Week 7 - BIM and New Technologies in Practice

Phil Bernstein is a positive advocate for BIM and IPD, in ‘an attempt to address the diversive organisational structure of the AEC industry’ [1]. As BIM is becoming an important part of the architecture industry, we are seeing a shift in the way buildings are conceived and delivered. Using BIM we are able to ‘address procedural problems’ [2], however Berstein is ‘encouraging architects to capitalise and expand on this development to address design concerns’ [3]. On the other hand, by doing this it is possible that ‘the distinction between designing the design and designing the design process becomes less evident’ [4].

BIM’s Seven Deadly Sins follows on this with ‘a reality check between an idealistic view on BIM and the way it is currently applied’ [5]. One example is the idea of ‘Technoentricity – a focus on software instead of design culture’ [6]. Many people see BIM as a new and improved version of CAD, which helped in carrying out drawing at ‘higher speed, accuracy and for photo-realistic visualisation’ [7] which is still possible, however the idea of using BIM should be perceived as a tool that allows an ‘entire process change that impacts nearly all activities related to the planning, delivery and operation of buildings on a social, a business and even a political level’ [8].

In finding the balance of design and drawing with computer technology, the ‘pareto-efficient designs’ [9] were determined by the ‘set of best performing arrangements’ [10], as described by David Benjamin in Beyond Efficiency.  Although not originally developed to describe design, in can be attributed to many design fields. These ‘pareto-efficient designs’ [11] ultimately could provide one set of designs, ‘that could be understood as the exact location where computation meets design- as well as where computation meets society, politics, and even culture’ [12].

[1][2][3][4]         Marble, S. (2012). BIM 2.0. Digital workflows in architecture: designing design -- designing assembly -- designing industry. S. Marble. Basel, Birkhäuser: 72- 73.

[5][6][7][8]         Holzer, D. (2011). BIM's Seven Deadly Sins. International Journal of Architectural Computing, 9(4), pp.463-480.

[9][10][11][12] Benjamin, D. (2012). Beyond Efficiency. Digital workflows in architecture: designing design -- designing assembly -- designing industry. S. Marble. Basel, Birkhäuser: 14-25.