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Allen Partridge of HIP Architects in Edmonton gave Canadian Construction Association conference delegates a primer on Building Information Modeling during a breakfast session at the CCA conference in Victoria, British Columbia.
Canadian Construction Association
Edmonton architect urges conference delegates to encourage architects and engineers to get on board
CCA conference delegates were given a primer on Building Information Modeling during a breakfast session on the second day of the CCA conference in Victoria.
Allen Partridge, with HIP Architects of Edmonton was one of the featured speakers at the seminar March 4.
His firm, an early adopter of the system, has been using Building Information Modeling for a few years now.
He explained how architecture has gone from paper drawing to computer-aided drawing (CAD) and is now moving to BIM technology, which has been around for about seven years.
BIM covers geometry, spatial relationships, geographic information, quantities and properties of building components, such as manufacturers’ details.
BIM can be used to demonstrate the entire building life cycle including the processes of construction and facility operation.
In the seminar, which included almost 100 delegates, only one person in the crowd had used BIM before.
However, Partridge said this is changing.
“We’re beginning to see a palpable shift,” he said.
He said BIM enables architects, owners, engineers and contractors to evaluate a building’s performance throughout its life cycle and make changes to the modeling to reflect the desired life-cycle costs or to see how it will impact performance.
He said declining document quality is an issue with the traditional way of doing things,
“You can’t make perfect drawings,” he said.
BIM has building dimensions hard-wired in and there is no chance for cheating with a structure’s measurements.
The cost of design changes increases as a project proceeds to construction and BIM can help eliminate the need for changes at some of the later stages and make the earlier stages easier.
Partridge shared his experience with an integrated approach on a particular project in Alberta in which a meeting with the general contractor, architect, mechanical and electrical engineer to evaluate the BIM model resulted in changes being made on the spot.
He urged the assembled delegates to encourage architects and engineers to get on board with BIM, emphasizing that a company doesn’t need to make a huge investment before using the technology.
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