Collected Concepts by F. Rutson (Rusty) Fuqua
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The evolving (current) trend in design and business is going to separate the men from the boys. This is contrary to the last jump in technology which allowed, and even promoted a wave of great pretenders. In practically every field, anyone who could "cut and paste" had the technology to put together a document that had the appearance of professionalism, OR was it plagiarism. i.e., "Word" has given the allusion that everyone is a spelling-bee champion, "Quick Books" has made everyone an accountant. CAD programs have created weekend computer architects. The body and soul of creativity has been lost, say many of the true masters of design and architecture. They say that one can not produce the same sensitivity without the connection of pencil to paper, the feel is gone. Rubbish --- technology is bestowing upon us the greatest opportunity in history. Pencil & paper architects are comparable to the industry that kept producing buggy whips long after the advent of the automobile. The 3d BIM is letting us design, visualize, analyze, and essentially live in a virtual model before it is ever built. This available power of today's technology should put to a finishing & permanent death the use of nominal and schematic as final-form documentation. Further more, the BIM has the ability to provide the client with methods of maintaining the project while it is in service, long after the architects and builders have gone. |
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The method of design production by the vast majority of architects is to produce 2d (or flat) drawings. The "leg bone" is not connected to the "hip bone", so to speak. One page is a floor plan, one page is an elevation, an engineer produces a structural plan on yet another page and so on. None of the lines on any of the multiple pages are digitally connected. If at any time, something is modified (as it always is), one must go through an assortment of drawings on various pages to keep the modifications in sync. In a 2d design that involves any complexity, most objects are drawn many times on multiple pages to represent the different views of that object. Worse yet, since the 2d drawing objects are not connected, it is not obvious, until construction, if the 2d drawings did not work or match. In a 3d (BIM), the "leg bone" IS in fact connected to the "hip bone". If it is not, anybody with "one good eye" can clearly see any design mistakes. One of the most fantastic benefits of the 3d BIM is that you only draw objects one time, you are then able to analyze the objects in multiple views. When changes in design are made, the change is made in one place, in the model, and that change is automatically made through out the drawing. You ask, if this is such a perfect scenario, why do so few companies utilize this 3d modeling approach? The answer is simple, you must know exactly what you are doing to produce a profitable project. The ability to produce a 3d BIM requires BOTH computer training & building experience. |
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