“Traditional representation methods used by architects and engineers for hundreds of years, such as scale drawings, renderings, and three dimensional scale models, contain only a small part of the information needed to interpret and assess the quality of the design” (Khemlani et al., 1998).The first Computer Aided Design [CAD] application was invented in 1963 by Ivan Sutherland (Broquetas, 2010a). Widespread adoption of this new technology in the AEC industry did not happen in a few years, it took decades, and when it happened the Adoption of CAD software in AEC firms was progressive, and it is nowadays widely spread in virtually all architectural firms (Broquetas, 2010b). Some resisted the adoption of the CAD systems, and others have argued that CAD poses some challenges to creative design (Lawson, 2002). Nevertheless, in 2009, the result of a study and poll amongst AEC industry leaders, showed CAD as the greatest advance in construction history (Architect’s Journal, 2009).
Despite the relevance taken by CAD in the AEC industry, Khemnlani et al. (1998) argued that CAD simply imported the traditional representation methods used for hundreds of years by architects and engineers into the computer environment, and with that, the informational deficiencies that these methods imply were incorporated into the new way of designing and documenting projects. They foresaw the need for a more intelligent way of documenting projects that “will embody some of the knowledge added to the interpretation of drawings by the human observers” (Khemnlani et al., 1998 : p. 50).
While the AEC industry was slowly adopting CAD, the product development and manufacturing industry [PDM] adopted it much faster and the use in this industry rapidly evolved into a modelling process (Lee, 2008). This modelling approach raised the need for the PDM industry to develop practices of better integration of multidisciplinary teams. Due to this need, “since 1984 the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has been working on the development of a comprehensive standard for the electronic exchange of product data between computer-based product life-cycle systems” (Pratt, 2001 : p. 102). This standard is named STandard for the Exchange of Product model data [STEP] and is included in the ISO 10303: Automation systems and integration, Product data representation and exchange (Ibid.) and its goal is to “develop common representations of complex products for communicating information between CAD and other design applications” (Eastman and Siabiris, 1995 : p. 284)
In the AEC Industry, the idea of integrated product models for buildings, or Building Product Models [BPM] has been around for many years with one of its pioneers being Charles Eastman (Eastman and Siabiris, 1995; Eastman, 1999) who has used the term since the late 70s of the 20th century. The integrated approach was for the first time named Building Information Modelling [BIM] by Autodesk employee Phil Bernstein (Wikipedia, 2010) although many argue that the term is essentially the same as BPM (Yessios, 2004), so Eastman should be given the “father of BIM” title.
The concept of BIM is thus not so new, but thanks to the computational speed and memory available today (Yessios, 2004) and the strong push from software vendors (Holzer, 2007) the interest in BIM has raised very importantly in recent years both in scholarly circles (Figure 1.3) as well as in the general public (Figure 1.4).
BIM is, as it will be seen in the following section, a set of tools and processes with the potential to change the AEC Industry in the same way the modelling approach changed the manufacturing sector. Both technological requirements and commercial interests are also aligned to allow widespread implementation of BIM. With this alignment of factors, the author of this dissertation sees no better time to analyze its potential benefits for the AEC Industry.
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