BIM – Baggage in Motion?
BIM stands for Building Information Modelling but over the last ten years, it has accumulated a lot of baggage.
Developing, storing, communicating and applying information. If you see the term in that context, we have been using BIM for since buildings were built.
If we think of BIM as Information Modeling for Buildings (IMB) it may provide a different perspective.
BIM is often portrayed as a revolution but actually BIM has been around for centuries. Mankind has built many things and has represented information about those buildings in the form of models. Model representations may be 2D, 3D, physical or description models. They contain implicit and explicit information depending on how symbolic they are.
The revolution is in the representation, and, over the last thirty years, the computer has revolutionized many of the tools – expanded the range and scale of information and supported, and forced, a move from craft to automation, from the implicit to the explicit.
The revolution has been in the available tools, materials and the scale – from axes, to wheels, to 3D printing, from wood to concrete to nanotechnology and from a shelter to villages to mega cities.
I learnt my craft as a draughtsman in a world of Tee squares, drawing boards, Rotring pens, and drawing machines. Transparent positives were prepared and “printed” using ammonia based print machines. Drawings were structured – Location (plans, sections, elevations), Assembly (details), Components and Schedules. CI/Sfb was used to categorize and structure information. Buildings and projects were “modeled” in perspective renders to sell and in 2D for project delivery. It was craft based, specialized and full of implicit information. We relied on builders knowing how to build and understanding the language we used.
Now I use 010.3
Imformatoin modelling for buildings
BIM carrys a lot of baggage.
Complicated
Real world relevant.