Week 4: The Future of BIM

I believe that BIM in the future will become the benchmark for the construction industry and will be the standard form of managing the critical design information of a building or any design project at hand.

When researching the future of BIM, I came across video I liked that was posted to www.archdaily.com featuring Patrick MacLeamy, Chief Executive Officer of HOK, and his description of the uses of BIM both now and in the future of projects to come. In summary, MacLeamy comes up with the mega acronym of “BIM-BAM-BOOM” to describe the various aspects of a construction project that BIM has come to be used for and can, when used correctly, optimize all facets of a building project. The original building design is supported by BIM and its ability to develop and test different design ideas. After designing, contractors use BIM as a Building Assembly Model or “BAM” allowing better scheduling and the facilitation of subcontractor coordination and cost control. Finally, over the lifetime of a building an owner can use BIM and BAM to optimize the building’s operation. In this stage of a project, the owner can put benefit by using BIM as a Building Operation Optimization Model or “BOOM” to manage the energy consumption of the building and schedule maintenance in an orderly fashion.

With this mindset, the use of BIM in the construction industry is almost limitless in its uses and becomes an ongoing method of optimization for a building as a whole. BIM has already come quite far in the construction industry and has become a very useful tool that continues to seek improvement to better serve its users’ needs. For this reason, I see BIM continuing to strive and becoming a crucial part of any and all construction projects.

I found my peer Lorena Alvarado's post this week (http://ae-510-ay12-13.blogspot.com/2013/01/bim-in-future_29.html) to be very interesting and have some key important statistical facts. As she mentioned, one of the main concerns of BIM at this current time is the "learning curve" and the training necessary for companies to efficiently make use of BIM programs. However, the increase from 43% (in 2008) to 60% (now in 2013) of architects in the United States using BIM shines a light of hope for the future and is proof that BIM will only move forward from here.

Sources:

http://www.archdaily.com/262008/the-future-of-the-building-industry-bim-bam-boom/