BIM + Lean + Green

I feel fortunate to be living in an era when there are Computers, iPhones, iPads, Androids, Google Glasses, Google Earth, Facebook, Twitter and Broad Sustainable Construction. All but the last one out of my list are pretty obvious and I do not feel explaining why they are awesome.   However, I feel like talking a lot about Broad Sustainable Construction, a company which is based out of China and doing miracle after miracle and revolutionizing what world calls development. As a matter of fact, China is doing great with several other things too. But this blog won’t be talking about that. At this very moment (January 5 th 2013) Broad Sustainable Construction is building world’s tallest building – Sky City –1, which is almost a kilometer high (838 m/2749 ft to be precise) with 220 floors. They are set to complete the construction of this building within 90 days. This is remarkable and revolutionary. They claim to prefabricate 95% of building off site. Guess what, whole world is t...

With much hype about building information modeling (BIM) in last 5-6 years, now (2012) industry has arrived at a point where BIM is in every AECO professional’s dictionary. BIM is not only a fancy world in these professional’s dictionaries but they are using it for various advantages over their non-BIM using competitors. A recent example is the use of building information modeling at at Panama Canal Expansion . It’s all good that BIM is in use and its adoption is increasing exponentially. The question posed to the industry geeks is what is the future of BIM? Well, here is my take on the future of BIM- 1. We will move from 2D display Views to 3D-non-immersive Viewing User interfaces can improve task performance by exploiting the powerful human capabilities for spatial cognition. 3D displays support cognitive spatial abilities. Moving from 2D displays to 3D display will be the next main stream evolution of BIM.   2. We will further move from 3D-Non-imersive viewin...

A group of open-source programmers and researches involved in architectural CAD and building information modeling (BIM) tools have developed a working tool called BIMserver. Known as the BIMserver Project from TNO and the University of Eindhoven in the Netherlands, the group’s efforts propose to radically alter the landscape for computerized applications in the AEC (architecture, engineering and construction) industries. After three revisions of open source BIMserver, version 1.0 is now available for download. Read more about opensource BIMserver here - BIMserver | Architosh | StressFree

To go along with the nice imagery update yesterday, Google has done a few things to help improve the 3D models found in Google Earth Update to SketchUp 7.1: This update consists entirely of bug fixes, with no new features present. It fixes some measurement and precision errors, among other things. Here are the full release notes if you're interested. SketchUp 7.1 added a lot of great features, so this update should make modelers very happy. 3D models with detailed facades: Using StreetView imagery, in a way similar to what you can do in SketchUp 7.1, Google has added high-res facades to buildings in five California cities: Los Angeles, San Diego, San Franciso, Berkeley and Stockton. By using StreetView imagery to detail the 3D models, zoomed in areas of the downtown streets look stunning. Here's a quick video showing some of these new buildings:. I'd expect we'll see this technology find its way over to Building Maker eventually. Having that kind of imagery available in...

For the class "Special Topics in BIM" that I am taking this semester, I designed the BIM of a commercial building using Revit 2010. Designing a building in 3D was not that easy ever. Getting 3D views, sections, plans and elevations were the matter of seconds using Revit Architecture 2010. Revit's parametric modeling capabilities helped me improve my design very early in the project. I am planning to use Revit's parametric capabilities to map the operations phase of the project. For this I will be using export and import of Revit data and project operations data respectively. The idea is to make planning and scheduling more predictable by mapping very minute details of the operations phase and using it to make the system more effective and efficient. This project is a pilot for future developments on this idea. I will be updating the progress as I move ahead with the project. Following are some renderings of the current model. Exterior Interior

This seems a powerful 3D visualization and user friendly tool.

Google launched O3D browser plug-in on April 21st 2009. This would enable useres use javascript to design 3D objects in a browser only.