Building information modelling (BIM) is revolutionising building design and construction. For architects, BIM has the potential to optimise their creativity while reducing risk in the design and construction process, thus giving them a more significant role in the building process. This book demonstrates how innovative firms are using BIM technologies to move design away from the utilitarian problems of construction, engaging them in a stunning new future in the built environment. Whereas recent books about BIM have tended to favour case-study analyses or instruction on the use of specific software, BIM Design highlights how day-to-day design operations are shaped by the increasingly generative and collaborative aspects of these new tools. BIM strategies are described as operations that can enhance design rather than simply make it more efficient. Thus this book focuses on the specific creative uses of information modelling at the operational level, including the creative development of parametric geometries and generative design, the evaluation of environmental performance and the simulation and scheduling of construction/fabrication operations. This book also engages BIM’s pragmatic efficiencies such as the conflict checking of building systems and the creation of bills of quantities for costing; and in so doing it demonstrates how BIM can make such activities collaborative. Throughout, projects are used to illustrate the creative application of BIM at a variety of scales. These buildings showcase work by fi rms executing projects all over the world: SHoP Architects and Construction (New York), Morphosis (Los Angeles), Populous (London), GRO Architects (New York), Reiser + Umemoto (New York), Gensler (Shanghai) and UNStudio (Amsterdam).
Workflows are being rethought and remodelled across the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) spectrum. The synthesis of building information modelling (BIM) platforms with digital simulation techniques and increasing access to data, charting building performance, is allowing architects to engage in the generation of new workflows across multidisciplinary teams. By merging digital design operations with construction activities, project delivery and post-occupation scenarios, architects are becoming instrumental in the shaping of buildings as well as the design process. Workflows expand the territory of architectural practice by extending designers’ remit beyond the confines of the design stage. The implications for the AEC industry and architecture as a profession could not be greater. These new collaborative models are becoming as important as the novel buildings they allow us to produce. Contributors include: Shajay Bhooshan, John Cays, Randy Deutsch, Sean Gallagher, Ian Keough, Peter Kis, Jonathan Mallie, Adam Modesitt, Rhett Russo, Dale Sinclair, and Stacie Wong. Featured architects: Arup, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, GLUCK+, GRO Architects, PLANT, Populous, Young & Ayata, and Zaha Hadid Architects.