Graham's post: BIM the Predefine2020 way

Welcome to my Blog. 

Truth to be told, it has been my wife’s blog for over 10 years, but she does not mind sharing her established platform with me.

She knows a lot about BIM, I call her a BIMfluencer.

If there is such a thing, like, forever wanting to change the world preaching about BIM.

I’m a scientist. I like things with no frills, going straight to the meaning of the lesson.

My message today is simple, though might not be as short and snappy as I’d like it to be:

If you work in construction, you can’t ignore BIM – yet I can bet on that, you are not sure what good is it to you. (even if your company is ‘BIM enabled’)

If you work in construction, you are likely to waste a lot of time/money because how projects are documented.

BIM, drawings and specs are hurting you and we’re here to help.

Our BIM company is like no other!

Our services are designed to verify, filter, sort and serve up information in the most efficient way for our clients.

SHORTCUT is the key word!

Here is an example. Entire house documentation packaged in one model including drawings and specifications. And all cross referenced, accessible even on your mobile apps.

Get in touch through LinkedIn or Facebook if you’d like to know more!

Stages of Building Design: A mismatch of expectations

The timeline for almost any building design-project goes like this:

Brief, concept, schematic, developed design, working drawings, approvals, tender, construction.

That is what I was taught a quarter of a century ago.

That is still used in design offices around the world to scope jobs, bid for them, deliver and invoice.

Milestones are set accordingly, budgets and resources are planned for, business plans worked agreed on.

Everyone clearly knows what each stage encompasses, the type of information, the output to expect.

Bubble diagrams, flowcharts, perspectives, details, depending on the stage of the design delivery timeline.

Everyone is in full agreement. Expect for the building owner.

They expect a ‘finished’ building from day one.

And this then becomes a source of trouble for everyone.

They (the building owners) know that building creation takes time. They, themselves will change their minds numerous times.

They accept, even expect many possible options to be considered for their spatial problems.

Fittings, colours, materials to be chosen, ideas explored, settled on to be discarded again and started afresh.

They understanding the time needed, they appreciate the effort.

They just want to have a ‘buildable design’ from DAY ONE.

 And, the important bit is this: this expectation is unlikely to change.

So the process has to!

Roll in BIM, the only building design toolset/approach really able to handle this mismatch of expectations.

People in construction do not know how to read plans.

People in construction do not know how to read plans. Neither do those that draw, nor those that interpret drawings.

An unfair generalisation? Unconvinced? Orthogonal projection is the base of most construction related graphical documentation. It is performed every time a plan, elevation, section or detail is drawn or interpreted; What are the most important rules of this technique? Here are 3 questions:

1/ What is an orthogonal projection?

2/ Why has orthogonal projection become so popular in construction?

3/ How many views are needed to adequately describe a spatial element?

Why are the answers to these questions important? Because a technique that performed well for a number-of-hundreds of years has become an exercise that lost its meaning. Nowadays, most technical construction drawings come with a tag “do not scale”!

How is this related to BIM? We need to acknowledge that it is supposed to replace a well balanced system of tools, processes and a knowledge framework that existed for a long time. Unfortunately, the system disappeared. Construction people stopped learning what orthogonal projections meant, and what basic rules they must follow to use it. Then the processes disappeared followed by the knowledge framework; All three got replaced by flatcad; What is flatcad? My definition will be coming soon, before that, I’ll give you answers to my 3 questions noted today, tomorrow.