B3 - Implementation of BIM in 10 years

From the speech, “The Future of BIM Will Not Be BIM—and It's Coming Faster than You Think”, we watched on YouTube in last class and through the discussion within our group, we believe that there will be a bright future for AEC industry. However, it is hard to predict that how soon that future will come.

Bill Allen introduced many interesting application cases of BIM in today’s AEC industry. From the video, it’s easy to conclude that the BIM has and will improve the accuracy and efficiency of almost every process of construction activity. He emphasized some applications of BIM and other parametric design software such as grasshopper in architecture design. Along with my own experience in architecture design, I believe there will be more and more buildings, especially large-scale public buildings, designed in this way. Because parametric design can not only improve the design efficiency but also provide the visualization of design logic. It helps designers and architects to explain some certain design details and the logical reason behind them. It is quite common that after the completion of building design, the first party will doubt and argue about some design details of that building with architects. Thanks to the parametric tools, now architects can defend their ideas more convincedly and also can adjust design according to the owner requirement easily.

However, innovation and development are often based on the need for economic efficiency. Nowadays, almost all architects and engineers know that BIM is good. It can help people cooperate better, it can decrease the risk of human error, etc.. But from my own experience, there are still so many architects, engineers, builders do not know how to use BIM tools like Revit. Most of them are still relying on the AutoCAD or Sketchup. This fact makes it hard for firms to revolute their working mode due to the cost of training workers, upgrading working tools, etc.. And in fact, for many small projects like a house or a traditional apartment building, it is not worth for these firm to apply BIM. There are already a bunch of references for floor plans, details, standards for construction. They can complete the job even faster than using BIM tools.

Comments:

To Bhandal,

I agree with your points. I also doubt that the wide application of BIM in every field will come later than 10 years. Just as you said, to use BIM, every stakeholder have to be on board. But from the current situation that many firms are still relying on the 2-D tools, it is hard to say that the bright future can come in 10 years.

To Nana,

I agree that 10 years is too short to let the ambition come true. And I also agree that complementation relies on our generation who already learned those techniques and will or already on work in this field. In 20 years, I would say, after these young architects and engineers becoming senior workers, the wide application of BIM will come true.

To Weiyi,

I like the analogy you used between the parametric modeling assistant and food delivery apps. Exactly, techniques today are saving a bunch of time for people and make it very convenient from daily life to work. But there are still problems such as cost and time consideration. And the techniques like parametric design or 3D printing are still under developing. People need more time to refine and improve these techniques. Just as what you said,  "Haste makes waste, so nothing should go in a rush."