Practice 2.0: BIM Myths and Building Truths

Sep 2011

By CASE — Filed under: Featured ,Practice 2.0 ,Software

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Construction Coordination Model / Louisiana State Museum and Sports Hall of Fame / Trahan Architects / Image courtesy of CASE

By Steve Sanderson

My inbox was hit recently by a couple of posts painting a bleak picture of the impact of BIM on the AECO industry. Thoughtful and objective criticism of BIM is helpful and necessary to counter vendor marketing overreach and fanboy zealotry. Unfortunately the criticisms I read are neither thoughtful nor objective. Instead they rely on sensationalist titles, sources outside of the building industry, and nonexistent relationships between cause-and-effect.

The first, A Cautionary Digital Tale of Virtual Design and Construction published in Engineering News-Record (ENR), describes the construction of an undisclosed building at an undisclosed university that resulted in an undisclosed contractor suing the undisclosed owner, who then sued an undisclosed architect, who brought an undisclosed MEP engineer into the mix. The lawsuit was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount by an insurance company. Tellingly, a VP at the insurance company is the only source for the article. The point seems to be that if you use BIM you could be sued.

Without repeating what has already been stated in numerous responses, such as this one from John Tocci (which was removed from the ENR website), the connection between BIM and this lawsuit is at best difficult to discern and at worst not connected at all. If one were to replace BIM with CAD or mylar or bumwad would the situation described turn out differently? No. People would still be suing each other because there was a fundamental breakdown in shared responsibility and communication.

My suggestion to the ENR editors: If your goal is to be a trusted source for industry information avoid the easy sells and focus on the real issues. I propose a revised article title: A Cautionary Tale of Design and Construction: Communication breakdowns can be costly.

Another example of sensationalist rhetoric is the blog post 3 Myths of BIM (for Constructors). It opens by referencing the aforementioned ENR article along with “many more examples illustrating how BIM is far from the panacea claimed by software providers and their bureaucratic partners.” The blogger gives exactly zero additional examples. For the record, my company, CASE, is a BIM Consultancy staffed by architects. We don’t sell software and we are about as far from bureaucratic as you can get. We earn a living by providing innovative solutions to help our clients build more effectively.

The post then attempts to counter some “myths” about BIM beginning with “BIM is Easy.”

If there is one thing that people do not think, it’s that BIM is easy. In fact, based on my company’s experience implementing BIM for a wide range of players in the industry, most people think it’s so hard that they’d rather spend way more time and resources doing something “the way we’ve always done it” than adopt a new process. BIM requires effort and expertise, but so does any other method to accurately document a complex building.

The blogger begins to reveal his hand when he describes the knowledge and skills, that no CAD operator would have, needed to extract useful information from a BIM model. And that’s exactly the point. BIM represents the first time that deep construction knowledge can, and for the benefit of the project should, be embedded into the documentation. CAD operators with no understanding of what they’re drawing or how it relates to the actual building are becoming a thing of the past, just as word processing has led to the extinction of the typist. BIM can and should be driven by design and construction professionals, not CAD specialists. The emerging professionals that can move fluidly from the virtual to the actual will drive the industry forward.

“Myth 2: BIM is Automatic” relies on the same dated assumption as Myth 1, that BIM is created and managed by “isolated CAD operators” who are mindlessly building shapes in the computer. For the record, if this is what you’re doing then you’re not doing BIM. It’s almost universally understood by practitioners that BIM is not simply a technology, but a process that virtually represents a building and much of the information associated with that building.

The author then describes how things involving computers always seem to go wrong and argues “to do this successfully, IT managers must maintain the technology with constant upgrades, backups, repairs, comprehensive and continuous training, and a collection of proprietary tricks, key codes, and macros that work around long and often convoluted command structures.” He just described every CAD production environment outside of sole proprietorships that I’ve ever come across, so what is the proposed solution?

According to the author, “Myth 3” is that “BIM is Useful.” This is where the blog gets somewhat comical. Interspersed with photos of piles of CRT monitors, 60’s era computer operators and a CCTV video of an office worker beating his computer with a sledgehammer, the author claims it’s pointless to use BIM because the technology will just be out of date before the project is complete. His reasoning seems to be that since the hardware and software you’re using now will soon be out of date, that you shouldn’t use current technology? I guess he’s never heard of downward compatibility.

After all of that, I couldn’t wait to hear the punch-line. There had to be one right? The author delivers. Under a section titled: The Solution is Simple. Are you ready for it? Wait…

It’s Google SketchUp!

Didn’t see that coming did you? Don’t get me wrong. SketchUp is a great tool and has many amazing applications throughout all stages of the building design and construction process, from urban planning to design modeling and visualization to analysis to documentation to construction. But to imply that SketchUp can “be used to document constructions, simulate sequence and process, communicate alternatives, and be useful to anyone with the click of a mouse or a tap and pinch of the fingers” without any of the issues above is disingenuous at best and hucksterism at worst.

Yes, SketchUp is an easy 3D modeling tool to learn initially, but to do any of the modeling to the level of detail required to be useful for any of the above statements requires a level of expertise far beyond your casual user. I can’t count the number of times that a firm persisted in using SketchUp until a stage that the model geometry became corrupt and unmanageable (a common trait with visualization-focused mesh-based tools). SketchUp, just like any other 3D tool, should be viewed as just that, a tool that has specific strengths and weaknesses in a BIM-based process, not a miracle solution to all of our problems.

Not to toot our own horn, but we take a decidedly platform agnostic approach to our projects. This presentation CASE gave at BIM Forum describes how we used at least seven different 3D authoring tools in our BIM-based design to fabrication process for the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.

Just for reference, SketchUp was not one of them.

About CASE: Practice 2.0 is a periodic column by our friends at CASE. CASE exists where building and technology intersect. We are a Virtual Design and Construction (VDC), Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Technology Management consultancy based in New York City. CASE provides strategic advising to building design professionals, contractors and owners seeking to supplant traditional project delivery methods through technology-driven process innovation.

Cite:
CASE , CASE . "Practice 2.0: BIM Myths and Building Truths" 06 Sep 2011. ArchDaily. Accessed 23 Feb 2012. <http://www.archdaily.com/167109>

Comments (28)
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Jay B Zallan says:

F’ing Brilliant & spot on!!!: “CAD operators with no understanding of what they’re drawing or how it relates to the actual building are becoming a thing of the past”

# September 6, 2011 at 15:59

Bitonge says:

Spot on, anyone with half a brain can see that BIM makes sense. Even as an architecture student I can see the limitations of SketchUp and the vastly superior qualities of BIM. Yeah it’s complicated but good buildings don’t get built overnight.

# September 6, 2011 at 18:04

archi says:

Let’s see. A guy who’s vested interest is in BIM writing an article on BIM. I wonder what angle he’ll take…? Well what a surprise. You may not sell it, Steve, but you have to justify your investment in it don’t you? The “myths” you refer to are created by the vendors themselves, so you shouldn’t be surprised that people are responding to them. BIM is potentially the greatest thing since architects’ payrises, if only the vendors would invest as much in getting their product right as they do in their marketing.

Come and work in our office Steve, and Bitonge, I’ll show you how reliable and productive “BIM” really is, with some real examples. Oh, and for the record, our office does not use SketchUp.

# September 6, 2011 at 18:44

-1

robb says:

I see this Steve guy as a corporate shill. BIM kills creativity, Archicad and Revit don’t make architecture, they just standardize mediocrity.

# September 6, 2011 at 20:13

Arch dezign says:

Well, regarding lack of creativity, should the designers ourselves instead of any kind of software we are using to be accused at first place?

# September 6, 2011 at 21:47

amonle says:

I can’t believe I just read that. ArchiCAD and Revit are only tools. It’s up to you to master them and bend their capabilities to your needs.
If you can then you have creativity AND an intelligent model.

# September 6, 2011 at 22:35

You’ve obviously never used Revit have you?

# September 7, 2011 at 04:26

revittotd says:

@archi: I have, and 100% agree with amonie. Have you seen Frank Gherry’s sketches? Would you walk up to him and say “You’ve obviously never used a pen on paper before, have you?”

# September 7, 2011 at 15:18

Pencil, paper and chip board don’t make Architecture either, and by your logic a drafting board and triangle standardizes mediocrity as well.

# September 7, 2011 at 15:16

Does Gehry use Revit? In my experience Revit doesn’t “bend” to your capabilities. I don’t know about the other ones.

# September 7, 2011 at 18:36

js says:

why are credible section details still produced by CAD or their various versions? (agreed that they may still reference the BIM model, but the real detail still is CAD drawn.

# September 7, 2011 at 00:07

Years since I’ve had to use cad to produce a detail: 10
Buildings built from documents produced in BIM process since then: lost count.

# September 7, 2011 at 15:15

allSTAR says:

BIM is the wave of future and it is here to stay. With time this technology will only get better and help create a more efficient, collaborative environment bringing newer and seemingly diverse facets of the building industry on the same platform – Technical / Legal / Financial / Social / Environmental / many more, as the case may be will be able to converse with each other through the language of BIM

# September 7, 2011 at 03:31

supernova says:

allSTAR is right! BIM is the future! I am so inspired!

# September 10, 2011 at 02:07

Archreviewer says:

What annoys me about BIM is that it really isn’t suitable for an architecture course in university. I may generalise a bit here but most students design to the concept stage with a bit of detail design work – a project will not get built. The problem is architectural students are being left behind to be creative, while architectural technologists will move forward into the future with BIM.

# September 7, 2011 at 04:25

@Archreviewer I agree, we are training young architects to be Designers, not Architects, and expecting the workplace to make the designer into an Architect.

# September 7, 2011 at 21:03

dcbsky says:

That Arch schools are only “educating” designers and not functioning architects has been a critique of them for decades at least. The means of document production change, but the output of the schools remains largely the same. My best education came after I graduated and worked for a framer.

# December 19, 2011 at 15:21

ps just to clarify, it’s not BIM’s problem that this occurs, more education.

auto says:

This is just another archicad advert.

# September 7, 2011 at 05:20

Quelava says:

ArchiCAD is spelled with the big A.
Biiiiig A. :-)

# September 7, 2011 at 08:09

Ben says:

Steve is right on. And for those of you that say BIM kills creativity, you’re wrong. The top design firms all around the world have adopted BIM. BIM actually enhances it by allowing us to build super complex buildings in a very efficient and accurate way. Your limited knowledge is the only thing killing your creativity.

# September 7, 2011 at 10:54

Louis B. Smith, Jr, AIa says:

The creativity comes before the model is begun. I am giving a 6 hour workshop on this at ArchEx at the Richmond Virginia Convention Center on November 2, 2011. The title, if you want to come play, is 8 Vignettes on Ecological Design for the BIM Era: The Art of a Greener Place. Basically I am promoting creative concepts to drive decision making. This affects BIM in that BIM decisions need not only be made on a technical basis.

If you have nothing you want to express then BIM will generate a Box. Size and content may vary. If you want to express art, culture or emotion then start with that and turn your BIM tools to that end. That’s the workshop in a nutshell. You get 8 tries to get it down!

For the record I use Vectorworks though only half as well as I would like. Still powerful.

# September 7, 2011 at 13:08

Greg Howes says:

Steve,

Great post. Thank you for publicly sharing information about the project and directly addressing the myths around BIM. I believe your openness will be rewarded by business opportunities which arise specifically because you are willing to address these issues.

As a builder and cam/cnc fabricator I am not surprised by the strong reaction your posts received because I know from personal experience how fearful of change most building industry professionals are. From my many years of industry experience, I strongly believe that new processes and technology enable creativity, reduce risks, lower costs, and make industry-wide change more scalable.

Keep up the good work and sharing information about real projects. This is exactly what the industry needs – and the fact that it provokes a lot of heated discussion is also a good thing.

Ultimately you will benefit more by sharing your experience with builders and owners (and thereby get more business) rather than trying to convince competitors who fear change.

Greg

# September 8, 2011 at 18:14

Sue Firpo says:

Great article! I’m perplexed why so many seem to think that Building Information Modeling and creativity are mutually exclusive of one another.
…as if people forget that they are the ones driving the computer model.

Sue

# September 9, 2011 at 12:04

Brian says:

Great article. Too bad there are so many negative comments from people who must still be stuck in the dark ages and are adverse to change.

# September 10, 2011 at 14:02

Damon W Roby says:

I think that this article was very thoughtful and insightful! How often do detractors to change cite ambiguous details and mediocre examples to make thier point. It often seems that in politics and in life, the truth is somewhere in the middle.

BIM is just a tool, but it is a powerful one. And @Archreviewer, I couldn’t agree more, but it really does take all kinds.

# September 14, 2011 at 09:10

Odd Goderstad says:

Great article! And some good comments about education in the comments. Architectural students are beeing led away from practical architecture. So when they start to work, it takes 2 years training to get them productive.

# September 23, 2011 at 03:42

dan says:

To me, BIM is just another name for thinking of a building in its totality with software to enable an architect, etc. towards that end. It existed before any software was developed; it’s a manner of thinking. Revit is a grind in order to learn the basics. Free-form shapes are fun(?) to learn from various blogs/ publications. It’ll be more fun when I can find work using it.

# September 23, 2011 at 22:24

7:43 PM Sep 6th

Bocetos Digitales

Practice 2.0: BIM Myths and Building Truths: BIM Model / Kaohsiung Port and Cruise Service Center Proposal / JET… http://t.co/8wqRFcJ

7:46 PM Sep 6th

javier vila

Practice 2.0: BIM Myths and Building Truths | ArchDaily http://t.co/CxUnOuS vía @archdaily

7:47 PM Sep 6th

Víctor Hugo López T.

Practice 2.0: BIM Myths and Building Truths http://t.co/FhqHQIL #architecture

7:52 PM Sep 6th

fede tessa