All Things BIM

Effective User Groups, Part 2

2012-01-27T01:16:00.001-05:00

Following up on Part 1 of my tips for organizing and maintaining effective user groups, this post will cover the physical and virtual spaces that support great interaction.

Meeting Locations

Where you host your meetings is probably the biggest variable in the equation for an effective user group. There’s no perfect answer because you must find the best balance of function, space, and cost that meets your needs. I’ll offer my own experiences for your evaluation.

Offices

Probably the most common place to start a user group is at the leader’s office. If you have a large enough conference room or even a lobby space with plenty of stacking/folding chairs, this might be all you need. Sometimes it’s fun to rotate locations of a user group meeting to various participating companies. The main drawback is the number of people you can pack into a space. Meetings can get disrupted when attendees are standing or sitting on the floor (yes, I’ve had that experience!)

Issues: Building security, space set up & clean up, limited number of attendees

Hotels

The DC Revit Users Group meets at a beautiful space atop the Key Bridge Marriott in Arlington. I’ve done some research in the past into meeting spaces in New York City and the cost may be $1,000 – $2,000 per event.

Issues: Cost

Showrooms

These kinds of spaces are likely only available in major metropolitan centers, but they are an interesting option. Product manufacturers like Steelcase may have showrooms in your region that can be utilized for group functions. In NYC, I’ve attended events at Steelcase, The Gunlocke Company, Haefele, and the McGraw Hill Auditorium. I’ve never organized a meeting at a showroom, so I can’t speak to the costs involved.

Issues: Cost?

Restaurants

Why not mix learning and networking with some food? I’ve attended a few user group meetings held at restaurants over the years. One of the early NYC Revit User Group meetings was held at a bar which was actually an old bank. Our ‘private meeting room’ was actually the old vault and I recall giving a presentation where the ‘screen’ was actually a backdrop of safe deposit boxes! The Ontario RUG used to meet at a restaurant called Alice Fazooli’s. This was fun because they had a large dedicated space and the food was great.

Issues: Cost, A/V equipment

Academic Institutions

Our group was really fortunate to connect with Pratt Institute and use their lecture space on a monthly basis. For two years, we were able to utilize this space without cost because they enjoy the exposure for Pratt’s continuing & professional studies programs in the building. Recently we were asked to provide insurance coverage for our meetings and yet again, an interested company came to the rescue to provide this contribution as a group sponsor. More on this to come in Part 3…

Personally, I think an academic location is the best option because it seems that it is the most mutually beneficial solution. You can bring potential students in and they can provide a space well-suited to learning events. So reach out to your local university or technical college and see if they are willing to share some space.

Group Websites

Now that we’ve covered the physical space, let’s talk about virtual space. As I mentioned in Part 1, there are so many free social tools available on the web today that can support groups. When we got the NYC RUG started in 2006, Google Groups was a pretty good option. This free service is still around, but its functionality is somewhat limited. You can create custom pages, upload files and manage members – but that’s about it. I’d keep an eye on Google+ and see how it evolves.

In addition to an Internet home for your group, you should also think about how you want to handle events. In the past I used Evite.com to manage events while we were on Google Groups. It’s a free service and does a nice job handling RSVP’s and automated reminders; however, it wasn’t integrated with the group website, so I had to manage two member databases.

Facebook seems to have highly functional group tools where you can create and manage events, have discussions, post links, photos and videos. It’s all free, but you have to be a Facebook user to join a group. Some people like to keep their personal interactions on Facebook, so they may not want to mix business-related stuff there. Also, some offices may even block access to social sites like Facebook. LinkedIn has groups as well, but I haven’t found them as easy to use as FB.

The NYC Revit Users Group uses a site called Meetup.com. It’s a paid service ($45 every three months), but our members seem to really appreciate the functionality. It has discussion boards, file/photo uploads, topic suggestions, and it’s event management is great. Automated email reminders, dues collection (if applicable), name tags, sign-in sheet, and more.

I’ve only discussed a few web-based group platforms here, but there are so many more out there. Do some homework, look at other group sites and pick one that suits your taste such as Ning.

Effective User Groups, Part 1

2012-01-19T23:48:00.001-05:00

I’ve been thinking about sharing my user group experiences for some time now and an email came in asking me about just such information. (How do you approach businesses or individuals to attend and then speak at the meetings? How do secure sponsors for venues and food? How do you deal with topics specifically geared towards a particular discipline without losing the rest of your members?…) Needless to say, I am taking the initiative to write about the evolution of the New York City Revit Users Group.

In a series of posts, I’ll discuss the following topics:

Getting a group started
Organizing topics and speakers
Meeting locations
Group websites
Sponsors
A/V technology

I hope you will find my opinions interesting and I welcome comments about your experiences.

Getting a Group Started

There’s quite a bit of a story leading up to April 2006 that I now realize will have to be yet another series of posts on my journey with BIM. That said, I was 2 years into implementing Revit on World Trade Center Tower One at SOM and each of the New York area Autodesk resellers were starting to ramp up their own Revit user groups. As I recall, there were at least two – maybe three – separate groups and they all wanted me to speak at their events at one time or another. I thought, "there has to be a better way.”

Lesson #1: By the people, for the people

Users don’t need to sell anything. There…I said it. I have the utmost respect for the VAR’s (value-added resellers) and trainers with whom I’ve collaborated in my career, but (in my opinion) they don’t have that grassroots, real world, in the trenches, battle-scarred approach to the tools. Whether a VAR has an agenda or not, I frequently get that feeling when I attend a VAR-organized user group. We’ll talk more about sponsorship later…

The first step in creating a successful user group is finding some local people in your industry who share the same passion. Look at your current or most recent project team, consultants, contractors…did you make some new friends as you worked through the last all-night deadline? Get together for lunch a few times and you might have the seedlings for a user group!

Back in 2006, we didn’t have Twitter or Facebook, so getting the word out about new user groups was either by word of mouth or mass e-mailings (but you had to know your recipients first!). And websites were pretty expensive back then…if GoDaddy.com was around, you sure couldn’t buy a site for $9.99 and be up and running in a matter of minutes.

Today, you can create a group presence for free on Facebook with just about everything you’d need to get a group going. More on technology in a forthcoming post…

Lesson #2: Maintain regular meetings

Research has shown that the leading cause of user group death is apathy. OK, that’s my own observation, but I’ve seen it happen. Even if you just get together and have a roundtable discussion about BIM standards, it’s still a meeting and your attendees will come to expect the next regularly scheduled meeting.

Organizing Speakers and Topics

So, what’s the magic formula for finding interesting speakers and topics? Sorry, there isn’t one. In the early days, we did two things: spoke about our own experiences; and had VAR trainers give how-to lectures. The best advice I can give to new organizers is to network, network, and then network some more. I’ve met so many people at events like Autodesk University and those connections inevitably lead to memorable guest appearances for our group.

Lesson #3: Get help

We have been conducting regular monthly meetings for almost 5 years and with over 770 registered members, we only recently have achieved 10 volunteers on our advisory board. The overwhelming majority of user group attendees just want to receive content – not participate in creating the content. The best thing our group did was to assign vice presidents (those who were the most active and available to co-organize the meetings), and create an advisory board of members who just wanted to help contribute topic ideas and perhaps suggest some contact connections for guest speakers. The burden shouldn’t rest squarely on one person.

Lesson #4: Lock in dates for guests early

When you are speaking to potential guest speakers, try to get them to commit to a date far in advance. They may not know what their schedules look like two months or more ahead, but they will know when they have agreed to present at your group.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this series, coming soon…

Event: BIM in Modular and Prefab Construction

2012-01-18T13:09:00.001-05:00

As the president of the New York City Revit Users Group (nyc-rug.com), I organize monthly meetings around various BIM-related topics. The January 2012 meeting featured guest speaker Ian Atkins who shared some of his real-world experience in applying BIM to modular and prefabricated construction.
UPDATE:
Unfortunately, Kullman has requested we remove the recording of Ian's presentation and we have complied. Please stay connected with the NYC RUG for upcoming meetings and feel free to browse previously recorded meetings at http://vimeo.com/groups/revitusers.

Protect the fluffy kittens

2011-12-12T02:47:00.001-05:00

Have you ever been frustrated when people say "ATM machine" or "department of redundancy department?" I feel your pain. Since the building industry has adopted the acronym BIM, it has generated a new phenomenon...the "BIM model." If you're reading this and thinking to yourself, 'hey, what's wrong with that?' then perhaps you mean to say 'building information model model?' Some of my friends and colleagues have suggested that saying 'BIM model' implies the verb interpretation of BIM so you get 'building information modeling model,' but I think that's a thin argument.

In an attempt to relieve some of our pain and mental anguish, some of us have taken to social media channels to clarify this sampling of techno-speak. John Tocci, Jr (@tocci2) tweeted: "Every time someone says 'BIM model' a fluffy kitten dies.' Being a big fan of dramatic statements as a vehicle to get a point across, I shared this theory during my presentation at the Washington, DC BIMForum and it seems to have gone viral. Check out the hashtag #fluffy_kittens.

The 'fluffy kitten' theory has even expanded beyond the borders of 'BIM model' into the realm of Levels of Development or LOD. Jim Bedrick now evokes the kitten theory when someone refers to an 'LOD### model.' This will be a full topic I'll discuss in a future post, but let's just say Jim gets equally upset with this as he does with 'BIM model!' Other folks such as Dan Russell from Sundt Construction prefer to apply a more positive spin to the kitten theory. Instead of 'killing kittens,' Dan says that every time someone says 'BIM model,' a coyote gets lunch!

Now, before you go out to the next BIM conference and start heckling the speaker by meowing every time he or she says...that phrase...let me explain a better solution to the problem. As an involved member of the National BIM Standard-US project committee, I have been a staunch supporter of the definition of standard terminology for industry BIM uses. Although BIM uses, workflows and information exchanges have been under specific development by buildingSMART international for quite some time, definitions were published in Penn State University's BIM Execution Planning Guidelines (bim.psu.edu). Without describing this effort in too much detail in this post, I encourage you to become familiar with these definitions.

Instead of abusing the redundant term 'BIM model,' perhaps we could start using some of the following terms:

Design Authoring model
Energy Analysis model
Existing Conditions model
3D Coordination model:
- Discipline Design Model
- Aggregated Design Model
- Trade Fabrication Model
- Aggregated Fabrication Model

Of course, the industry is gradually starting to look at model servers to support collaboration and information exchange, so these ‘model’ terms may be short-lived. In the meantime, do the world a favor and help protect our fuzzy, little feline friends...don't say 'BIM model.'

Performance-Based Design at NYCRUG

2011-12-06T17:35:00.001-05:00

The next meeting of the New York City Revit Users Group will feature Matt Jezyk and Zach Kron from Autodesk. They will be speaking about advanced form finding techniques in Revit and Vasari that are connected to performance analysis work flows. If you’ve seen Zach’s blog at buildz.blogspot.com or his class at Autodesk University with William Lopez Campo, you’ll know you’re in for a treat!

When: Weds December 14 at 6:00 pm

Complete details can be found at nyc-rug.com, or you can register for the free webcast!

BIM Content for Revit

2011-12-03T10:02:00.001-05:00

This post contains a listing of known websites hosting content for Revit. We’ll try to keep this post updated as sites change or new ones are created. This information was partially compiled from Mario Guttman’s AU 2011 class “Revit Family Counseling” (visit Mario’s own site whitefeet.com for custom Revit tools).

Manufacturer’s Content

Autodesk Seek – content aggregated by Autodesk; contains default Revit families as well as manufacturer-specific content, low to moderate quality control; content in a variety of formats, search can filter for specific formats; free, no registration required.

ARCAT – generic and manufacturer-specific content; modeled by ARCAT, high quality control; free, no registration required.

bimstore – manufacturer-specific content; modeled by bimstore, high quality control; free, registration required for downloading content.

SmartBIM – manufacturer-specific content; modeled by SmartBIM, high quality control; free, no registration required.

Sweets – manufacturer-specific content, modeled by manufacturers, quality control unknown; various formats, can’t filter by format type; free, registration required for download; much of the 3D content is in SketchUp format.

RevitComponents – manufacturer-specific and general content, mostly modeled by site author; quality control unknown; free, registration not required.

ArcXL – Revit and CAD details (2D); drafted by ArcXL, quality control unknown; free, registration required for download.

Content for Sale

Broutek – buy and download content; purchase content credit packs which range from $32 to $60 per credit; content custom made by request/payment.

PinnacleCAD – custom content creation for fee; samples available.

Yellowbryk – premade Revit content and custom content services.

RevitBay – premade Revit content.

FormFonts – subscription site with a variety of content and formats, can’t filter for specific formats

TurboSquid – variety of general content; high quality. (Hyperlink will direct to Revit content)

ArchVision RPC – wide variety of rendered entourage; high quality.

Community Content

RevitCity – downloadable user content, no quality control; free, registration required for downloading content.

RevitForum – downloadable user content, no quality control; free, registration required for downloading content.

BIM+IPD Ensure Success at HOK New York

2011-10-14T09:40:00.001-04:00

The latest monthly meeting of the NYC Revit Users Group was a joint event with the NYC Metro BIM Group and featured a panel discussion about the use of BIM and Integrated Project Delivery for the relocation of HOK’s New York City office. We had a fantastic turnout and many fantastic questions to feed the dialogue. We chose a few key representatives of the project team as follows:

Architect/Owner – HOK; Jason Zoss
Engineer – Flack + Kurtz; Cheryl Massie, Frank Padilla and John Gerney
Construction Mgr – Structuretone; Arash Yaghoubi
Subcontractor – ABCO Peerless Sprinkler Corp.; Patrick Bowe

Here’s the recorded session (note that the formal presentation starts around 10 minutes into the recording):

We were also delighted to have attendees view the live webcast from the following locations: Boston, California, St. Louis, Chicago, Alaska, Egypt, Vancouver, New Jersey, Alabama, and Washington, DC! Watch for our upcoming meetings at http://nyc-rug.com

Interoperability is Cool

2011-10-06T10:52:00.001-04:00

Who says it’s not hip to be “OPEN?” Have a listen to this diddy and be sure to check out the new database of software with IFC import/export capabilities.

Program Management Integrated with BIM

2011-08-24T11:35:00.001-04:00

The August 2011 meeting of the New York City Revit Users Group featured a presentation by Greg Schleusner of the firm-wide BIM leadership team at HOK. Greg demonstrates how the use of BIM-based program management tools such as dRofus can support and improve the project delivery process. The discussion focuses on the benefits of adequately documenting program requirements and then comparing those to an evolving design model.

NOTE: The featured presentation starts at about 12:00 into the recording.

Complete meeting recording from NYC RUG

Best Building Simulations?

2011-08-11T15:35:00.001-04:00

I just received a link to this video from Arch|Tech friend, David Light. All I can say is – wow.

The Leadenhall Building Animation

Generative Design and Parametric Structures

2011-07-08T13:34:00.001-04:00

The July 2011 meeting of the New York City Revit Users Group featured a presentation by Robert Otani, PE, LEED AP and Jonatan Schumacher from Thornton Tomasetti.

By creating a collaborative dialog with the designer at the conceptual phase, the architectural, engineering & fabrication models can be developed simultaneously from the same geometric reference model, allowing a holistic design process. Robert and Jonatan elaborate on this concept with case studies of actual project work with a variety of architectural firms.

Thornton Tomasetti (TT) is an internationally recognized engineering company whose computational geometry and automation team works at the forefront of advanced practices. TT utilizes a wide range of commercially available as well as customized digital tools and automation procedures to model, simulate, and optimize engineering projects of various scales worldwide.

Note: The TT presenters begin about 7 minutes into the recording.

Helping Shape the National BIM Standard

2011-06-28T21:56:00.001-04:00

One of my 'little' side projects has been getting involved in some efforts at the buildingSMART alliance. Last year I began by participating in a group project to standardize cost estimating through the use of BIM. As you can imagine, that's an extremely difficult problem to solve and our efforts continue. More recently, I was asked to become involved with the National BIM Standard project committee for the United States. Given my prior experience with corporate standards at SOM, I agreed to join.

Since joining, I have been named the Chair of the Design Work Group for NBIMS-US version 2. Yes...in case you didn't already know, version 1 was completed a few years ago and can be downloaded for free from the buildingSMART alliance website. While the first version consisted of almost 200 pages dedicated to introducing the work of the NBIMS committee and the scope of BIM, it did start to address some key concepts towards the standardization of this oft misunderstood paradigm.

Definition of BIM - Let's all agree on what "building information modeling" really means, shall we? NBIMS v1 describes it as "a product...a process...and a result."

Importance of Data Models - Quite a worthwhile chapter for the technologists among us, but this sets the stage for adopting the IFC data model. Notice I said 'data model' and not 'file format.' this will start to open the discussions concerning model servers instead of interoperability of proprietary file formats.

Capability Maturity Model (CMM) - This is one of my favorite parts of NBIMS; however, it is my opinion that the CMM needs some refinement. Our industry needs a leveling system for all stakeholders to gauge the completeness of a deliverable or a firm's ability to deliver expected services. Well, exactly what services are we talking about?...Standardized BIM use definitions have been submitted for consideration in NBIMS v2, but that's worthy of a dedicated discussion. There are many parts evolving from this concept that should help bring an 'apples to apples' approach to BIM delivery.

These are but a few of the items we are reviewing in the work of the four NBIMS work groups (Design, Assemble, Procure, Operate) along with the Implementation and Technical Sub-Committees. I'll be posting more about our progress and I encourage you to provide feedback.

You can also get involved in the NBIMS effort. While the official ballot phase for V2 has closed, you can submit a Blue Sky ballot. Any good idea can be submitted via a simple form - and you don't even have to be a buildingSMART alliance member! Please visit the balloting page for NBIMS to get involved and view the active ballots.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Where’s Waldo?

2011-04-20T12:18:00.001-04:00

I realize that my All Things BIM blog has not been updated in quite some time…but let me assure you it is for good reason. If you haven’t already adjusted your feeds, my latest efforts have been flowing through different channels:

Twitter.com/jvandezande – blips of inspiration
Life@HOK – here you can catch up on more social activities of HOK staff
Arch | Tech (architecture-tech.com) – wake the kids, phone the neighbors…this is the place to be! Most of my posts related to my books, architecture, and technology go there.
HOK BIM Solutions – being a firm-wide BIM leader at the company, it is my duty to contribute technical solutions there.

HOK Open House and Book Signing

2010-12-06T13:06:00.001-05:00

If you’re in New York City, please consider attending HOK’s first open house event at our new office location. I’ll be giving a brief presentation about Mastering Revit Architecture 2011 and the IPD process for designing and building our new space.

1065 Avenue of the Americas, 6th Floor
Thursday, December 16th from 6:00-8:00 pm

Click here to RSVP before December 10. (Note that you MUST RSVP to gain access to the building.)

Getting Ready for AU 2010

2010-11-24T03:38:00.001-05:00

If you’re heading out to Las Vegas for Autodesk University next week, I’ve compiled some links to some great preparatory information.

Melanie Perry (aka Mistress of the Dorkness) has a funny, but totally true AU survival guide on her blog. Lynn Allen produced two '”primer” videos on YouTube (Part 1 and Part 2 available below).

Being environmentally friendly, Autodesk does not provide printed handouts for classes – except for hands-on labs – so, here’s how I’ll be going paperless this year…

First, the devices: iPhone 3G and iPad – should cover most of my connectivity, tweeted photos and note taking capabilities. Not sure if my laptop will follow me around full-time.

Second, the apps. My favorite all-around app is Evernote. With a limited free account, I can create notes on either the iPhone, iPad, PC or web browser and they are all synchronized. Seriously thinking about upgrading to a Pro account… This is essential for capturing all my notes from the plethora of great class offerings. It offers text/audio/photo notes, tagging, search and a variety of other features. If you’ve read Total Recall by Gordon Bell, you know that Evernote is frequently referenced as one of the main offsprings of the LifeLogging movement. If you haven’t read it…find it on iBooks now!

Don’t expect to receive a printed event guide this year either. Autodesk is offering a mobile app from EventKaddy. The app will be available for iPhone, Android and Blackberry and should be ready as of Friday November 26.

I have downloaded my class handouts into my Dropbox account which also has apps for iPhone and iPad. This gets the files onto my mobile devices, but I highly recommend GoodReader for the iPad. It fluidly reads a variety of document formats and has nice markup tools. It also can display documents externally with the VGA adapter. Open a file in the Dropbox app and click the link in the upper-right to open in another eligible app. Finally, I’ll be keeping track of the tweets via Tweetdeck on either the phone or pad. (www.twitter.com/jvandezande) Also be sure to follow @AutodeskU and the hashtag #AU2010.

I hope to see you there. It’s always been fun meeting readers of my blog, so don’t be shy…come say ‘Hi!’

Getting to AU and registration

Special events and navigating the conference

Event Recap: BIMForum Atlanta

2010-10-25T11:01:00.001-04:00

Note: My conference notes were captured exclusively via Evernote on the iPad!

In my last post, I shared just a few pictures from the first pre-conference event at BIMForum Atlanta. In this article, I will summarize the experience of attending my third BIMForum event. In prior years, I had participated in this conference in Falls Church, VA and Dallas, TX – both of which were definitely worth the trip.

This time around, the AGC stuck with the modus operandi of a themed conference. Held at the W Hotel Midtown, the theme was “The Evidence of BIM” or “The Evidence on BIM” – depending on which handout I was reading…perhaps an interesting typo, but I digress. As always one of the main benefits of this type of event is the face-to-face networking - especially outside my ‘comfort zone’ of BIM management. The BIMForum touts one of the most diverse audiences that I’ve seen to date. A quick survey by BIMForum chairman, John Tocci, indicated an even mix of architects, engineers and contractors with a smaller contingency of those representing the owner & facility operating community.

Now, back to the theme…which I’ll simplify as “Evidence” for the sake of this article. The initial marketing leaned towards providing case studies of firms and organizations using or requiring BIM and the benefits they are realizing as a result. Presentations were delivered from a variety of industry sectors, some of which didn’t seem to fit within the “Evidence” theme. I now realize this is not necessarily a bad thing. Recalling the Dallas conference, the overall theme seemed to be forced into the last few slides of EVERY presentation, whether the lecture had anything to do with the theme or not. For that, I’m thankful.

Before I dive into a more detailed review of some key presentations, please note that some or all of the presentation material should be available on the BIMForum.org website soon.

BIMForum Tours

What has become a staple of these conferences, I signed up for the pre-conference BIM tour. This time we visited the campus of Georgia Tech, a really beautiful university that is close to downtown Atlanta. First we were lead on a tour of an addition to the school of architecture being constructed by Beck Group. Of interest was the fact that they assumed the role of the subcontractor for the furniture contract and used some interesting tools and techniques. They had quite a learning curve as they worked with point clouds from laser scans of existing stairwells to append new millwork rails. The workflow seemed a bit convoluted (Rhino to Inventor to EdgeCam to CNC Router), but ultimately was the best available to the team.

The second part of the tour brought us to the Digital Building Laboratory with Chuck Eastman. This is a large facility that was formerly dedicated to advanced wood engineering, but is transforming into research of other materials such as precast concrete and masonry. You can read more about their expertise and projects at www.dbl.gatech.edu. Of note is a new masters degree program being offered next year called Master of Science in Digital Design and Fabrication (MSDDF).

Conference Day 1

Back at the W Hotel, we began the conference with a variety of presentations kicked off by Debajyoti Pati of HKS speaking about evidence-based design. He stressed the importance of the role of the designer in identifying the strategic goals of their clients. Based on results from the medical field where research is used in an attempt to reduce preventable deaths at hospitals, Pati suggests that energy performance predictions will improve occupied facilities and clash detection methods will enhance the construction process.

From Georgia Tech, Chuck Eastman discussed the work he has been doing with GSA in simulating and analyzing circulation routes in early design models. He and his students have also been using Solibri to translate models for use in energy analysis software. This is an interesting departure – using a model checking program – instead of using a direct API tool for exporting or relying on IFC. Ioannis Brilakis spoke about his research with automated real-time videogrammetry (ART-V). You really have to check out more info at the Construction Information Technology Laboratoty (citl.gatech.edu) to fully understand the importance of this technology to the industry! Jochen Teizer also spoke about his work with the Real-Time Automated Project Information and Decision Systems (RAPIDS) lab which can be found at www.rapids.gatech.edu.

Bruce Hunn from ASHRAE gave a presentation about performance measurement protocols for commercial buildings which was interesting, but a bit of a dry topic. I’ll be sure to collect his slides for future reference if they are made available on the BIMForum website. Following Bruce was Josh Oakley and Frank Fralick – who were our tour guides from Beck on the school of architecture construction project.

Hilda Espinal and Chitwan Saluja from Perkins + Will discussed three of their recent BIM projects using varying degrees of collaboration with others. Nothing too new here, but I was curious to know more about their discussion of contractors making requests to them for modeling adjustments. If the designer is doing more work to help the contractors do less work…how much extra was P+W getting paid? I’m sure I know the answer to that.

Brett Young from Cahill Contractors spoke about their use of BIM – although I didn’t really see how it applied to “marginally historic buildings” as the presentation title stated. That said, Cahill’s main business is in affordable housing in California. They have been using BIM to improve their bottom line in constructing these building types. Two interesting factoids from this presentation: they point clients directly to the Penn State BIM Execution Planning site to better understand the defined BIM uses; and, in understanding the potential additional cost of asking their subcontractors to provide BIM, they stated the highest cost is related to increased meeting requirements resulting in additional labor costs.

They also mentioned one or two projects where they used a 3D model to discover egregious errors in the architect’s drawings. This is something that is a pet peeve of mine – some architects have seem to lost sight of their responsibility to provide coordinated designs. Just because you’re using a BIM tool, doesn’t mean that your designs are automatically coordinated!!

Harry McKinney and Scott Cutler from Clancy and Theys Construction spoke about “How BIM Attracts and Inspires Unexpected Uses” – an interesting look into the application of BIM to a science museum with a large sphere incorporated into the design. They spoke about presenting the model to museum stakeholders, using clash detection to find interferences with exhibits and problems with the vertical clearances (hello, architects?!!). The model was also used to detect quirky maintenance and service issues behind the spherical screen structure before they became real problems after occupancy.

To conclude Day 1, John Moebes from Crate & Barrel delivered yet another inspiring talk about “An Owner’s Changing Use of BIM.” Back at the Dallas BIMForum, John gave a somewhat vitriolic view from the owner’s perspective towards the AEC community seeking to be compensated for their use of BIM. This time around, he shared some fantastic views on efficiency and productivity. His team’s construction schedules are being reduced from 88 weeks to about 56 weeks with a goal of reducing it to around 40 weeks. They can accomplish this by a new method of delivery Moebes refers to as “design – build – bid.” This seemingly odd sequence actually make perfect business sense. Get your critical path trades (foundation, superstructure, electric, enclosure) done with pre-arranged partners, then put the remaining trades out to bid for local contractors. I could go on and on about John’s proposed “AEC moon shot” but you can view one of his recent presentations recorded at KA-Connect in Chicago to get a taste of his motivational techniques.

Conference Day 2

The second day of the conference was an extended panel presentation by a selected group of owners ranging from Target, to Worcester Polytech, to Sandia National Labs. To lead off the discussions, Karie Johnson from AEC Transormations spoke about her work in defining BIM requirement documents for owners. Johnson used a creative reference to the Dr. Seuss character Sam I Am as a segue to a ‘Should you? Would you? Could you?’ presentation about the do’s and don’ts of these types of documents. She has reviewed many documents and shared some really bad passages from them – definitely worth asking for a copy of her presentation for a good laugh.

Guillermo Salazar and Alfredo DiMauro from WPI spoke about their use of BIM on campus, which was somewhat similar to the afternoon talk delivered by Colleen Kasprzak and Ed Gannon from Penn State University. Here you have two organizations with enormous building asset portfolios who are starting to grasp the value of the information – the ‘I’ in BIM – as it relates to operating, managing and maintaining their facilities. One metric referenced by the Penn State presenters was that even a 10% improvement in the productivity of work orders would result in about $3 million dollars in annual savings.

Steven Wolf from Target spoke about his organizations plan to start implementing BIM for construction of new stores. Target’s design and construction process is almost completely based on a highly customized Bentley Microstation environment. Wolf stated that it was a challenge overcoming the strategic difference between the business leaders (“Exactly how are you going to measure your success?”) and the architects (“We like BIM because it’s cool!”) in developing an implementation plan. One interesting area of research they are pursuing is in the improvement of code reviews. Target spends $40-50 million a year in change orders associated with inconsistent interpretation of local building codes. In addition to working with the ICC on guidelines for replicable buildings, they are working with Avolve Software (makers of ProjectDox) on the development of ePlan review technology.

Finally, Birgitta Foster of Sandia National Labs closed the series of presentations with a look at the value of BIM for facilities management in what she calls “Design for Maintenance.” Foster shared some metrics in a similar thread to the earlier statements by Penn State and WPI. First, we were treated to some visual comparisons of mechanical equipment installed well and some not so well. What went wrong with the latter? Given simple, single-line diagrams and unrelated specifications instead of a 3D model and/or diagram, designers and engineers may leave real coordination up to the contractors in the field. Without an intense 3D understanding of a complex mechanical installation, a design team can unwittingly add to the lifetime cost of maintaining it. Foster offered a sample work order template form which indicated a number of hours to service a piece of equipment with “easy access” and double the hours for “hard access.” It’s issues like these that can easily make the case for the requirement of BIM from the owners’ side and clearly delineate the place of the design team in coordinating the effort before construction.

Conclusion

The owners’ presentations were concluded with a lively panel discussion, which also included John Moebes from the previous day. Moebes was asking MEP engineers why they won’t do LOD400 models, citing the common response is that they assume being more specific would be costing the client money by avoiding a competitive bid. He argues otherwise, that he’d rather be able to efficiently procure a known system than rely on a field installation of a prescribed design.

An interesting take on implementation, particularly at larger organizations, is that amidst larger changes BIM can be the smallest diversion. One final note of interest to the A/E community is that a few references were made to organizations that are beginning to embrace how BIM can change the traditional design process. Ohio State reportedly will pay design fees earlier, but not necessarily more. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is willing to transfer some contingency costs to the design team if BIM is used to reduce some of the unknowns related to traditional methods. It’s all about speed, but at the same fee.

BIMForum Atlanta Day 1

2010-10-14T01:00:00.001-04:00

So, I'm trying to beat Greg Arkin to the punch and be the first person to blog about the latest AGC BIMForum being held in Atlanta. Our first day featured a tour of Georgia Tech including Chuck Eastman's Digital Building Lab as well as a construction site tour of a new annex to the school of architecture by Beck Construction. Really great stuff! More details to come...

Revit Subscription Advantage

2010-09-28T22:09:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone. My name is James and I'm a lazy blogger.

Yes, I am quite excited to have participated in Autodesk's annual Blogger Day, but alas...my brilliant and efficient 'blogitects' have beaten me to the punch as I prepare for my upcoming book event in Toronto.

Here are a few reviews of the soon to be released Revit Subscription Advantage Pack for your enjoyment:

Lachmi Khemlani on AECBytes
David Light on Revit
Steve Stafford on RevitOpEd

NYC Revit Users Group, August 2010

2010-08-04T12:29:00.001-04:00

The next monthly meeting of the New York City Revit Users Group is this Thursday, August 5 at 6:00 pm Eastern. The featured topic is “BIM for Project Delivery: Methods that Approach Integration” with Scott Wood, AIA, LEED AP from Tishman Construction.

This presentation will explore uses of BIM in post construction document phases, discuss contract language that relates to these uses and describe methods for delivering models that can be efficiently deployed for these uses.

If you are in the NYC area, please RSVP at our meetup site (www.meetup.com/nyc-rug) or you can register for the webcast by clicking here.

Mastering Revit in the wild!

2010-07-14T15:57:00.001-04:00

The first sighting of our new book – Mastering Autodesk Revit Architecture 2011 – has been reported in the US! Eddy got his shipment of promo copies today and just take a look at the size of this one…

Eddy, Phil and I are really proud of the content we’ve developed for this year’s edition. We hope you’ll enjoy it, too. As always, feel free to drop us a line at MasteringRevit or visit our Facebook page.

It’s still available at the discounted preorder price on Amazon.com, so hurry up before it goes up to regular price.

Event: buildingSMART in Architecture

2010-07-09T10:09:00.001-04:00

Just a quick note that I will be giving a lecture in New York City at the Center for Architecture on July 13. My presentation is titled “buildingSMART in Architecture” and will be focused on how the design profession needs to step up to the plate and provide more relevance to the building process before builders and fabricators take over our services – and fees. Several project case studies from HOK will be presented to support the notion of using BIM and integrated design and delivery to support life-cycle information stewardship, rather than just the latest way to deliver paper documents.

Registration is free, but you must RSVP at the AIA NY website by clicking here.

Revit and the oil spill

2010-06-10T23:25:00.001-04:00

So I decided to take Eddy Krygiel up on his challenge to model the volume of oil spilled in the Gulf of Mexico by the BP disaster because it was just announced that the actual oil spilled may now be double the original estimates. Reuters says that approximately 2 million barrels may have leaked since the event on April 20.

2 million barrels =
84 million gallons/317 million litres =
415,895 cubic yards/317,975 cubic meters

How big is that? I started to build some masses in Revit to visualize this volume. First, I used an American NFL football field (160’ x 300’ – end zones excluded). The mass would be about 234 feet (71.3 m) tall. I then linked in a model of the Lever House office building (SOM) in New York. If I modeled a mass based on the footprint of the tower, the oil spill volume would be almost 1,400 feet (426 m) tall!

Here’s a link to download a 3D DWF file of this model to explore the scope of this disaster on your own.

Three NYC BIM Events

2010-06-08T10:06:00.001-04:00

There are three exciting BIM-related events coming up this month in New York City – two of them are scheduled for Thursday June 10.

NYC Revit Users Group

What’s New in Revit Structure and MEP 2011
June 10, 6:00 pm

As a followup to our previous presentation on the new features of Revit Architecture 2011 (recording available on Vimeo), the June monthly meeting will focus on the latest and greatest enhancements to the Structure and MEP programs. Brian Johnson, PE – a Technical Specialist with Autodesk – will demonstrate the new stuff in Revit Structure while Jeremy Snyder, PE, LEED AP and Chad Konrad, PE, LEED AP from Buro Happold will show off some fantastic new tools in Revit MEP.

RSVP for the NYC RUG meeting by clicking here or register for the webcast.

RICS Americas

The X Factor for Building Information Modeling Success
June 10, 5:00 pm

The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors is hosting a panel discussion at NYU focused on the benefits in using uniform measurement standards and BIM. Moderated by Simon Taylor, FRICS, Principal of Questant Corportation, the panel will consist of:

James P. Barrett, National BIM Director, Turner Construction
David Burney, Commissioner, NYC Department of Design + Construction
Greg Schleusner, Associate, HOK New York
Andrew Mann, FRICS, Managing Director, Gardiner & Theobald Inc.

For more information and to register for this event, click here.

NYC BIM + NYC RUG Joint Event

BIM Construction to Assemblage: A New Perspective on Supply Chain
June 15, 5:30 pm

A special joint event between the NYC BIM Group and the NYC Revit Users Group will take place at the Gunlocke Company LLC. The presentation will consist of three speakers representing different viewpoints of BIM and the construction supply chain:

Dr. Layek Abdel-Malek, PhD from NJIT will speak about the theory of tele-manufacturing
Brian Frank, Manufacturing Industry Manager for Autodesk will discuss tools and software that are available or being developed
David Campbell, Vice President of Operations & Technology at Hunter Roberts Construction Group will show how BIM is being applied and implemented with specific case studies

For more info and to RSVP, visit the NYC BIM group. NYC RUG members can RSVP by clicking here.

Archicad and Revit IFC workflow

2010-05-28T14:50:00.001-04:00

My excellent colleague Greg forwarded this video to me. It was created by the developers of Archicad and it shows collaborative workflows between their BIM platform and Revit Structure as well as Revit MEP. This integration is enabled completely through the use of IFC files (Industry Foundation Classes) which are supplemented by free Revit plug-ins that optimize the IFC output. The IFC files are then merged into Archicad using specific filters based on the origin of the export. After merging, the imported model geometry is fully editable.

Recent blog posts on Revit OpEd and Bolt Out of the Red diminish the importance of IFC’s in a Revit BIM environment, but I say that this type of sentiment is short sighted in realizing the bigger picture. I can see the value of developing a direct and specific port for data using a fully open API, but does that mean that every program in the AEC market needs to develop a Revit plug-in for interoperability? Surely, Autodesk needs to spend some time improving the IFC import/export capabilities of Revit and we intend to share some necessary (and reality-based) areas for improvement.

As an aside, I have written a complete chapter in Mastering Revit Architecture 2011 titled “Interoperability: Working Multi-platform” which has all sorts of real world scenarios for sharing data with Revit. I hope you find it useful when the book hits the shelves.

<< Also published on Arch | Tech >>

NYU BIM Webinar – next week

2010-05-12T09:59:00.001-04:00

There’s still time to register for my webinar on building information modeling offered by NYU. The session will take place on Wednesday May 19 from 1:00 – 2:30 pm Eastern US time. The registration fee is $150.

While this session may not appeal directly to the devoted BIM experts who read this blog, I encourage you to recommend this session to senior team leaders who may not have begun to drink the Kool Aid yet. My webinar will review the essential concepts (what is BIM/what isn’t BIM/BIM tools), the benefits and business case for BIM (uses/opportunities/goals), and how BIM relates to integrated project delivery (IPD).

Webinar attendees will be able to interact with me and ask questions. Feel free to even set up this broadcast in a conference room and share the information with several colleagues.

Here’s the direct link to register:

http://www.scps.nyu.edu/course-detail/R61.8103/20102/building-information-modeling-bim