Guest Blogger Willard Williams: BIM is a Distraction

This is an expansion of some comments that Willard Williams made on a LinkedIn thread. I really liked what he had to say and asked him to expand it into a guest post for Shoegnome. Enjoy!

In the end it is the final product that is of greatest importance.

The reality is that both ArchiCAD and Revit (as well as the rest of the BIM software family) have done something to and for the industry that has never been seen in the history of this ancient profession. We are able to understand the multiple facets of our designs before they are built. We can assess vast amounts of information to see which results are most applicable to the conditions upon which we are going to build these structures. Twenty years ago we were at the Etch-a-Sketch level and now we are seeing the value of having data rich 5-dimensional models that are integrated with our entire team in real time. We are able to calculate massive amounts of data, on site-specific locations in an effort to bring forth more resolution to our forward thinking efforts. But how many people are really exploiting “BIM,” or even using it. Most of us are stuck in the 3d modeling or 2d work, rarely using the “I” in BIM. How many people understand that ArchiCAD and Revit aren’t BIM software; they are apart of the BIM, they integrate with the BIM, and translate the parts of the BIM for other uses. The BIM can be the inclusion of various different platforms like OPS (Onuma Planning Software), Sketch Up, C4D (Cinema 4D), Grasshopper, Navisworks, Solibri, Ecotech, Tekla, and many others. You can use the BIM to analyze many things, like the stress within the structure, the environmental conditions, emergency exiting scenarios, smoke spread, code compliance, project costs, construction duration, etc. You can also take this BIM and make it into an asset and facilities management tool that will be used for the life of the building, like ArchiFM or OPS. And any one of those platforms operating at it’s highest potential isn’t BIM by itself, it’s apart of the whole BIM pie. Just as we aren’t just architects and designers operating in a vacuum on a site that has not relationship to the world around us, BIM is integrated into multiple aspects of the process.

BIM is only as rich as you make it. Most of the teams I have encountered aren’t using these very sophisticated platforms for much more than a documentation and 3d analysis software….that’s just the tip of the BIMberg. BIM for most is just a method for producing a parametric model that produces a few schedules and construction documentation. Yet that is such a small percentage of the capabilities for which BIM was conceived. Some practitioners say that going deep into the richness that is BIM is beyond their tiny projects needs. It is not. You can BIM at any level on any size project, if that is your intent. The longer that we focus on what our individual tools can or can’t do, the more time we are distracted from improving the health, welfare, and safety of the public for which we serve. We have a duty to protect the public from a lot of things, and weak design solutions that are harmful to the public even after they are built should be one of them.

It doesn’t matter how it is made or what software is used.

All that really matters is if the product is going to help the social and economic environment. The work itself lives on long after the BIM. We get so focused on our personal preferences that we forget we are all in this together, and on this rock as neighbors, partners, and co-creators. Most of the projects produced by BIM software today still fail to answer many social, environmental, or any number of various issues that are required for a sustainable socioeconomic environment. Who cares what software provides the best design and documentation solutions. Are we saving our clients money and providing a better product to the building user then we did yesterday? Not just a product that considers the various constructability issues, but one that saves the client money now and in the future through our wielding of BIM. Are we helping the community where our product is being placed? Is our product assessing various potential outcomes based on quality, cost, and function? Is it a sustainably driven effort? Does it reduce stress, improve air quality, improve social interaction, improve productivity, and focus?

We as a society are more connected than at anytime in the history of our species. Yet we forget that with all this new connectivity we have a greater responsibility to fix the previously acceptable solutions of yesterday and update them. We expect more from technology and the same archaic solutions for our buildings. We have put such a high value in our built structures that most people don’t have the resources to correct fatal flaws within the design. We are living in communities that are in some cases overtly destroying the forward progression of our society. We put band-aids on buildings and neighborhoods with our highly sophisticated technologies but are having little or no effect on the greater design problem, which requires synergistic solutions. We eagerly await the release of a new phone, or a new software version, but we are content with the fact that our buildings are killing us. We are satisfied with driving a super efficient vehicle and feel we are contributing to the betterment of society yet we are going home to a highly toxic environment.

In the end our main and lasting contribution to our society is the buildings that we design. We need to work together one way or another, regardless of our software allegiances. We are at a critical point in the evolution of our society and all we are doing is perpetuating infighting. This is only distracting us from the greater problem, toxic and wasteful buildings. We have millions of square feet of existing wasteful buildings in deteriorating communities that need serious all encompassing renovations, right now.

BIM is the biggest thing to happen to architecture since the introduction of steel into building structures.

We are able to understand more about the buildings operation, and capabilities then we have at any other point in the history of the profession. As professionals we should go out of our way to make friends with other platforms. We should open up positions within our organizations to anyone who understands what BIM is, or can be. If they bring their own software seat with them, I think they should be able to work along side of us regardless of our software preferences or theirs. That sort of integration will go along way into breaking down the walls between us. We need to better understand that at this point most platforms and workflows can handle interoperability or at least some level of data exchange. We need to get past the software divisions caused by loyalty and preferences all of us have perpetuated throughout the years. Most of us have spent a lot of time, resources, blood sweat, and tears to get to this BIMberg, now we need to dive deep together and make the world work better through architecture.

About the author:

Willard Williams has been working on various types of BIM/IPD projects for close to 10 years, ranging from mission critical facilities, like data centers, and hospitals, to high-end residential. Willard started his career working as a freelance designer, working with John Stebbins then Gary McGavin, who is the current California Seismic Safety Commissioner. He then worked in Phoenix where he worked for the Orcutt | Winslow Partnership, a highly ranked firm and one of the largest ArchiCAD offices in the United States. There he witnessed the benefits of “Teamwork” both in the BIM and amoungst his peers. At O|W he also explored the benefits that BIM offers in the early design and construction administration. Sadly he was laid off with a large percentage of the firm, as a downsizing effort during the Great Recession. Willard then started Williams International Consulting, developed websites like www.archicadjobs.com and www.parametricjobs.com and continued on the BIM path. During this period he traveled to San Antonio where he worked on some interesting projects and competitions with Tim White and Jason Hetrick, long time friends and mentors, and for Structure Real Estate Development (SRED) run by Tim Cone. Now in San Francisco Willard works with Rossington Architecture, working on various high-end residential projects around the Bay Area.

12 Responses to "Guest Blogger Willard Williams: BIM is a Distraction"

Djordje says:

October 8, 2012 at 1:16 am

Take the title and the subtitles – and that’s the essence!

Excellent!

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BSuccar says:

October 8, 2012 at 1:29 am

The title and the body text do not match. Either BIM is a distraction or it is the best thing since sliced steel…Also, I think the article is too emotional; we are discussing a set of tools and processes after all.

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Peter Cholakis says:

October 8, 2012 at 8:03 am

1. The value of BIM is its ability to help support life-cycle management. Design, per se is secondary at best.
2. The 3D visualization aspect of BIM is a clear distraction. 3D visualization is a valuable component of BIM, however, current, accurate, and actionable information in support of short and long term decision-making needs to be the focus.

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1. Jared Banks says:
  
  October 8, 2012 at 9:18 am
  
  Thanks for all the comments. I’ll hopefully get Willard to weigh in as well. I disagree that design is not central to the value of BIM. As an architect I am interested in how BIM improves my designs and how it helps communicate that enhanced design with all my partners, consultants, contractors, clients, etc. If architects see BIM as something below their primary role as creative problem solvers, then we’ll never fully embrace and utilize all the greatness that BIM can provide (ei, the value you see in BIM). If an architect thinks BIM can only come AFTER those sparks of genius, we’ll just continue to marginalize ourselves. This isn’t to say that BIM must completely replace our other design tools. But if it isn’t as viable an option for design as anything else, then why bother?
  
  The baby steps of many BIM users right now is that pretty 3D model. But I agree, for whatever purposes we’re pursuing BIM, it’s current, accurate, coordinated, and actionable information that we need to focus on. I love the concept of actionable information. And again that brings me back to my thoughts on the deep connection between BIM and design. If I have actionable information, then I can investigate more solutions, more deeply, and through all the incredible visualization capabilities of BIM communicate those discoveries with everyone who needs to understand what we’re learning.
  
  Reply
Willard Williams Jr. says:

October 8, 2012 at 8:51 pm

BIM is a distraction! For a long period of time architecture and technology increased together at proportional rates. Today we are seeing how existing built solutions, that weren’t created in a holistic manners are causing a global reaction, Climate Change. We have a duty to defend people from designs that aren’t holistically derived which are causing all of us to suffer. That duty extends into the future as much as it extends into the past. When technology really started to take off, the age of the microprocessor, building design solutions were effectively frozen in time, and most exist today with little improvement. These buildings are a major source of containments, and have astoundingly dismal performance.

My argument is that we are using space age technology, that is highly evolved, and still producing the same level of designs solutions, on the same timetable that our fathers used, with the same materials, the same details, the same end product. There are bright points within the profession both in high quality and performance oriented buildings and communities, which are beacons for the rest of the profession. Yet we exist in and produce buildings that are highly toxic and inefficient on various levels, even with all of our fancy technological advancements. We exist within these buildings, working in them, selling them, and remodeling them, but in the end we are producing the same problematic solutions. Therefore BIM is a problem if we aren’t able to use the speed, interoperability, and analysis, to assess larger portions of existing problems effectively.

If we compared the aerospace industries advancements to that of their deliverables throughout the period, 1950 to 2000, we can clearly see how technology improved this industry, and their product solutions. If you had a choice between a Saturn class rocket and a brand new Falcon 5, by SpaceX, the choice should be pretty easy. The Saturn Class rocket has less commuting power than the smart phone in your pocket. There are a ton of buildings as old as a Saturn rocket and you are probably living in one, or working in one. Old buildings are great, though the buildings that we live and work in need to be the most efficient models out there. Even the old buildings need to be assessed to much higher levels. That is where BIM is missing the target and most of the profession at large. The building industry has seen a few major advancements in the last 1,000 years, but none as devastating to holistic and passive solutions then that of the introduction of mechanical and electrical systems into buildings. We are also very lucky because never has our industry had the technology to assess and provide solutions for all the known inherit design problems as BIM. This is no longer an optional aspect of our industry. We have a lot of wasteful buildings that need BIM to fix them. We can do so much so quickly, with a higher level of accuracy and consistency then has ever been witnessed in the profession. That isn’t because of Graphisoft or Archicad alone but instead by various advancements throughout the evolution of technology, and in reality our industry borrows advancements from others just as they borrow from architects and contractors.

We need challenge our value system within the industry to not just focus on the tools we each are using but the solutions we are targeting the software with. We have far more pressing issues that can be resolved with BIM, but we have to work together. I know of at least a million square feet of space that are sucking up clean air for combustion, producing invisible gases that are infecting the world, and using up tons of non-renewable energy to maintain indoor comfort levels, and that’s before I get out of my neighborhood. We need to start using BIM to start working on these bigger issues that aren’t going to go anywhere by ignoring them. We are designed to have difference of opinion but we shouldn’t let it get in the way of making our immediate surroundings better.

Challenge yourselves to use BIM to 85% of its capability daily. Challenge our system to be dynamic more than static. We are in desperate need to address legacy issues but we are focusing on software more than solutions. If you made buildings as dynamic as a formula one car, and architects and engineers as dynamic as an entire formula one teams’ efforts throughout the season, and the building department as dynamic as the FIA, we wouldn’t be concerned with how our tools work we would know that they work. We would know that our ability to take theory to practice, in these inefficient buildings is paramount at this point, not the BIM software that we use.

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Stefan Boeykens says:

October 9, 2012 at 2:36 am

Even though the 3D visualization aspects of BIM seem a distraction, they serve a very important need, that directly influences the design, performance and experience of the buildings you are elaborating: you can be embedded inside the (proposed) design, can visualize how it could behave as a user of the facility and still can adapt and modify it as a designer.

E.g. many of our students are struggling when learning BIM because of the complexity to model their design in 3D instead of merely drafting it in 2D, but at at the same time they are solving design issues, which can be as mundane as “is the floor slab for the roof terrace outlined at the top or at the bottom of the adjoining floor slab of the bedroom next to it?” The software is not solving anything for them, but enforces them to ask these questions.

I am a strong defender of BIM, but would argue to start small enough: solve the design issues by working fully in 3D. Little BIM, maybe, but still very valuable.

Surely, there is little of the “I” in these first steps, but it will definitely lead to improvements in the final design, which can only be positive.

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Willard Williams Jr. says:

October 9, 2012 at 1:42 pm

Stefan that is a great point. I too find that most people don’t even go into 3D let alone into developing the complete Building Information Model. Sometimes I hear people say “this doesn’t have to be 3d does it?” This hurdle for most people, even in the most rudimentary design schemes. 3D helps to visualize construct-ability issues very quickly and easily.

It is interesting how the Architectural education progresses from 2-dimensional projects that are based in art, to 3-dimensional objects but the 4d, and 5d steps are mostly omitted in the process. Even with those various aspects there are even more pieces that could be included in student projects that would help them to better understand the complexity of Building Information Modeling. Understanding cost and time, structural analysis, etc. All of which can be done with student licenses and cross over from the design studio to the structures classes.

Even with that we are still failing to teach students how to go through existing facilities and increase their deficiencies effectively. That is concerning when we have the ability to fix problems and we continue on the path of trying to build new ones. The renovation aspect of our profession should be taught in at-least one studio, as it is a major part of most of our practices.

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Guest Blogger Willard Williams: BIM is a Distraction | Shoegnome | Software Engineering Software says:

October 11, 2012 at 8:41 am

[...] Read this article: Guest Blogger Willard Williams: BIM is a Distraction | Shoegnome [...]

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BIM is indeed a Verb not a Noun says:

October 30, 2012 at 1:54 pm

Willard is spot on target . When you discuss best practices in any technology including BIM, you get how the software etc is supposed to work not the human consequences of what it does in the real world. The major Re-Insurers have already discovered this and you are going to see a Tsunami of change to propel our industry in exactly the direction he points to. As a road-map we give you >>> http://www.ideapete.com/risonanza.html

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1. Jared Banks says:
  
  October 30, 2012 at 2:52 pm
  
  Pete, very interesting road-map. I agree; what’s coming next is going to be huge. And I love your comment about a mason from 1,000 years ago wouldn’t feel out of place on a modern construction site.
  
  Reply
Willard says:

October 30, 2012 at 5:28 pm

Pete your future article is pretty awesome. The BIM world needs more visionary’s who look at this practice as a living science fiction story not a feudal war among classes. You really touch on some very important points. One is the idea of Lean production and manufacturing brought to light by Japanese manufacturing giants like Toyota in the min 20th century and Porsche today, as seen in their Leipzig facility. Lean design is what BIM is, making it easier to produce something more accurately, in a shorter amount of time. This is somewhat understood in theory but rarely practiced in the production of construction documentation, building analysis, construction details, and in the construction itself. We know what the details look like, for the most part, we know the systems, their organization, their order of operations, the means, and methods but we find ourselves writing out the equations to the same problems over and over and then charging our clients for it. That would be fine if all of our designs were truly unique like a Zaha Hadid project, but even then there is redundancy that should be exploited through the use of parametric technology. I have witnessed the fallacy of so called BIM savvy offices first hand. When you go into to their files you see 2D solutions, you see design times based on a percentage of construction that is slowly churned out to make the proposed estimate of time based on an hourly fee. It’s scary and sad.

So if we look at Lean Design on one side and then look at how it evolved to other industries like aerospace or manufacturing we see two things. When you can focus less on the production of ideas the more time you get to work out ideas, the better the final product is because, in the end the product becomes less expensive, provides more viable solutions and is more universally affordable. At this stage Architects can’t even afford themselves, not to mention their fees or final products. Buckminster Fuller is rolling over in his grave right now saying that problems we face today are self inflicted and totally distracting us from great solutions, that are priced reasonably, and keep in mind our limited and ever diminishing set of resources.

Now let’s look at something else within these industries and their technologies, let’s take the aerospace industry. They use many software products but CATIA is a well-known widely used platform. This is interesting. In the aerospace industry they use the same software to design their final products, say the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, as they do to design the machines, that assemble the huge pieces, the machines that move the huge pieces around the factory, and the machines that do basically the entire assembly. This is something that is missing from our industry because of this separation that we have created for the last 300 years from the assembly portion of the building construction. Architect in its definition is a master builder. But today we are just masters at making a model on a computer and handing it down the line. Though Integrated Project Delivery (IDP) is something that will change our perspective on the process. Today when we look at solving problems we are looking at a few things but missing one of most crucial aspects, how is it or could it go to together more easily, more efficiently, and quicker. The aerospace industry looks at everything from where the rivet is made to the point at which it is under a fully loaded condition. The aerospace industry analysis the entire system organically and all together, that is 5D. Some of us do that. We rarely look at the entire picture in that complete and detailed method. I think one of the only architects I know who has already done this sort of deep parametric thinking and exploration, and he did that was 20 years ago is, Kimon Onuma. I still remember hearing of his legendary Guam Naval Base relocation assessment, and I often think about his accomplishments and how far in the future he was and still is.

Another point that I thought you made that was very deep and meaningful, Pete, was about the Salk Institute, and art and taking time for your brain to unwind. This for me is the quantum computer at it’s highest level. We are artist, and what we are creating now is art that is parametric, this is getting closer to fractal logic but as you said “you miss the obvious because you are too close.” What we are missing is that we are artist, architects, engineers, humans, and owners. The software isn’t “aware” and it doesn’t know that we have created most of the solutions before; now it’s time to challenge ourselves a little and be as efficient as possible with the tools we so desire and design like we give a damn. We still have millions of designs that need to be totally reworked, and we are lucky enough that most of those designs weren’t very unique or complicated so we can easily design them remodel them and start saving lives through better designs and renovations.

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Raymond Couzens says:

November 14, 2012 at 12:10 am

I get it.

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In the end it is the final product that is of greatest importance.

It doesn’t matter how it is made or what software is used.

BIM is the biggest thing to happen to architecture since the introduction of steel into building structures.

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