You’ve heard of BIM (Building Information Modeling). Perhaps you are using Revit, ArchiCAD or Vectorworks in your office. Perhaps you are not.
If you aren’t, perhaps it is because you don’t have the time or incentive to learn an entirely new technology. Perhaps you have considered switching to this technology but just can’t figure out where to start. Or perhaps you don’t see any benefit to using one of these programs for your particular project type.
I can think of many reasons, but what is your reason for not using a BIM-capable software product? Let me know in the comments section below!
Switching to a new technology platform takes a lot of time, energy and money. For the small firm or solo practitioner, that time and money is disproportionately large compared with what a large firm would spend for the same transition.
However, if are a solo architect and you’ve been considering switching to a BIM system or want to hear some examples from architects that have used these software packages for small projects, you will want to tune into the AIA’s recorded webinar:
BIM for Small Projects II:
Case Studies in Innovative BIM Use by Small Firms and Solo Practioners
Presenting during this webinar will be:
Brian Skripac, Assoc. AIA of DesignGroup, Columbus, OH | Revit user
H. Edward Goldberg, AIA | HEGRA Architects, Baltimore, MD | Revit user
Jared Banks, AIA | Shoegnome, LLC, St. Paul, MN | ArchiCAD user
David Sheer, AIA (Moderator)
Jeffrey Ouellette, Assoc AIA (Moderator)
Very intersting,
I’m currently in the process of evaluating available solutions, which is a quite mind confusing process
About to set up my own practice, I definately want to go BIM from start
Hi Vincent, well I know what you mean, it can be baffling especially with the amount of avenues of information that is growing. Sometimes those involved in BIM forget when they started out and become BIM baffling themselves!
You should come along to the BIM4SME event in London on 15th April. This might be a good area to start. The event isn’t there to ‘sell you BIM’, just to help bring us like minded smaller businesses together so we can talk about how BIM will work for us. http://bim4sme.eventbrite.co.uk/
This is a great discussion, thanks for initiating it! I work for a SME contractor (and I mean small, 19 people, projects up to £4m!) and am also on the Government working group for BIM4SMEs in the UK. I am always looking for case studies, information, helpful hints that are specific to the smaller practice in any sector and also smaller projects.
I’d be interested in speaking with anyone who might have information they would like to share to help support smaller practices like mine!
Please feel free to email me at g.lennon(at)nuconstruction.co.uk.
Thanks for your help.
Gemma
Although CAD was in it’s infancy and ‘banned’ during my training I started using 2D CAD (AutoCAD 2 on Apricot computers) as soon as I entered the real world.
I moved on to 3D CAD in the early 1990′s (Architrion on a 486 Windows PC) and have been using BIM capable software since Vectorworks 10 and ArchiCad 11 (on Windows and Apple PCs) and have just downloaded my upgrade to Vectorworks Architect + Renderworks 2013 (MacBookPro on OS 10.8).
I run a small practice where a lot of the work is with existing buildings. Getting the software to cope with existing buildings requires ingenuity but not impossible.
Working with a BIM ‘workflow’ is cost effective for the sole practitioner even if other consultants and the contractor haven’t got a clue about BIM!
Any architect not using BIM and still on 2D CAD (or drawing board) is probably digging their own grave!
I’m a single person firm and have used ArchiCAD exclusively since 2007. Before that, I had used AutoCAD since 1984.
I would never go back to the old 2D way of working.
I have completed construction documents on multi million dollar projects and very small projects by myself very efficiently.
Dan thanks for your comment and sharing your testimonial for the rest of us to learn from!
Hi Steve, thanks for dropping by and sharing your input. I can definitely see how the capabilities of BIM would be above and beyond a roof replacement.
I have considered it but I do a lot of renovation work such as roof replacements and without seeing the product it just does not seem to be the right choice for my firm.