BIM for Interiors, Land Surveyors and Sub-contractors

There are 3 new practice papers available from the joint AIA (Australia) / Consult Australia BIM Steering Group. They are an extension to the 7 Outreach papers that were published last year:
O1 Educating Clients - What to ask for when requesting “BIM”
O2 BIM for Architects and Building Designers
O3 Engineers: What does BIM mean to my business?
O4 Possible uses of BIM for Construction
O5 Quantity Surveyors and Cost Planners: How can BIM improve my business?
O6 Facilities Managers: What benefits are there for me in engaging with a BIM process?
O7 Manufacturers and Suppliers: What can BIM do for my products?

As chair of the BIM & IPD Steering group of the Australian AIA and Consult Australia I had the pleasure to launch 23 Practice Papers back in August 2012.

National BIM Seminar by the AIA Australia

After traveling the continent for the AIA National BIM Seminar for two years in a row, I've handed over the baton to Dan Jürgens, the National BIM Manager at Cox who will start his 'tour' on Wednesday, 23 November in Perth. The AIA will run the seminar in a slightly different format this year: A networking lunch with an expert panel session.

10 Things a Client Should Know about BIM

Written by Dominik Holzer 

download as PDF

As a client on any medium to large scale construction project you would have come across the acronym BIM (standing for Building Information modelling) one way or another over the past 1-2 years. BIM is an industry buzzword that can relate to many things. It is often misunderstood or at times even deliberately misused in order to promote the goals of individual parties.

This essay provides clients with a straightforward summary of 10 things that are useful to know about BIM. In putting these points together, the author draws on extensive industry knowledge as well as exposure to some of the most prominent BIM projects that have been delivered in Australia. 

Rethinking the contractual environment for BIM in the Australian built environment industry

BROOKING PRICE HIGH COMMENDATION

AEC Connect's Dominik Holzer has recently been honoured with a High Commendation  for co-authoring  the above paper (with Ilsa Kuiper) for this year's Brooking Price entry. The Brooking Price of the Society of Construction Law Australia awards this price for the best essay submitted in their field. It is named after The Hon Robert Brooking AO QC in recognition of his Honour’s pioneering contribution to the study and practice of construction law in Australia.

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.

How full is your BIM? (Part 2)

The urgent need to clearly define BIM ‘Scope of Services’

Blog entry by: Dominik Holzer

The dangers of a ‘Full BIM’ scope

I was recently approached by a lawyer during an industry function where I presented the (amongst others) four documents discussing ‘Legal and Procurement’ aspects of BIM. The lawyer was pleased to see that the construction industry is now increasingly considering the legal aspects of BIM.  “We are currently having a lot on our plate”, he said “…lots of disputes between consultants, contractors and clients who collaborate on projects using BIM; there seem to be large discrepancies between the clients’ expectations and what ultimately gets delivered by the consultants and contractors – More work for us lawyers!”.

‘BIM in Practice’ - A great start!

Blog entry by: Dominik Holzer

Over the past 3-4 months one of my main occupations as partner at AEC Connect has been to support the Australian Institute of Architects and Consult Australia in their efforts to publish their first collection of Practice Papers about BIM. Chairing their BIM and IPD Steering Group is a challenging yet rewarding task.

How full is your BIM? (Part 1)

Or: How the ambiguous definition of BIM deliverables keeps holding us back!

Blog entry by: Dominik Holzer

Preamble

Ambiguous interpretation of deliverables is one of the main hindering factors for progress in the uptake of innovative technology and the adoption of BIM in the construction industry. I have been debating the dangers of ill-defined services and in particular the notion of ‘Full BIM’ for a while now across the industry. The feedback I receive about my ‘Full BIM’ criticism reflects on the struggle our industry  is going through: Collaborating parties too often experience a mismatch between their initial expectations and the benefits they ultimately receive when requesting BIM. Others have commented on the ‘hype factor’ when inflated expectations about BIM don’t match up in practice. The point I’m making is slightly different though:  I argue that there exists a lack of differentiation of what constitutes BIM among those offering it as part of their services as well as those requesting it as part of their deliverables.

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.

Still us and them?

The curious persistence of the 'Design vs. Technology' paradigm

Blog entry by: Dominik Holzer

The organisers of the 2012 National Conference of the Australian Institute of Architects need to be commended for their excellent effort in setting up a fantastic event in Brisbane. It has been a while since Queensland last hosted the AIA annual conference and by the feedback I got from those present, people were delighted with the result. A strong Queensland focus was noticeable overall as part of the introductions to the speakers as well as in considerations of the speakers themselves.

buildingSmart National BIM Roadmap - Workshops

Blog entry by: Dominik Holzer

Dominik Holzer from AEC Connect has been invited to attend an industry leadership workshop by buildingSmart Australia. They have recently secured funding from the (Australian) Commonwealth to analyse means to propagate the use of BIM across the building sector in Australia. The funds were given to buildingSmart with the aim to identify tasks, priorities and actions for the development of a National BIM implementation plan.

BIM’s Seven deadly sins (IJAC)

Blog entry by: Dominik Holzer

After nearly a decade since BIM started on its path to transform the building industry, I some thoughts to expose seven prevailing problems that emerged as part of its industry wide uptake. My paper about these sins was published in the ‘International Journal of architectural Computing (IJAC)’, where I provide the reader with a reality check between an idealistic view on BIM and the way it is currently applied in daily use.

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.

AIA (Aus) Seminar Series, BIM – beyond Software

Blog entry by: Dominik Holzer

I’ve been invited by the Australian Institute of Architects to run an Australia wide (see locations and dates below) seminar series on BIM. Titled: BIM, beyond software, I chose to focus on informing participants about the process and changes they are likely to experience when running projects using Building Information Modeling (BIM).

Learning outcomes:

The seminar participant will learn the difference between traditional deliverables and specific BIM requests in project briefs.  The seminar will then explain the impact of BIM deliverables on the work-flow and the design/documentation approach. Attendees will learn to respond to client BIM requests by aligning the services requested with responding in-house activities and ultimately with responding fees for the provision of those services.

Informa BIM Summit, Sydney

Blog entry by: Dominik Holzer

The inaugural two day BIM Summit in Sydney defied the usual trend of consultants gathering to update each other on their BIM progress. Instead, the event attracted a large number of contractors as well as some clients and government bodies in addition to the ‘usual suspects’. The level of presentations was high with both top national as well as international speakers from architecture, engineering, contractor, PM and legal background.

BIM in a Legal Context

Blog entry by: Dominik Holzer

In a recent meeting with construction lawyers it became apparent to me how important the legal profession is about to become in assisting the construction industry to escape from the impasse we witness in the adoption of BIM. Whereas technical issues related to the implementation of BIM undergo ever greater resolution, there are manifold contractual, IP and legal issues that are as yet little resolved.

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.

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’.