David wrote:
Now, of course the architect and the fabricators had flatland contract documentation for all this stuff. And there were structural engineers and glazing subcontractors in the mix, as well. But what I thought was cool was that the real work happened in virtual reality and the most critical exchange of information was all digital. The 2d documentation happened in parallel, largely to have a signed legal record of the work.
I quite agree with Geoff, Matthew, Karl and David et al. While paper is not going to go away soon, there already is a better way to communicate our virtual models (BIM) with the fabricators and constructors. David's example above is one and is similar to Ghery's experience with Bilbao and Disney hall. By doing smart virtual models and having the CAD programs talk directly to the fabricator's computer the building process is more accurate and saves money and time.
With ArchiCAD and other 3D programs we are already seeing significant changes in how we work. We have had to think through the construction to a greater extent than previously to make our models. Because of the modeling, much more of our work is done by the end of Design Development. Construction Documents really is now just annotating the model/drawings. On a more nuts and bolts level, some of us are already changing our fee structures to reflect this.
Here in the US Archictects are traditionally taught not to be responsible for quantity take-offs and leave cost estimating to others. This has left us at the mercy of the contactors. I think we should be taking advantage or our program to change this. We can sell our clients on this by better cost control and bottom line project cost by working sooner with the contractors.
With archicad it is hard not to become more of what is here known as design-build companies, even if it just translates into bringing in the contractor much earlier thanwe traditionally have typical for all project types and sizes (finishing CD's and then bidding it out). The publicity of Disney Hall and Bilbao is making even residential clients wonder why we can't control costs more.
I see our task as now applying this methodology to all building sizes and types to revolutionize the building industry.
I would like to see us using ArchiCAD more intelligently and working with the fabricators and contractors to make this happen.
Erika
Architect, Consultant
MacBook Pro Retina, 15-inch Yosemite 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Mac OSX 10.11.1
AC5-18
Onuma System
"Implementing Successful Building Information Modeling"