Construction Clients: Who is the conductor of your project orchestra?

Construction Clients: Who is the conductor of your project orchestra?

As a career starting architect, some 30 years ago, I considered Jørn  Utzon as one of my top 5 hero architects to look up to.

Even in the pre-internet era, I searched internationally for related material and read everything I could get to, regarding his life, work and projects.

While how the Sydney Opera House came to life, and to large extent Utzon’s role in it, was then and still is a controversial topic, for me, he is an excellent example of ‘an architect’.  

The type of architect, that no longer exist.

Not necessarily because of lack of skills, talent or dedication, exceptional people still ‘architect’ exceptional buildings worldwide, but because the role Utzon played at the time the Sydney Opera House was built, no longer exists.

For better or worse, up to 30 or so years ago, architects were in ‘charge’ of building projects.

Depending on one’s interpretation of the word ‘charge’ it could have been perceived that they poked their noses into every aspect of the building process, its looks, its functional performance, make up and cost.

Or from a different viewpoint, they had the responsibility to take care of all aspect of the building under their care. In fact, more often than not, architects were contractually in charge of the building design and construction.

Not every architect was, of course, of Utzon’s caliber in marrying the design aspects of the building with constructional viabilities and functional requirements while managing the financial and planning aspects of the creation process. The role being a ‘generalist’ type role, it was inevitable that some functions were performed better than others by the architects of the time.

Then, the eighties happened, followed by the nineties and on to the new millennium and the traditional role of the ‘architects’ has disappeared, all together.

Sure, it is a touchy topic, and no party likes to explore it in a rational way. The architects of the old times, that lost their ground by choosing to specialize in ‘design’ yet forfeit construction management and contract admin, are all but gone and the new ones do not seem to know any different.

It is apparent, that the role of the ‘person in charge’ was taken up by the professional project manager they do not like it questioned either.

No more a ‘Jack of all trades’ (and master of none) once reclaimed by project managers, the role of the ‘project architect’ came with a more focused scope of works, management for quality, time and money with special importance on client representation.

Over these 30 years, project management matured into an industry on its own, with a good handle on client and (generally) project management. Architects seem to have also found their peace in the creative design and documenting.

The shift was not seamless.

At the beginning of this transitioning process, to justify their existence project managers used tactics to dirty the names of their architect predecessors often by implying design expertise naturally came with financial/managerial inadequacies. The institutions looking after the retreating architects did not help either, by promoting risk management based on ever diminishing responsibilities within project management for their members.

There is one unacknowledged victim of this fight for project supremacy, and that is the Project Itself and ultimately the client that is shortchanged.

Creating buildings can be looked at as two different processes.

On one side, there is a need/want (brief) around what a set of consultants are engaged to come up with an optimal solution (design) that is to be constructed into a physical something by a group of specialist building-element makers. The process is led and overseen by the project manager.

The above process is not that different to many other PM jobs, like organising an event or shooting a feature film.

What makes construction projects different to many other, is that the Design (the ‘what’ are we making thing) is by no means defined at the outset, in fact rarely if ever fully before the building is completely finished.

This aspect of the process is generally undervalued if not fully disputed, not necessarily due to any malice, more how design development has changed over years.

The variable part of the design process become larger as the industry evolved over the last 3-4 decades.

Buildings became more complex, detailed, comprehensive documenting up front expensive and often redundant due to procurement strategies available. A dynamic and ongoing design management has become the norm.

Yet, if it is usually clear that the PM is in charge of the project development as a process, who is in charge of this second, parallel process of Design Management?

Back in early 2000s, having lost their contract admin role, for a while, architects still managed to retain their positions of Lead Designers. They were able to perform and get compensated for the tasks of pulling the design together and maintaining its integrity throughout the process, including construction.

This seem no longer to be the case. These days, architects are often just ‘one of the group of consultants’ signed up at design stage, their influence fizzled to nothing once construction starts. Novated arrangements, if in place at all, give them barely enough wiggle room to try maintain the integrity of their design (read: the looks and feel) – ongoing coordination and design development is left to the Contractor.

And this is the stage that the Design loses all the love and care it desperately needs to survive.  

Not to survive as the ‘pretty thing’ the architect dreamed up at the outset, but to come together as a functioning product at an optimal cost that the consultants only partially defined and even less coordinated.

Yes, the design is half done at the sign up of the main contractor, even the most ‘traditional’ of design then build contracts.

Sure, ‘designy’ tasks are given to most parties post contract-start, consultants retained to review and approve shop drawings, the main contractor responsible for the commissioning and production of the same through their own subcontractors.

Is this process truly working under (ultimately) the Project Managers’ directions?

It must be, since projects do get finished successfully all the time!

But is it? Or is this neglect to look after the design process costing us time, money, quality, buried somewhere in the cracks of building delivery?

It is time, to take Design Management seriously.

Clients might flinch at the idea of ‘adding another consultant’ to the never-ending list of specialist advisors they already are paying for.

But here, I am not talking about another musician to be added to an already crowded stage.

I am referring to the missing conductor that will have the holistic integrity of the building at heart till the very end.

Not saying it should be the architect, nor that it can’t be the PM.

Not even implying that contractors aren’t doing their bit already.

Just that someone’s got to do it and at the very least construction clients should know who that person is at any one time of the project delivery. 

(picture borrowed from the net)

Stay Home Learn BIM: week 3 – Be wary of the Bully BIM! (bonus Easter Egg Hunt)

There is one type of BIM, that I call the Bully BIM.

It is a bit of a ‘below-the-belt punch’ kind of BIM approach.

It is called ‘Clash Detection’.

At its essence, it is a well-intended concept.

Unforeseen clashes of building elements cause a lot of trouble when discovered during construction and subsequently slow progress down, result in abortive works, extra materials, labor cost and lengthened programs. Using technology to eliminate (or at least minimize) such issues on the construction site makes sense.

And it doesn’t. At its premise is the idea, that following semi-independent work done by many consultants (in model-base or otherwise) an automated procedure identifies the clashes of spatially conflicting elements and highlights them.

But in practice, it is an ignorant and arrogant approach, used to gain points over something or someone and rarely works to the benefit of the project.

It is ignorant as it ignores the reality of design definition development in contemporary construction projects being continuous through to the completion of the building.

There are no fully designed/modelled projects that can be effective clash-detected.

There might be really well designed and modelled projects that everyone worked together throughout the design process and the resulting model is ready to be built from.

In those rare cases automated clash detection ‘interventions’ will add little value, so why bother.

And then, there are the majority of the cases where clash detections is forced onto partially defined-partially documented projects and the outputs are reports going into hundreds of pages of ‘issues-needing to be looked after and dealt with’.

Those reports shoot the entire BIM movement in its foot and make building modelling as a field look dumb.

Yes, building services should be well designed and coordinated before everyone hits the site and scrambles for their place within the zone allowed.

Sure, major dramas happen when there just isn’t enough space within ceilings, ducts and risers for everything that needs to be put there.

But clash detections aren’t there to find these major dramas, they are done, to score brownie points for a clash detector.

It is extremely likely that those major dramas, even if picked up will be buried so deeply within Clash Detection Reports that will be lost in the sea on insignificant ‘move the pipe 25mm to the left’ – responses and stay unresolved. (meanwhile many hours are spent on managing the administration of ‘issues’)

Paying a lot of money for someone to clash detect a model created by someone else is counter productive.

Paying someone a lot of money for someone to model someone else’s design, so it can be clash detected is even worse.

Over the years, I wrote regularly on this topic.

So, being Easter and a time for various games, let me propose one here:

Go through my blogposts (595 including this one) and find the number of times I mentioned ‘clash detection’ in them. Put the number down here in the comments.

The author of the closest number posted before the end of April (Midnight NZ time on the 30^th April) will win an A3 sized, hand made mosaic of their chosen portrait picture.

For examples, see here:

https://www.facebook.com/pg/mosaicus2003/photos/?tab=album&album_id=705680282853528

Do I believe, people will take on this game? Nah.

So, let’s add that, the number needs to be within +/- 5 to qualify.

If no one enters I’ll just carry on with my current mosaic project.

Stay Home: Learn BIM; week 2

Let’s get one thing out of the way first:

I don’t think BIM is the ‘thing’ that will be the savor of the post-pandemic AEC industry.

I don’t think BIM (as in a ‘way of managing info in AEC projects’) is in that great a shape all together, period.

But, apart from a conscious revitalization of an approach that does have 30 years of trial/error behind it, I can only think of one method that could give the industry a boost towards recovery.

That method is of establishing a highly centralized, closely controlled industry that will manage its risks and rewards in a largely different way than the free-market shenanigans of the industry since the late 1980s.

Having had the privilege of first-hand experience of 4 different variants of highly-centralized construction practices, I am aware of many pros as well as cons of its methods and outcomes.

Economic, social, environmental etc etc.

I am just an aging BIM-fan, let me leave this second option for those shaping history, maybe with just one little thought:

Even that ‘solution’ will need BIM – actually, that one will likely go ‘BIM way’ from early on…

A week or so ago, I said, go ‘paper-free’! (I’ve been saying this for decades, but never mind).

Implying that paper-free is the easiest way to BIM-literacy.

If you are already paper free and want to get into BIM, where should you start?

Read up on the theory of the approach? Learn a particular modelling package? Explore model viewers? Investigate example projects?

All this, while you’ve got a job/project/company to save?

Surely this is not the time to get bogged down with this mumbo-jumbo, BIM-jargon that most (of you) had manage to dodge your entire carrier?

If we need BIM to survive, we will buy BIM. Simple?

Not.

BIM is not a spice that you put a little bit of in a soup, it is a language.

A little bit of it, will not take you very far. In fact, a little bit of it, is often worse than none.

Think of it as a language. A language that has evolved and is existing within the industry.

That has its own structure, rules and systems.

It is spoken by relatively few and has made a relatively low impact on the industry so far, but it could have a major influence on how we build buildings, if used well.

Also, it could be used to expose how badly we are building buildings if used well too.

This latter option has been rarely explored so far, but its time may be the upcoming ‘new time’.

Today’s lesson: BIM is not a spice; BIM is a language.

And for goodness sake, go paperfree!

Post pandemic AEC: BIM to the rescue? Don’t get your hopes up!

‘We are experiencing unprecedented times’- flows from every tap I turn on in my miniature home.

Digital and otherwise. No-one knows what’s on the other side.

One thing is almost certain, there will continue to be some need for building/construction for whoever survives.

It will be tough times, so the survivors will have to do their best to make the most of resources, natural, building, human and digital at hand.

Global uptake of BIM will rise, companies will see the opportunity to clean up their operations under this ‘rebirthing’ and work smarter.

Maybe. Maybe not.

As often is with ‘unprecedented’, people try to relate to precedence for reference, my personal experience is, that tough times don’t generally help AEC improve on itself.

When things go well, there is so much work, that there is no need to do things better.

When things don’t go well, there is so little work that all available effort needs to go into relationship/building-retaining, schmoozing and scrambling. No time to do things better.

I can just about see my friend Djordje nodding with mild sarcasm as he is reading the above:

Yep, Zolna – positive as always.

Just for Djordje, a little memory from the past – with a bit more hope:

In 2004 as an employee of the NZ distributer of ArchiCAD, I was in charge of organising a string of extremely well attended seminars held by David Sutherland, the director of Fender Katsalidis, designers of the Eureka Tower in Melbourne and celebrated power-users of the software.

So successful was Mr Sutherland in selling the concept of BIM (or VC as it was still better known then) to the architects of NZ that even after many years had passed I was repeatedly told by the director of the competing software distributer (AutoDesk) that these seminars were the turning point for many of his clients to step up from 2D to 3D.

In 2004 David Sutherland was talking not only about the technology and its use in their Australian and globally operating business but also how it reformed the way his company worked, how they become more productive and better hands-on as designers when they decided to go ‘cold turkey’ 3D.

If I remember correctly, he was referring to a global crisis that forced the management to reduce the number of its people and they went form over a hundred down to a staff of 30.

I don’t wish on anyone to lose their jobs; I just hope that something good will come out of this crisis.

For the AEC. For BIM.

Stay HOME – Learn BIM: Day 4 (week one)

There are so many lock-down diaries out there, no point in me trying to compete.

I’ll do my postings weekly though as I understand some people are trying the paperfree detox – so I’ll compile some tips for the end of the working week.

Until then, here is a little (strangely relevant) something I posted almost 10 years ago:

http://debunkthebim.blogspot.com/2011/11/wash-your-hands-or-modelling-purely-for.html

Stay HOME – Learn BIM: Day 3

The day-counting in the title is per NZ lockdown.

And it is weekend here, so not a lot of work from home probably going on.

I know, that my focus on the elimination ‘the paper’ from construction can seem a bit over the top and pointless. Also a bit low-key for a ‘BIM expert’.

What harm is in having a personal notebook, printing large scale drawings for mark-ups, having a 500-page specification bound in a folder for site works?

There is some cost in printing, yes, but in the scheme of things, it is negligible.

Over the last 10 years I wrote many posts in this blog explaining why it is not good for individuals to carry on using paper in construction (AEC) and why is its continuing availability making any meaningful development of the industry virtually (or literarily?) impossible.

So, if you still need to be convinced that ditching the paper is a good idea, you’ll have to go back in my writings or do your own research. Or just carry on with standard paper-based practices.

But if you think it is worth giving it a go, these ‘unprecedented’ times could be just the right trigger for giving it a decent chance.

There are various theories out there on how long it should take to build/break a habit.

My experience – you really need to ‘want to’ do so – then – time is sort of irrelevant.

I mentioned ‘Word’ yesterday as a simple replacement for a paper-based notebook. Almost everyone uses the program (or something similar).

For notetaking there are 3 commands, I’d like to emphasize:

Page-breaks, bookmarks and links – These 3, coupled with search functions will provide the functionalities of a well-organized notebook in digital format.

Write as you would in a standard notebook (I’ll get to sketching and scribbling later) – heading your notes with dates, subject or other titles.

Use book-marks to distinguish between parts (per day or per topic) and link all bookmarks up at the beginning of the file.

Using book-marks is important with PDFs as well.

In early days of habit-braking, one still has the urge to print everything off.

Decades worth of history will not easily go away. You will get frustrated with the size/shape/clarity of screens (no matter how big or interactive they are); You’ll feel that your brain is hostage to your hands (doodling while thinking) – so go easy on yourself.

One day at the time.

Start the Notebook Word file, don’t print PDFs, look at them on screens – add bookmarks for easier reference, if the document is not already structured.

The exercise may make you feel old and clumsy.

Key is in persistence.

When you want to write down quick reminders – don’t use post-it notes (unless they are digital) – reminder apps on phones are good way to jot down short instructions to oneself.

(picture below from my architectural office, about 18 years ago)

Stay HOME – Learn BIM: Days 1 and 2

I can’t contribute meaningfully to the topic of the Pandemic, apart from obeying the rules and not being a nuisance. It is not an area of my expertise.

BIM is.

So, being a believer of the concept, that learning even a little bit of BIM can do good for anyone working in construction, I’m going to write a bit every day on the topic, at least while this lock-down is on and am capable of writing/posting.

The positive in me says, whatever happens ‘after’, BIM will be useful for everyone, the less optimistic one, that it will not do any harm to whomever survives and the negative, well, the negative can wait for its turn to speak.

Let me set out the terms of reference for this exercise I am planning to undertake.

I will not try to explain (yet again) what BIM is, or is not. I will not try to convince anyone that they should jump now into BIM, nor argue for-against particular software packages, although some personal views on products will be aired.

I will share practical tips on getting a handle on BIM and being able to contribute to the after-the-tunnel BIM world in a more meaningful way, than before. You don’t need to be BIM literate to benefit from following my tips, not even a CAD user. Just open minded about how information on construction projects is (or should be) created, shared and consumed.

You are working from home, wherever that is. Unless you already had a home office, you took something home from your usual office, to enable you to continue working.

What were those ‘things’?

A desktop computer, screens, just the laptop, and/or boxes of paper-based info?

There is problem number one.

If you took home any paper, even a notebook, we will not get far with getting you BIM-enabled.

Let’s start with weaning you/ourselves off the paper!

Apocalypse here or there, no better world will be on the other side for anyone, if we don’t kick this bad habit to the curb.

For the first couple of days, I will share with you tips on how to beat this pesky practice of ‘needing’ paper to work.

As a 55-year-old – glasses wearing – always scribbling – learned to draft with Rapidographs (Rotring) 40 years ago - architect, trust me, I’ve tried every excuse to hang onto it.

But also trust me, no use of BIM, while paper is around. And not just BIM, no progress for Construction full stop.

So, my tip for Days 1 and 2:

Wean yourself off your notebook!

There are many clever applications you can use, for me, a simple system works:

Word. As in, Microsoft Office Word document. I use One Word Document for my general Notebook taking and it sits on OneDrive. (Microsoft)

I will digress for a moment: as I said in the beginning, I am not interested in promoting, marketing or endorsing products for gain, I have never done it, in my 10 years of Blog Writing. I have misgivings of cash-free society, online everything and surveillance capitalism generally, but still know that Construction must become paper-free.

You can stay fully off-line (if you chose) and be paper-free. If you don’t want your Word document in the Cloud, have it on a stick, or on your laptop, or both. (we will discuss cloud based information later).

A Word (type) document can do everything your paper-based notebook could and more.

But you’ll need to be disciplined about it.

Make a clear cut now!

There are two ways to make that clear cut.

One, keep your current notebook at hand but only for reference. Any new note-taking will be digital.

Two, scan in your notebook as a PDF and throw the paper one away.

Give it a go! Any questions - let me know!

BIM is dead, please do not resuscitate!

Agricultural experts likely have rules on how long one should persist with a new species once introduced into a field. Also, for recognising the signs to give up if the plants are not taking to the new environment.

If there are similar rules for establishing viable crops of BIM around the global AEC industry, they’re better be longer than 30 years.

Based on personal experience, that is at least as long since it has been trying to take roots, unsuccessfully.

Even a decade or so ago, I could see that BIM was nothing like an emerging success story.

For several years since, I worked on analysing, measuring, reanalysing and remeasuring anything that could reliably assess just how well/badly BIM was doing.

While not employing tactics supported by the mainstream, I genuinely wanted to make it work or at least understand why it does not.

The closest I came to formulate the reasons of this very complex failure, is that BIM is a ‘language’ – a complicated, at some point sophisticated, beautiful language.

A language that its host industry does not speak.

Fluency is probably below 1% of all the people that work in the AEC industry and deal with its information day in and out.

People can and will argue with this assumption.

I am confident that proper scientific studies would reflect similar numbers.

And if I was very wrong in my guess, like tenfold wrong and the number was 10%, that is still terribly low for something that has been trying to take roots for 30 years and is the backbone of a major industry.

One can try being positive, acknowledge that languages historically took millennia to develop, but in this context of a highly digitalised word, the out of synch development of a language of a major industry operating in a global context is a concern.

My gloomy view on BIM’s survival prospects is not universally shared.

May I call them BIM-doom-deniers?

Ask anyone that is personally benefitting from BIM and they’ll tell you everything is going just fine.

Ask others that have managed to stay away from it and depending on their status and position will have similarly rosy-coloured stories to say.

(‘on our last project, we could have not done what we had without BIM, sure it cost a bit’).

BIM is still heralded as something that is ‘the thing to really flourish - soon’ and something everyone knows is important and doing everything to develop it within their own teams/projects/organisations.

And yes, doing their best, and knowing it is important and the future is in BIM and…

you get the picture…

This situation seems to suit everyone in the industry.

It doesn’t and shouldn’t by any logic. But I’d accept it as ‘let it be’ (my time has passed, move on) were it not for the upcoming generations.

The new generation of 20 somethings (and younger) in training or about to enter the AEC, are taught that documenting building is about creating drawings.

Don’t get me wrong, I know they are also encouraged ‘to BIM’ at universities or at least allowed to use various modelling software, but I am yet to come across a programme that will squarely say, ‘forget the drawings (paper based or otherwise – i.e. their digital versions) and figure out a new way to think up/document and share building information’.

Or even if such programs exist and students are let loose to model, render and animate to their heart content, once they enter the industry, they get quickly shown the ‘real’ ropes.

A good modeller will have plenty of opportunities to model, but rule number one is, that the ‘drawings’ are priority, what consultancies get paid for.

(what consents are given on, what building contracts are based on, buildings built from etc etc).

It would be great to be able to state that these two aims are not contradicting, that the drawing is gradually losing its power to the models, after all ‘drawings come from models’, but the sad reality is different.

In fact, what comes out of the process of these ‘in practice BIM’ experiments are very poor drawings and mildly better-but contractually useless models.

And if you think that making BIM models ‘contractual’ will be the answer, think again.

CAD drawings never become universally accepted contractual documents and the risk/liability issues of that ‘language’ are significantly less difficult than what making models ‘real’ would be.

Working for a general contractor I’d consider a challenge put to us from the design consultancies to build exactly what they’d modelled (no drawings or specs) after all isn’t that what they charge principals extra for?

Don’t worry. Not going to happen (unfortunately).

Maybe I should not be worried about the future of new generations, they’ll figure out how to claim their piece of the industry. If the last 30 years are anything to go by, this is not a given.

As scary as it sounds, if we can assume to have a viable AEC industry in 30 years from now, it could still be a similar ‘drawing based mush’ as it is now.

So, BIM is dead, has been, will carry on.

What positive spin can be put on?

If you have missed the boat for BIM, if it has been dead all along, you can carry on working without it.

(make the occasional positive comment to your modeller ‘slaves’ and no one will bother you).

Alternatively, you can rethink the process of Building Information Management and consider it as ‘a story’ disassociated from its medium (the drawing).

A story of ‘an idea’ that goes through many hoops to become a building.

Recognise, that being so badly and deeply conditioned, that the only way to handle building related information is through drawings (AND specs – lots of written specs!) is a weight that can be lifted from the industry.

But if drawing becomes redundant, all of us that associate ourselves with creating/reading/checking/sharing drawings will be also be redundant?

That is an uncomfortable thought for all but the most competent of modellers and is what is paralysing the industry and preventing it of reinventing.

Take the ‘drawing’ out of the process of creating buildings. Eliminate it.

And/or give space for the new generations to do away with the drawings and tell their building stories their way.

The typical response to this motion will be:

‘Ha, they can render and animate these young’uns but do they know how structures work?

How plumbing goes in a bathroom, how to detail a window sill? Nah, no idea’.

You might be right, but you aren’t helping this situation either.

The ‘zombie BIM’ is also encouraging and enabling the status quo.

By pretending progress (we all do BIM!) yet sticking to what is familiar to the oldies we are NOT passing on the industry knowledge to the younger generations bur selfishly holding on to it.

Look at building material giants, what do they do to help this change?

Provide CAD files of their installation details? Revit libraries of their windows? Specification writing apps?

What about mammoth-sized global engineering consultancies? Making hay while the sun is shining they cheaply insource BIM modelling and on-sell mildly useful drawings and specs?

Surely there is an industry wide responsibility to tackle the issue of ‘they can model but don’t know how to put buildings together’ in a better way than parading zombie-BIM examples around endless BIM conferences?

I know. Overwhelming.

Another aspect of our lives that we can’t do much about as individuals.

It is such a clichéd saying, that every step in the right direction counts.

Keeping this BIM alive is NOT the right direction.

If you are so keen on drawings, go back to drawings and stay with them but make them work (again).

Yes, they can be created via models, but focus on the drawings and increase the level of literacy (read/write) across the industry. Models are not good if only 1% of the industry can create/modify them (even 10% is too low).

Being such a long post, few will bother to read through it.

Some might not get beyond the title and claim, I am being especially insulting to the good BIMmers of this world that are trying their very best.

Nah, I’m not. I give credit where credit is due.

But if you want to really prove me wrong, go paperfree.

Can one trust a BIM-mer, that is not personally practicing ‘paperfree’?

A provocative question.

Of course, one can.

Why would the good character or even the BIM knowledge of a person be undermined by a paper-notebook and a pen?

Or a stack of A3 drawings?

Or owning bookshelves full of ring binders stuffed with paper?

None of the above should be an embracement to those actively promoting BIM?

Surely, not?

One must keep things in perspective, the industry is in a (forever) transitional stage –

of course paper is needed and allowed for, even in the most sophisticated of operations.

So, why do I feel uneasy to reach for an old-fashioned pen even for the most mundane of tasks?

Am I being overly zealous? Because of my ‘paperfreeconstruction’ movement?

Or a bit hypocritical?

The perfect illustration of the old saying of “people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones"?

As recently as a month ago, I had a desk-full of post-it notes alongside my keyboard at work.

I enjoyed the guilty pleasure of multiple note books and kept paper copies of critical documents handy.

I still have a bucket of coloured pens and pencils in front of me as I type this.

Surely using paper is not a capital offence.

Moderate  consumption must be acceptable even in a strong push for digital progress of the AEC industry.

Or, should it?

No, let’s draw the line in the sand! (but not on paper…oh, what a feeble pun)

You BIM? You must be paperfree!

If your title has BIM in it, you ought to go paperfree!

Totally!

Lead by example.

And the best of all is, that you can start on this journey without big announcements or pledges to make.

Just ditch the paper.

If your date-to-date activities are preventing you to do so, the problem is bigger than the medium.

Start examining those obstructions in detail.

They could be tasks, arcane processes or dealings with particular individuals within your organization.

Regardless, it is likely that you will be able to hit a pretty high percentage mark of paperfree within a month of focused work.

You should try it.

And, if you claim to be any-sort of a BIM professional, you ought to.

For the sake of credibility.

The new trinkets of my paperfree adventure

My 10-year-old nephew Viki communicates with the world through drawings.

His latest masterpiece presents a series of occupations. He is self-thought and copies from various sources, nevertheless the illustrations are uniquely his.

One profession noticeable missing from his line-up, is that of the architect.

The absence of my own ‘calling’ on the drawings reminded me, how in popular representations of the architect, the accessories of the job are still the drawing board and the T square (or parallel square) while I have used neither for over 2 decades.

That though led me to explore my memory for films with architects and I quickly came up with a handful: Liam Neeson in ‘Love Actually’, Pierce Brosnan in ‘Mamma Mia’, Steve Martin in ‘It’s Complicated’ and one of (the very few) women, Michelle Pfeiffer in ‘One Fine Day’.

Then, I searched online and found lots of references to other movies and actors and characters...

But back to me. Naturally.

While I rarely consider myself to be ‘typical’ of anything, I do carry some of the usual characteristic of fifty-something architects, in that, I started off my career on the above-mentioned board with the T and parallel squares and using pencils and pens.

Still, the majority of my career has been spent with a computer mouse in my hand (wired) and tapping at a keyboard.

I kept up with sketching, doodling, scribbling and note-taking, but these latter activities were on paper.

Then, recently I went strictly paper-free.

Joining up the Movement toward paperfreeconstruction, I have committed to do all my work without the use of paper.

Cold turkey, no transition period.

I have been pretty good with the mouse for over two decades, drawing, modelling, manipulating models.

However, I have a way of ‘thinking with my hands’ I was very aware, that I had to find an appropriate digital pencil-pen and become comfortable with using it.

I had two versions to choose from.

The first was an HP pen that accompanied my work HP Elitebook (laptop).

The second, an Apple Pencil that came with an IPad, I inherited from my daughter.

It is early days, and I am getting to know both, but one thing is already obvious, that, there is very limited (or no) compatibility between the various media makes and supporting pens.

The other, that I already have a strong preference for the Apple Pencil if for nothing else, no batteries needed.

I’ll get my nephew to draw me holding an IPad and Apple Pencil, next time I see him.