Databases in Design Offices

                 With Building Information Modeling becoming a primary method of design, the industry is changing in terms of what qualities are desired at design firms today. Drafting programs are a fairly new technology being that major programs such as AutoCAD was only introduced in the 90's. Although 20 years might seem long, it’s a fairly small period in terms of how long architectural and engineering design has been around. Along with other major aspects of BIM such as 3-D modeling, and ease of use, the ability to share and distribute models is also essential to these  type of programs.With programs such as Revit becoming more widely used, the ability to upload and download pre-made models has been a big selling point for many companies. Like AutoCAD uses “X-Refs” to link to other AutoCAD files, many BIM programs such as Revit have an internal databasethat can also be updated with online databases.

            
                 A database is described as “an organized collection of data”. In BIM design, databases have preinstalled  information that can be useful when using the program for design. These databases are useful in design offices today because they can save a lot of time when drafting up a floor plan or creating a building model. One of the big benefits of these databases is the ability to work together on one project at different times. As Maria stated, this can be useful when multiple users create independent Architectural, Mechanical, or Structural plans that can later be merged together. Aside from having just plans or certain "entourage" within a building, building costs and materials can also be archived into separate databases. 

            
                Aside from being able to create new models, and share data, databases greatly reduce design time because of the way they're programmed. Databases are used to archive a lot of data, and thus can use key words, or certain identifications that makes finding any type of element or archive, extremely easy. . For example, typically in drafting programs such as AutoCAD, when one would draft plans they would have to  be drawn as lines with proper dimensions. Instead, a door in Revit, can be simply created by loading a “family” stored in Revit’s internal database. A family in Revit can be considered a database on its own because it holds lots of different information about the door such as dimensions, material properties, offsets, and so on. Some of the more up to date BIM databases also have current manufacturers and costs.  As we discussed in class, in the future, the wireless networks and "clouds" will have to be more efficient for the vast amount of data that will be stored in virtual space.

               

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database

http://continuingeducation.construction.com/article.php?L=12&C=838