Australian BIM Forum 2010

Blog entry by: Dominik Holzer

Public discussions about BIM by industry bodies such as the Australian Institute of Architect or Consult Australia have been rather sparse since the 2007 RAIA National Conference in Melbourne. At that event, the RAIA held an entire one day parallel stream about BIM, to complement their ‘usual’ program that was less technology focussed.

Since 2007 a lot has happened in the BIM world and the RAIA (now AIA) joined forces with Consult Australia and Autodesk to set up a series of BIM  forums in four major Australian cities. I was invited by the organisers to facilitate the Melbourne and Sydney events in October and November 2010. The forums had the aim to identify the challenges, successes and failures of using BIM to create integrated principles within the AEC industry.

A selected number of 35-40 AEC industry representatives with design, engineering, construction and client background were invited to review key challenges in the uptake of BIM. Those challenges included: the cost of implementation, cultural change, IP Ownership, data manager and security, quality of documentation, improved collaboration, earlier decision-making, the evaluation of alternatives for sustainable design and improvements using analysis during the design process.

Discussions at all the forums were lively with extensive feedback provided by the floor. During the individual sessions comments were recorded and they were then summarised in a 14 page report titled: BIM in Australia 2010 that can be downloaded here!

Optioneering

Blog entry by: Dominik Holzer

If one investigates the information-flow of traditional architect - engineer collaboration over the last century one will most likely encounter a process where engineers are asked to join a design project at a certain stage to help realize the architect’s ideas. The shortfall of such a work-method is the relative disconnectedness between performance feedback and design morphology.  Those architects and engineers who aim for more integrated design-practice are in search for ways that allow them to design more concurrently and to exchange information bi-directionally.  Such a process requires a high level of skill, trust and confidence in those involved. It forces architects to let go of their role as sole-authors to admit outside involvement from consultants. It requires engineers to become more proactively engaged in the design process and it prompts them to consider the bigger picture of how their input affects the overall design, both technically and aesthetically.

Humble Parametrics

Blog entry by: Dominik Holzer

Design computation and in recent years particularly parametrics and scripting have opened up a vast array of possibilities for creative minds to approach design problems in unprecedented ways. Taking advantage of the rule based approach computational design offers, many architects have done what they do best: exploring the possibilities of new tools at hand by testing the grounds in a playful and investigatory manner.

Smart Geometry 2010 (Barcelona)

Blog entry by: Dominik Holzer

There is certainly a fresh breeze detectable at this year’s Smart Geometry workshop and conference in Barcelona. Whereas in previous years, experimentation during the workshop was mainly limited to tasks resulting in computationally generated geometry (on people’s laptops) this year was certainly different. Practitioners and researchers combined sophisticated computational design with the creation and testing of physical models. The activity of ‘making and breaking’ seemed like a relief compared to the usually narrow focus of individuals creating virtual masterpieces on their laptops. There was a sense of illustriousness and productivity previously unseen at SG and the IaaC delivered the perfect backdrop for this.