Last week, we watched the first half hour of Bill Allen’s “The Future of BIM will not be BIM-and It’s Coming Faster than You Think” speech from Autodesk University. In the talk, Allen predicts that within the next 10 years the AEC industry will change drastically towards the way of automation and what he calls “Building Information Optimization.” Allen claims that “rather than manually drawing walls, doors, and columns . . . we will feed the computer ‘rules’ instructing us a building’s optimal footprint, structural load capacity, and thermal performance.” In short, Allen is hypothesizing that in 10 years, the AEC industry will be exponentially faster through automation and a drastic acceleration in computing power applied to BIM technologies. While I do believe that this is the future of our industry, I think that a ten-year time frame is rather optimistic and unrealistic.
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In my opinion, the technologies described in Allen’s talk aren’t that far off from existing now -- many of the applications he discussed are already being implemented. The issue is rather, disseminating these technologies and methodologies into modern practice. In my limited experience in the AEC industry, I’ve worked for a very large company (Jacobs Engineering), a very small firm (Larsen and Landis), and will be working for a mid-sized firm (EwingCole) this Spring. Each of those firms had their own practices with their own procedures, some of which were on the cutting edge, but many of which were on the antiquated side of the technologies available. Both firms I have worked for still primarily used CAD-based design (both AutoCAD and Microstation) rather than BIM, a technology that Allen is saying is beginning to fall by the wayside. While my experience and scope of knowledge is extremely limited (so take it with a grain of salt), to say that the norm of the AEC industry in ten years will be near complete automation of design, when international firms such as Jacobs are still using Microstation and AutoCAD rather than Revit for some of their larger projects seems like a dubious claim. Again, this is not to say that these technologies aren’t already being adopted (Kayleigh from Burohappold, for example, showed us how Dynamo accelerated her processes tenfold), but rather that I don’t see them being uniformly adopted within the next 10 years.
To be clear, I believe that the technologies explained by Allen are the future of the AEC industry. With the power of automation in design and the acceleration of computation power, it only makes sense that the changes he predicted will be adopted and become the norm soon. However, seeing how long it has taken the AEC industry to adopt simpler technologies such as BIM and drones it is hard for me to believe that these technologies will be the norm in 10 years. As the older company principals and industry leaders who have concretized their methodologies begin to retire and clear the way for newer/younger management, I predict that we will begin to see changes such as those described by Allen, I predict, within 20-25 years rather than 10.
Comments:
Alec: I think your comments expand upon the points made by myself and peers, and I agree with the difficulties of implementation that you bring up. I think the only place that we disagree is the premise that these technologies will be integrated into the AEC industry within 10 years. You say that they will but with very hard work. I agree that it will be difficult but personally, cannot see there being enough of a push among industry leaders to accept these new methods of design. I think there are still far too many industry leaders who do things "the way they've always done them" and have a certain mentality about design that I just don't see being overcome within 10 years.
Nick: I agree with your comments wholeheartedly. I think a critical point that you brough up that I forgot to address was that of money. It just doesn't make sense for smaller firms to get involved with automative products such as Dynamo when they seem to be doing fine with Revit or even AutoCAD. This idea makes me think back to the last firm I co-oped at, Larsen and Landis. The 12 person firm rarely did designs larger than a simple rowhome, and therefore, didn't need anything more advanced than AutoCAD for drafting. Why would a company like Larsen and Landis spend an exorbinant amount of money on a product like Dynamo, have to completely retrain their staff, etc. when they are already getting tons of business from Architects that like their current methods and their finished products?
Jenny: Interesting take. I did not even entertain the possibility of incorporating 3D printing into building design as it relates to programs like Dynamo, but I can certainly see that being a prospect in the distant future. Of course, automated processes and machine learning will have to catch up in the industry and become wholly adopted in the AEC industry, so much in fact, that designing buildings without any automation will be considered archaic, and only then do I think the technologies of 3D printing as it relates to building construction will be combined with automated design. Of course, in the time it takes for the complete adoption of automation in AEC, the 3D printing industry will make large leaps as well, leading me to believe that this could potentially be showing up in around 50 years time. We are still a way away, but I like your interest in 3D printing.
Comments:
Alec: I think your comments expand upon the points made by myself and peers, and I agree with the difficulties of implementation that you bring up. I think the only place that we disagree is the premise that these technologies will be integrated into the AEC industry within 10 years. You say that they will but with very hard work. I agree that it will be difficult but personally, cannot see there being enough of a push among industry leaders to accept these new methods of design. I think there are still far too many industry leaders who do things "the way they've always done them" and have a certain mentality about design that I just don't see being overcome within 10 years.
Nick: I agree with your comments wholeheartedly. I think a critical point that you brough up that I forgot to address was that of money. It just doesn't make sense for smaller firms to get involved with automative products such as Dynamo when they seem to be doing fine with Revit or even AutoCAD. This idea makes me think back to the last firm I co-oped at, Larsen and Landis. The 12 person firm rarely did designs larger than a simple rowhome, and therefore, didn't need anything more advanced than AutoCAD for drafting. Why would a company like Larsen and Landis spend an exorbinant amount of money on a product like Dynamo, have to completely retrain their staff, etc. when they are already getting tons of business from Architects that like their current methods and their finished products?
Jenny: Interesting take. I did not even entertain the possibility of incorporating 3D printing into building design as it relates to programs like Dynamo, but I can certainly see that being a prospect in the distant future. Of course, automated processes and machine learning will have to catch up in the industry and become wholly adopted in the AEC industry, so much in fact, that designing buildings without any automation will be considered archaic, and only then do I think the technologies of 3D printing as it relates to building construction will be combined with automated design. Of course, in the time it takes for the complete adoption of automation in AEC, the 3D printing industry will make large leaps as well, leading me to believe that this could potentially be showing up in around 50 years time. We are still a way away, but I like your interest in 3D printing.
Many of the applications mentioned by Allen are definitely being used today, but you make a good point that wide spread adoption of these applications isn’t coming anytime soon. Many companies have a certain way of doing things and do not like change. I think that once one large company starts using future technology to get more jobs done faster and cheaper, other companies will catch on and be forced to adapt to compete for jobs. I agree that 10 years is a bit too optimistic, but 20-25 years is definitely possible.
ReplyDeleteAlbert, I had the same prediction in my post of about 20 years before the AEC industry adopts advanced BIM modeling like what was shown in the video in class. My experience I think is similar to yours, where I worked for a small engineering firm, and followed that up by working for two mid-sized firms. The smaller firm still used physical stick sets, which pre-dates AutoCAD, while the mid-sized firms were moving towards integrating Revit into their projects. It is interesting to see that both smaller firms like I worked for, and also larger ones like you worked for (Jacobs Engineering) are still roughly in the same area. It makes me think that the AEC industry evolution into BIM is independent from company or industry size, but rather the interests of a particular company's management team.
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