It’s about much more than the technology, it’s about the very way in which we work and interact…

Was the headline quote from a seminar entitled; Design Management and Building Information Modelling (BIM)

An event convened jointly between the CIOB Innovation and Research Panel, the CIOB Faculty of Architecture and Surveying and the Association of Researchers in Construction Management (ARCOM).

Building Information Modelling (BIM) offers a fundamentally different paradigm for creating and sharing design information than its predecessor, technical drawing – whether hand or computer-aided. It promises to capture design intent; to enable exploration of multiple detailed design alternatives from the earliest stages of design, including analysis of commercial implications and engineering behaviour; to enable collaboration between disciplines; to make building designs accessible to building clients regardless of their technical skill; and to automate drawing production.

Any one of these, taken on its own, would mean significant shifts in the professional roles and responsibilities of all those involved in the design of buildings; taken together, they will make some roles entirely redundant, make others efficient to a point where fewer members of the profession will be needed, and generate the need for new skill sets that are likely to define new professional roles.

Thus it is that there is a growing movement in the architectural world to produce building designs as a BIM in 3D where all the information about each element including design, specification, cost estimate etc. is attached to that building element. Once the building designer is able to harness this technology in full it is envisaged that the “turnround” time for the concept and schematic design phases for the design of a new building will telescope the design programme for new buildings dramatically.