BIM From The Deep End: Part 2

Grad school: There’s no way to really understand what you’re getting into until you’re up to your neck in it. A few years ago that’s exactly where life was. When I wasn’t at work practicing BIM, I was at home reading and writing about BIM. Talk about a balanced existence. Yet at one point I did manage to find a small break from writing school papers. So, what did I do with that time? I wrote an article about writing papers on BIM… Crazy, I know, but the proof is on my LinkedIn page. What’s even crazier is that some people read it. Petru at The BIMvoice in Oslo was one such individual. He liked it enough to invite me as a guest on his Podcast in August 2020. “But,” he said, “you have to write a follow-up to your article”. You see, when that piece was originally composed school was still a work-in-progress. The class was just gearing up for the thesis. If you’ve never done one before it is a rather significant experience. And that raises some legit questions on how things shook out. So, with the benefit of hindsight and some practical, real world experience let’s take a look.

Let’s start off with the practical, it’s been just over three years since my original article. In the world of BIM three years is a lifetime. That means that the project you did, or the document someone wrote for your organization three years ago is likely getting dated. Not every single thing, but you should definitely give it a reality check. Because BIM is still so cutting-edge, new developments occur constantly. In many ways that’s pretty cool. The flip-side of cutting-edge means that the lifespan of each development can be rather short. That can be a pain. I’ve always advised clients and colleagues to consider anything more than a few years old a bit suspect. Outdated assumptions don’t help anyone get closer to their goals.

A little more to the point though is what about my previous points? That is, the key points I identified in my article as being critical to the success of BIM. Upon review I’m happy to report those were pretty spot on. In fact, anyone who has worked with me, or heard one of my presentations will quickly realize I’ve only doubled down on them. For the most part I don’t want to rehash what I already wrote. Yet, we do need to have a serious chat about one in particular.

What still remains the first and foremost issue with BIM is the contracts/legal agreements, or lack of. Since graduation I’ve had the opportunity to review standard “BIM agreements” from a multitude of organizations. Not to be harsh here but they often read like complete nonsense, for example: one paragraph will directly contradict another, terminology is used incorrectly and inconsistently, the terms detailed in the documents are not quantifiable, and often much of what needs to be included specific to BIM is nowhere to be found! This is a huge problem that affects everyone. It’s the sort of problem that is going to find people feeling pretty silly in litigation when a project goes south. No one wants that. I’m certainly no legal expert but you don’t need to be to see when the bridge is out. A simple lack of BIM awareness from both sides has allowed some pretty dodgy legal agreements to permeate the industry. There’s this misnomer out there that someone who has extensive design/construction experience must understand all things BIM. Nope, the two do intersect but are not one and the same. At some point this situation will blow up. There’s no need to wait for that to happen. Please, do yourself a favor and get ahead of that curve.

Moving forward, the reason we’re here right now is to sort out what happens when you dive into the bottomless well of BIM while writing a thesis at Middlesex University. The most shocking revelation was discovering that BIM is actually a practice as old as time itself. Yes, really. How can that be though with all the fancy technology? As much fun as the tech toys are they actually have little to do with BIM. What I came to understand in a humbling way is that archaeologists have been practicing BIM for as long as there has been archaeology. That’s a lot longer than any of us in design & construction have been at it. Think about it. We all like to talk about how BIM is about the “I” or the information. Some of us might get clever and say BIM stands for “Better Information Management”. Or we may just read the acronym backwards and say it’s all about Managing Information, and whatnot. No matter how we phrase it, that’s exactly what archaeologists have always done - managed information. More specific to our world, they have managed information about built assets that have withstood the test of time. That becomes painfully clear after interviewing a bunch of them for your thesis. Before walking into those sessions I felt I had a pretty good grasp on things. Then you find out you’re actually about fifteen-hundred years late to the party. It was for the best though. In fact, if you’ve worked with me in any capacity, much of what I professionally recommended on BIM for your world-of-tomorrow facility is derived directly from ancient history. Right now the entire Roman empire is going, “Told ya so”.

At this point you’re naturally wondering why on earth I was speaking with archaeologists. After all, I work with Digital teams to help clients take their facilities and operations into the future. How could ancient history possibly be relevant? The answer comes down to an existential question: is it better to do five the hard way or ten the easy way? More often than not I tend to go with the hard way. The world of BIM as we know it is typically focused on new construction (e.g., modern building codes, materials manufactured to rigid specifications, highly detailed design & documentation). However, the reality is that the vast majority of building stock on the planet is, and will continue to be existing assets. So, understanding how to apply BIM for adaptive reuse purposes is really the most efficient and pragmatic way to go. The trick is that the further back in time you go, the more vagueness and variables you run into (e.g., lack of building codes, unknown materials, little or no documentation). What happens then if we go really far back, say several hundred years, and take a look at something like a castle? Obviously there were no building codes followed and that presents a serious challenge. If you can understand how to adapt BIM to those circumstances then you are getting somewhere. After wrapping your head around construction in the Dark Ages, taking a leap forward to modern building methods isn’t quite as daunting. New or old the questions remain the same: what information needs to be captured, for what purpose, and how that information is going to be utilized? Those answers will change with every asset. Because BIM isn’t about too much or too little information. It’s about having the right information. Regardless of age, what always needs to be captured is the context. If you have not captured the context, BIM will not serve you well. The next time you chat with your Digital consultant or software vendor ask them what they know about castles, seriously.

It may make sense to tell you what the thesis was on. I was looking into the feasibility of creating a visual based classification system for the purpose of identifying building components of heritage structures. That’s what you assumed, right? The entire AEC industry has been buzzing about the meta-data component of BIM for some time now, and for good reason. However, the inherent visual data capabilities that BIM presents are still a largely untapped pool of wealth. I’ll save you from reading 60,000 words and tell you that yes, visual classification systems can be a viable and valuable tool. The industry simply isn’t ready to make use of it yet. There are some other pieces to the BIM puzzle that need to be sorted first. I should also mention that my thesis work was nominated as one of five finalists for the Royal Charter International Research Award that year. Dig that. The award was open to anyone on the planet, for any work being done under the Digital umbrella. I didn’t win, but hey, being in the top five of that talent pool is still pretty great. The best part was that the presentation to the judging committee was held in London, on my birthday. That also happened to be the same day as the London office holiday party for my prior employer. How’s that for a conclusion! I’d like to sincerely thank everyone in the London office for the evening of what was a pretty intense day (and a big thanks to everyone who helped me in some way).

Finally, what is BIM, really? It’s a holistic fitness plan for your organization's built assets and their ongoing operations. If you want to improve your personal health you exercise and eat healthy to get the desired results, or you don’t. If you want your facilities to operate more efficiently you plan for BIM and adhere to the define process to get the desired results, or you don’t. All up to you.

So, did I get the answers I wanted from diving so deep into the well? Absolutely, and a lot more questions, too. Middlesex University made a lot of big promises and exceeded on every single one. It is truly a world class program with world class results. If you’re thinking it’s the sort of thing that may interest you take a good look. Steve Race has unfortunately retired but Dr. Noha Saleeb is still there with a new cast of characters to turbo-charge your brain. Just be warned it is not an easy course of study.

If you’d like to learn more, and you should, please reach out. I’d love to help you transition your operations to BIM, speak at your event, or provide any sort of educational assistance I can on all things BIM.

Cheers,

Andrew