ACADIA 09: reForm()

Blog entry by: Dominik Holzer

AEC Connect attended the 29th annual conference of the association for computer aided design in architecture (ACADIA) that was held in Chicago, Illinois from October 22nd 025th with a line-up of presenters from academia and design practice. There was a notable difference to the usual workshops that we have seen preceding conferences such as ACADIA, Caadria, or eCAADee over the past few years. This year a staggering number of 12 workshops were on offer in Chicago with parametric modelling and scripting in Rhino as well as environmental analysis in Ecotect raising most interest. The workshops attracted nearly as many visitors as the conference itself and some participants didn’t even stay on for the main event. It makes me wonder if the focus of architectural computing conferences is shifting towards more pro-active participation and training.

Highlights of the 2009 buildingSmart conference in Sydney

Blog entry by: Dominik Holzer

The 2 day ‘buildingSmart’ conference is the main event amongst ‘Building Information Modeling’ (BIM) supporters in the industry. ‘buildingSmart’ is a global organisation with the goal to promote design collaboration and a streamlined flow of design data across design teams and CAD platforms. In the past few years the focus has shifted on BIM and on the promotion of the standardised design exchange format ‘iFC’.

INNOVATE NOW?

Yes. Precisely now. Although the building industry is currently undergoing a massive contraction due to the effects of the global economic downturn, opportunities are available for those with the foresight and courage to pursue them.

While it is true that many projects are being suspended or cancelled, new commissions are rare, and significant numbers of jobs are being lost in architecture, engineering and construction as well as real estate development, all is not lost.

Some of the weakest firms - and these are not necessarily the smallest - will not survive the financial pressures now being felt, but those with sufficient ongoing work and solid contacts for new projects can and will weather the storm, as has been the case in previous recessions as well.

The more interesting question is: which firms will not only survive, but thrive? Will it be the most well established big players? Will it be small, agile firms able to turn on a dime? (And are there new markets or products, workflows or services for the AEC industry which will change the existing balance?) Although there is no clear answer yet to which type or size of company will best succeed in the coming few years, it is clear that many factors are converging which will alter the playing field and perhaps even change the rules of the game. In fact, it is those firms which are still solvent but no longer buried in an avalanche of work which may now be most favorably positioned to take stock of the new circumstances, think about how to improve on their past performance, and act accordingly.

New markets include those developing countries whose recent upswing in wealth resulted from globalization but which also have robust domestic markets. New products include prefabricated yet customized buildings including hotels and housing whose relatively recent introduction and acceptance is being further fuelled by reductions in income of prospective owners. New opportunities range from government-funded construction program(me)s aimed at economic stimulus, to sustainability-related challenges such as low- and zero-energy buildings and settlements, to crisis-response measures such as the Small Island Developing States' urgent needs to adapt to rising sea levels and storms of increasing frequency and strength.

Fortunately, new technologies also are available to help address these and other challenges faced by building owners, designers and constructors. Among these are building information modeling (BIM), decision-support tools, and ever more sophisticated CAD, CAE, CAM and PLM packages for applications from planning and design through analysis, simulation, fabrication, construction, commissioning and operation of building facilities. These and others can help, but we at AEC Connect have found that while software and other appropriate technology can be invaluable in supporting best practice efforts, it is not sufficient to apply them without significant attention to human and organizational factors including existing company cultures and basic communication and negotiation skills. So while technologies are part of the answer, they are not the whole answer to today's challenges.

More information is available from AEC Connect (http://www.aecconnect.com/) about strategies which building owners, architects, engineers and contractors can implement to not only face and survive their industry's current and future challenges, but also benefit from the current and future opportunities of the building sector.

[AEC_Connect consulting offers building owners, designers and builders advice regarding Integrated Project Delivery and other AEC business practices requiring and promoting high levels of collaborative work. Our main areas of consultancy are BIM-readiness, Optioneering, and Sense-Making which together address most of the data management, decision making and communication needs faced by our clients. Additional information about our services is available at www.aecconnect.com]

AEC CONNECT at SMART-GEOMETRY 2009

Recently AEC_Connect's Dominik Holzer attended the 2009 SmartGeometry event in San Francisco as a workshop tutor and invited speaker, and he gave a presentation together with Steve Downing of Arup Sydney on Optioneering and their research work on DesignLink , a collaborative design evaluation framework designed to support multi-criterion- and multi-objective optimizations and other optioneering techniques for use by multi-disciplinary design teams.

According to AECbytes' Latchmi Khemlani:

" ... increasing specialization in the AEC industry is an inevitable response to the growing complexity of our projects, so it would be helpful to find ways to make it work better. Also, with the introduction of ... increasingly sophisticated design and analysis tools, the process has been greatly speeded up, which brings about new challenges in the way in which the different disciplinary members communicate and collaborate on a project."

(L. Khemlani, April 2009, www.aecbytes.com/feature/2009/SmartGeometry2009.html)

We couldn't agree more, and we would add that making the AEC industry work better would not only be helpful but is actually critical in view of its by now well-publicized inefficiencies, the near-term challenges of the current economic crisis, and the longer-term need for more sustainable practices in the building industry as well as throughout society. Complex problems such as these demand intelligent and effective action by parties from a wide variety of backgrounds and having a wide variety of expertise, so the business-as-usual approach of specialists working in their 'silos' and throwing disconnected packets of information over the fence clearly won't cut it any more. Collaborative design decision frameworks may not be the whole solution, but they are certainly a key component.

More coverage of the event is available at:

www.aecbytes.com/feature/2009/SmartGeometry2009.html

and

http://www.smartgeometry.org/


AEC_Connect congratulates all who contributed to the 2009 edition of SmartGeometry (with special thanks to Jeroen Coenders, Axel Kilian and Shane Burger of the organizing committee, as well as Bentley who have acted as main sponsor of the event)




We look forward to seeing and supporting the further development of important modeling and analysis techniques on the various platforms utilized in the course of the workshops. Rule-based modeling starts to become increasingly accepted in architectural and engineering design practice. Utilising parametric design tools beyond the mere exploration of formal design aspects has been one of the main goals of the workshop sessions. Links of parametric design tools to building-performance analysis and to scripting input have been high priorities at Smart Geometry.

FACING AEC CHALLENGES in 2009 and BEYOND

Complex projects, multi- and trans-disciplinary teams, aggressive timelines, tight economic constraints, rising performance standards.

These and many other interrelated factors challenge owners, designers and constructors of buildings to establish effective working practices and also to continually improve them. While technology - these days mainly software - can offer significant advantages to those who adopt and properly apply it, technology is only one aspect of productivity in the AEC industry. We at AEC Connect have found that while software and other appropriate technology can be invaluable in supporting best practice efforts, it is not sufficient to apply it without significant attention to human and organizational factors.

AEC_Connect consulting offers building owners, designers and builders advice regarding Integrated Project Delivery and other AEC business practices requiring and promoting high levels of collaborative work. Our main areas of consultancy are BIM-readiness, Optioneering, and Sense-Making which together address most of the data management, decision making and communication needs.

With our insights and experience we aim to assist our clients in integrating leading-edge technologies with company cultures by bringing to bear a range of skills and techniques including: BIM, parametric/associative modeling, optioneering, multi-criteria and multi-objective optimizations, IPD and other collaborative contract structures, negotiation and communication skills.

For more information see our website (www.aecconnect.com) and feel free to contact us for a discussion of how AEC Connect can help better connect you, your colleagues, staff, clients and others who impact the success of your building projects.

AEC CONNECT BLOG LAUNCH

Welcome to our blog, in which we post news and commentary about topics of current interest, especially those regarding innovative responses to current and future challenges in the AEC industry.

AEC_Connect consulting offers building owners, designers and builders advice regarding Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) and other AEC business practices requiring and promoting high levels of collaborative work. Our main areas of consultancy are BIM-readiness, Optioneering, and Sense-Making which together address most of the data management, decision making and communication needs faced by our clients.

We welcome readers' comments in response and look forward to exchanging views.

Additional information about our services is available at www.aecconnect.com