By Philip J. Bona, AIA
Shared Values: The early conclusions reached in Part One of this series recommend a greater value to the future construction industry by cooperatively integrating elevated priorities and skill sets in the workforce, and evolving materials and processes into a cohesive and collaborative relationship. In this Part Two, I suggest that we start by measuring our strengths and weakness first, and then determine how to create an advanced industry made up of skilled and certified design professionals, constructors, craftsmen, and managers. This industry would share the belief that it is a privilege (not a right) to contribute to the built environment and would prescribe to the following tenets:
* Conduct business responsibly
* Promote cooperativeness
* Operate collaboratively
* Recognize the value of the individual
* Trust early and often
* Be accountable for your own actions
* Have pride of workmanship
* Promote training standards
* Require apprenticeship and internship
* Certify individual skill sets
* Maintain ethical business practices
* Mandate quality control
Mutual esteem or respect is the keystone that locks this arch of values in place, and respect is a commodity that is earned through one’s attitude, experience, and proven skill sets. Adopting common core values or guiding principles allows the diverse cross-disciplinary development, design, and construction team to share a common playing field. It is superior performance again and again that becomes the standard by which mutual esteem and respect is gathered and given to each individual contributor in the Owner, Architect, Engineer and Constructor (O/AEC) enterprise.
Those who initiate and finance projects and set the AEC partnership process in motion need to be able to trust and respect the quality and integrity of their partners, so as to minimize risk, control cost, and create a sustainable built environment that meets their needs and the needs of society. The industry must change to deserve that trust.
Shared Information: Over the past decade a few technological visionaries have recognized the value of integrating building data into a parametric based information database. Using 3-d CAD and database software, “Building Information Modeling” or BIM1 has been created and it will change the industry. The diversity of business opportunities within a new “Information Age” will create a long needed cultural and pragmatic shift in the O/AEC building process that requires the rapid implementation of a more comprehensive endeavor around the BIM concept.
Adoption of a standard database across all contributors to the construction process creates a new paradigm for our industry. This paradigm will be based on the use of truly intelligent, logical, parametric, three, four or five dimensional (incorporating time and financial aspects) data that will integrate the business of conceiving, constructing, and maintaining the built environment into a synergistic enterprise.
The creation of a highly robust multi-dynamic database offers the opportunity to orchestrate all aspects of building design and implementation into an interactive responsive virtual and perpetual building data model including:
* Tangible aspects of a local real estate market
* Accurate modeling of existing local environment
* Available project financing options
* Owners and users
* An owner’s needs analysis
* Geographic and geologic site data
* Internet based communication management
* Architectural and engineering design
* Best practices updating
* Warrantable construction details
* Interactive code analysis/compliance checklists
* Regulatory compliance
* Full time construction inspection checklists
* Energy and material life-cycling
* Recycling management
* On-line access to manufacturers and materials
* On-line access to suppliers and current costs
* Construction operations & prefabrication
* CMs, constructors and construction trades
* Post-construction lessons learned
* Facility management
* Maintenance inventories and schedules
Shared Processes: The new process would look like this. It will start with an expanded USGS mapping, GPS technology, and City/County Assessor archive database. Using advanced software developed by vendors such as ArchiCAD, Catia, Revit, and Triforma, the graphic envelope representing the form and composition of a building and the constraints of the property it sits on is designed and dimensioned. The design concept is explored and finalized. It is then reviewed and approved by the owner and the appropriate regulatory agencies. This architectural design process will use the 3-d graphic software component. Then data will be applied to the model’s components.
Assembling the database on information from the owner’s program, the mapped site utility infrastructure, the master product list, and the structural system, a symbiotic data matrix will be created. In the hands of a skilled architect, trained in these methods, the data model constructs a spatial simulation model of the design made of accurate images of virtual 3-d objects like concrete, masonry, wood, metal, glass, plaster, roofing and every other component.
Once the A/E disciplines have further explored the options, iterations, and systems, and applied all the specified products hyperlinked from their manufacturers on the internet to the simulated objects representing them, the model will be able to perform self-checks on systems coordination, conflicts, and constructability. Then, this virtual model may be simply extracted (or reported on) as conventional 2-dimensional printed plans, sections, details, elevations, material lists, and specifications.
It is likely that designs will eventually be constructed on site with the aide of wireless hand-held digital tablets with graphic cut, pan, zoom, and rotational 3-D as well as laser measurement and bar-code recognition capabilities. Also, constructors will take greater advantage of building components that are prefabricated and panelized in factories to be merely assembled on site. Manufacturers, fabricators, builders, and sub-trades will be connected directly to the final approved (on-line password protected) virtual model to benefit from its accuracy and proven constructability.
With this process, the building and site will be able to be constructed in every detail and its accuracy tested and confirmed before a shovel ever touches the ground. The model will be interactively analyzed throughout the concept, design, procurement, and construction phases to allow for efficient and accurate design change management (change is always inevitable).
The BIM will use actual on-line material cost and availability control measures directly from product distributors to evaluate a change and determine the fair and accurate cost and schedule impact of a change. The labor cost of a change will be derived from a work plan developed by the change management team and the actual laborers. Communications among all participants in the building process and the model will be tracked and archived using Internet based project communication software with read-only access of data to all participants at all times.
Intermediate Conclusions: This future is not so far away. The American Institute of Architects (AIA) working with corporations like Autodesk, Graphisoft, Cyon Research, Webcor, Swinerton, and AEC Infosystems, as well as a few large design/build construction companies, the GSA, and the Department of Defense, among others, are assembling the parameters, processes, and participants to be integrated into this process. Over the next 5-10 years, the AEC industry and its use of information technology will evolve dramatically. Each O/AEC partnership must be based on responsible business practices, integrity, and trust. The success of this endeavor will depend on changes made by each construction industry participant, by the quality and priorities of education in America, and by our industry’s ability to embrace the benefits of the Information Age.
1 Term coined by Jerry Laiserin, AIA in 1994
Philip J. Bona, Copyright © 2005
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