BIM design : realising the creative potential of building information modelling

254 Pages·2014·60.027 MB·English

by  Garber, Richard

BIM DESIGN
This edition first published 2014
© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Registered office
John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate,
Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, United Kingdom
For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services and for information about how to apply
for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior
permission of the publisher.
Wiley publishes in a variety of print and electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some material
included with standard print versions of this book may not be included in e-books or in print-on-
demand. If this book refers to media such as a CD or DVD that is not included in the version you
purchased, you may download this material at http://booksupport.wiley.com. For more information
about Wiley products, visit www.wiley.com.
Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All
brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or
registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or
vendor mentioned in this book.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts
in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy
or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of
merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is
not engaged in rendering professional services and neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable
for damages arising herefrom. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services
of a competent professional should be sought.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Garber, Richard, 1971–
BIM design : realising the creative potential of building information modelling / Richard Garber.
pages cm
Summary: “This book emphasises the potential of BIM for architects as designers”-- Provided by
publisher.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-118-71980-0 (hardback) -- ISBN 978-1-118-71976-3 (ebk)
1. Building information modeling. 2. Building--Superintendence--Data processing. 3. Architects
and builders. 4. Buildings--Computer-aided design. 5. Building information modeling--Case
studies. I. Title.
TH438.13.G37 2014
720.285--dc23
2014012683
Executive Commissioning Editor: Helen Castle
Project Editor: Miriam Murphy
Production Editor: Andrew Hallam
Assistant Editor: Calver Lezama
Page design by Emily Chicken
Cover design and layouts by Artmedia, London
Printed in Italy by Printer Trento Srl
Front cover image © Henry Grosman, BanG studio

Acknowledgements
Books, like buildings, need to be actualised through material processes,
and the creative procedure of writing, editing, formatting and ultimately
printing, undertaken by many, shares similarities with the processes of building
actualisation described herein.
I would like to express my gratitude to the many people who have lent their
thoughts, comments, time and inspiration to the actualisation of this book:
Helen Castle has been a wonderful and thoughtful editor, and she and her staff
at Wiley have twice now made this process fun and enjoyable. Mario Carpo
has always been willing to review and comment on my work, and has written a
generous introduction. Urs Gauchat has offered his comments on early drafts,
and has been a great supporter and advisor for many years. Karen Franck has
been a fantastic colleague, who has offered much advice on this and other
projects. My staff at GRO Architects past and present, especially Scott Corey,
for their dedication to our work and for the generation of the many images and
illustrations made especially for this book. The faculty, students and staff at the
New Jersey Institute of Technology have created an incredibly stimulating home
for me there, and have provoked many of the thoughts articulated here. And of
course, Nicole Robertson, who won’t let me fall down.
Dedication
For the people of the world who are suspicious of the digital …

CONTENTS
8 FOREWORD Mario Carpo
14 CHAPTER 1 Information Modelling Today
28 CHAPTER 2 The Master Builder and Information Modelling
44 SHoP Architects, Control and Construction
58 CHAPTER 3 The C(reative)onstruction Process, Then and Now
70 MORPHOSIS Design Intent and Digital Iteration
88 CHAPTER 4 New Methods: New Tools
102 POPULOUS Curvilinear Workflows
122 CHAPTER 5 The Digital States and Information Modelling
132 GRO ARCHITECTS Dense Agendas
146 CHAPTER 6 Strategies for Component Generation
160 REISER + UMEMOTO Architecture by (Semi) Remote Control
178 CHAPTER 7 Assemblies and their Simulation
196 GENSLER Simulation Takes Control
214 CHAPTER 8 Conclusions: Authorship and Lines of Development
224 UNStudio Knowledge Architecture for a Life (Cycle)
242 Select Bibliography
244 Index
FOREWORD
MARIO CARPO
When I started my architectural studies in Italy, in the late 1970s,
one of the first assignments I was given was to make a model of
a circus tent. The mimeographed instructions specified that the
model had to include poles, either vertical or slanted, suspended
ropes or wires with load-bearing functions, and a canopy; the scale
of the model and the choice of materials were up to the students.
I vividly remember being perplexed from the start; my frustration
then grew along with my evident inability to make that bizarre
contrivance stand up – in any configuration. I did not know how
to saw wood, cut canvas or tie ropes. I had no experience as a
bricoleur, no skill as a handyman, nor any desire to become one;
and I stood up and said exactly that the second or third time the
class met. The professor, a stern melancholy man of solid Tuscan
stock, severely reprimanded me, accusing me of being an elitist,
an urban intellectual, or worse. By contrast, he praised his own
rural upbringing in a family of farmers and woodworkers, hence
his spiritual understanding of the nature of the materials of which
architecture is made and their inner workings – or something
like that. I was not persuaded and, back home, I fine-tuned my
arguments in preparation for another round. I do not remember
what those arguments were, as no further debate ensued.
The week after that memorable confrontation, the Department of
Architecture, together with most of the university, was occupied by
Communist guerrillas. When the same professor tried to go to his
office, the Proletarian Avant-Garde of the Irascible Non-Tenured
Lecturers (an approximate translation from the original Italian)
smashed him over the head with a heavy wooden chair. His ancestral
familiarity with timber, however, did not save his skull; he was taken
to hospital and kept there for almost as long as the school’s
occupation. When courses restarted, months later, all assignments
were due the same week. I teamed up with other students, better
bricoleurs than me, the model was produced collectively and my
task in the group was to write the presentation text.
For the remainder of my studies in architecture I was never asked
to produce another physical object – other than drawings, of
course – and so never had the opportunity to revisit and further
investigate the causes of that altercation and the nature of my
objections. Had I been more perspicacious, or more conversant
with the history of architecture – which I wasn’t at the age of 18
and after barely a month of classes – my retort to that blundering
craftsman-turned-architectural-educator should have been:
architecture as an art of design was invented by Leon Battista
Alberti, and a few others, during the Renaissance. Alberti and
his humanist friends thought that architects should not make