Monday, June 27, 2011

The sidewalk syndrome: A sign of a maturing BIM?


Presumptuous I may have come across when I commented on the CME acronym (Common Model Environment) a couple of days ago, I was very pleased to see someone finally pulling the word ‘Environment’ into the BIM picture.
For far too long, far too many of us have been defining BIM as ‘digitally representing buildings’. Focus was on the building, or even more on the software to represent the building, parts and assemblies, sometimes relationships but rarely the project environment. (PE)
The PE continued to be a fragmented, imaginary, notional place that loosely interacted with tangible representations of parts of it.

A real life equivalent I see often, when travelling. Lots of places in the world have some nice buildings. Individual houses, public creations, well thought, beautifully crafted. Even places ravaged by civil wars in relatively recent times will have the Nuevo Riche beautify their newly acquired spots.
When I look for signs of stability, maturity and hope, I look at sidewalks. The condition of these strips that connect the buildings to each other and the world tell me if the thinking process has moved from the buildings to the environment.

The digital project environment is not a new concept, AutoCAD’s Model Space laid excellent foundations for its development many years ago. Unfortunately, largely neglected, it stopped maturing.
Time to focus on the Project BIM Environment!


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