Building Information Modelling (BIM) has been implemented to varying degrees across the Architectural Profession.
The Queensland Government has recently released a document titled "Building Information Modelling – Draft Policy and Principals for Queensland”. The Queensland Government will require the use of BIM for all government building projects by 2020 and all infrastructure works by 2023.
The AIA QLD Practice Committee wants to obtain an understanding of the current level of use of BIM by Queensland architectural firms and any problems encountered so far in using BIM.
This information will enable the AIA QLD Practice Committee to recommend actions to the Institute that will assist Architects and their firms in their implementation and use of BIM; through the development of an AIA BIM Policy, Guidelines, updated standard forms, such as Client Architect Agreements, and CPD events that provide strategic, managerial and technical skillset required by Architects to deliver BIM processes.
For the purposes of this survey, Building Information Modeling (BIM) is a digital representation of physical and functional characteristics of a facility. A BIM is a shared knowledge resource for information about a facility forming a reliable basis for decisions during its life-cycle; defined as existing from earliest conception to demolition.
BIM involves representing a design as combinations of "objects" – vague and undefined, generic or product-specific, solid shapes or void-space oriented (like the shape of a room), that carry their geometry, relations and attributes. BIM design tools allow extraction of different views from a building model for drawing production and other uses. These different views are automatically consistent, being based on a single definition of each object instance. BIM software also defines objects parametrically; that is, the objects are defined as parameters and relations to other objects, so that if a related object is amended, dependent ones will automatically also change. Each model element can carry attributes for selecting and ordering them automatically, providing cost estimates as well as material tracking and ordering.
For the professionals involved in a project, BIM enables a virtual information model to be handed from the design team (architects, landscape architects, surveyors, civil, structural and building services engineers, etc.) to the main contractor and subcontractors and then on to the owner/operator; each professional adds discipline-specific data to the single shared model. This reduces information losses that traditionally occurred when a new team takes 'ownership' of the project, and provides more extensive information to owners of complex structures.