Announcing: Strategic Partnership between AEC Connect in Australia and CASE

AEC Connect will expand its services offered in Australia through close collaboration with the 20+ strong CASE team in the US and the UK. The newly formed partnership with CASE will foster AEC Connect’s  Strategic Design Technology consultancy and take advantage of CASE’s exhaustive experience in Project Consulting.

How BIM changes effort levels across the AEC industry

This is  a short overview of a recent industry study conducted by AEC Connect in order to establish the sentiment among some of Australia’s leading architecture and engineering consultants who use BIM to deliver projects on a day to day basis.

OpenBIM/Geometry Gym event at Arup in Melbourne

A snapshot of Jon's Rhino/Grasshopper to Revit conversion

buildingSmart Australia recently hosted Jon Mirtschin from Geometry Gym at Arup in Melbourne. Jon was part of an exquisite line-up of industry experts who discussed current developments in moving between parametric exploration, engineering optimisation and documentation in BIM. Find a summary in this blog entry.

BIM MEP Aus Forum 2012 - Review

Blog entry by: Dominik Holzer

The BIM-MEP Aus guys are at it again! For the third year in a row now, the BIM group within the BIM group within the organisation of the Association of Mechanical Subcontractors in Australia (AMCA) is hosting their national forum in Melbourne.

Revit Technology Conference (RTC), Australia 2012

Blog entry by: Dominik Holzer

This year's Australian RTC was held in the coastal town of Woollongong (NSW) with a 400+ strong crowd of Revit users and affiliates. Over the past year's the RTC has established itself as the primary user forum of computational design tools in Australia (and it is on the to follow this path with its US and European offshoots as well). Its strength is derived from the mix of hands-on user feedback related to Revit and associated tools, plus an increasing focus on strategic BIM implementation and the use of innovative technology in practice. I presented my paper on the Seven deadly sins of BIM on behalf of AEC Connect  during the 'Principals' Stream' on day one of the three day conference.

Meeting the Vasari developers

Blog entry by: Dominik Holzer

A large number of architecture and engineering firms currently undergo a major change in their tool infrastructure. BIM software is continuously gaining ground on traditional CAD tools as means for documentation. BIM software developers are not satisfied with limiting their tools to the documentation aspect of design and they aim at introducing options for conceptual modeling within their suite of software.  A prime example these developments is the approach Autodesk has taken for offering tools that assist their clients in early environmental checks. With several (partly complementary) products on the market, the frontrunner in that niche seemed to have been Ecotect  (acquired by ADSK in mid 2008).  When considering the lack of development after its purchase, ADSK rather seemed interested in extracting some of its features than retaining it as a standalone product. A strong indicator for this to be true is the current development of Vasari that is slowly making its way out of the Autodesk Labs.

Autodesk University (AU) 2011

Blog entry by: Dominik Holzer

With the main focus on promoting new features and capabilities of Autodesk products for architects, engineers and contractors (in particular in the realm of BIM), the AU also included a series of seminars and innovation forums that dealt with BIM culture, process and implementation strategies in practice.

I’ve predominantly been attending these less technical and more management oriented sessions in order to investigate BIM directions globally. I heard from other Design Technology leaders about the progress they are making and the challenges they are facing in the transition from CAD to BIM.

Overall my impression was that the problems outside Australia are very much the same we face here. Even further, I got the impression that Australia is actually on par if not ahead of other countries when it comes to the BIM implementation effort across our industry.  The reasons for this are as follows:

Designing the Dynamic

Blog entry by: Dominik Holzer

AEC Connect has been strongly involved in a 5 day event titled Designing the

Dynamic’ this November at RMIT University in Melbourne. Hosted by RMIT’s Design Research Institute (DRI) and the Spatial Information Architecture Lab (SIAL), Dominik was part of the organising committee and Andre presented via Video link from overseas on the opening day of this 4 day workshop plus one day symposium.

Built Environment Industry Innovation Council (BEIIC), Industry Speaks Workshop

Blog entry by: Dominik Holzer

Australia’s Built Environment Industry Innovation Council (BEIIC) was established in September 2008. BEIIC acts as an advisory body to the Minister and as an innovation advocate for the Australian industry. The Council considers industry innovation challenges like climate change, sustainability and industry competitiveness as well as issues such as regulatory reform, workforce capability, skills needs and uptake new technologies.

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.

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.

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]