While there is much vendor talk about BIM it’s good to hear from the coal-face; are users implementing BIM in their projects? Ed Goldberg shares his thoughts after talking with a variety of users, using a variety of applications.
From personal experience I’ve seen far greater adoption of BIM in smaller practices, probably because it’s easier to implement, while the larger ones tend to “study” it, talk about it and wait. That probably explains the reported high adoption rate for Revit in AU/NZ where there are many small operators. I remember sitting in an AU session stunned at how many hands went up when they asked who had “more than 500 [cad] users” in their company!
It’s disappointing when demand from the clients, design builders & owners, is frustrated by the reluctance to change from the AEC Design world that serves them. The reasons are many but usually it comes down to “they won’t pay” (with many “they's” being cited), the sheer effort of changing legacy practices or fear/reluctance to share design information in the way BIM demands.
I can understand trying BIM & not implementing it for business or resource reasons. However, I was amazed at one recent event that a significant proportion of the audience, all design professionals, had not even tried a building modelling application. Mind you it’s not just AEC, there are other industries struggling to cope with the change from design documentation to virtual modelling and perhaps that’s the problem. It’s not the applications, it’s not the process, it’s coping with change.
That said, there is a lot of great BIM work happening in NZ. BIM isn’t the future, it’s the now!
How Are Architects Using Digital Design Tools? — AEC in Focus — Cadalyst
“In this month's "AEC in Focus" column I'll give an overview of what I think is happening in the AEC/FM industry. This column isn't a scientific study; it's the result of conversations with a random selection of firms and individuals who gave me a glimpse of their rationales for using a particular set of digital tools.”
