detail and be extremely demanding on what they will pay for or not.

They can also ask, that any end result (a building) is also accompanied by another, digital version of itself (‘as built’ – OM/FM ready model) and again be as demanding about its qualities as they see appropriate.

A bit like asking for a miniature remote controlled Hummer to be delivered when the real new one comes too.

Or a virtual, digital one of the said machine. No problem with this.

But, on what basis can a democratically elected government prescribe how the particular Hummer it is ordering for the stakeholders is made (to the last screw) without meddling with ‘means-and-methods’ of the delivery process itself knows so little about, as well as skewing up the market?

And a big market, that is.

One can think of similar interfering somewhat justified at the ‘production end’ of supply chains when sustainability is of concern, growing and supply of GM food, exploitation of child-labour or horse meet sold dressed up as beef.

But, constraining a large part of a chunky market to only those that will use only certain tools and only in certain way to achieve the results that are far removed from the tools themselves is dodgy.

It stops innovation, promotes corruption and works against the end user/payer of the bills.

Putting aside the professional/ethical reservations I have with this move, how practical is it at all?

How would the same voting public look at a government legislating, that from 2016 all legal/court hearings where ‘a’ citizen is involved and/or has some sort of a stake-in must be fully conducted in Latin.

No one speaks Latin at the prosecution side, hardly anyone at the defence end – but that will not stop us implementing it at all!

We just have to start somewhere, quickly create a ‘modern’, much more palatable Latin than the old, real one and give a free range to everyone to teach/learn.

Note to myself: must learn Latin by 2016.