Digital tools and processes have been implemented to varying degrees across the Australian architectural profession.
A number of government agencies and private clients have begun their digital journey and are starting to require digital deliverables from consultants and contractors. Some governments are setting potential dates for mandatory deliverables as early as 2019 for building projects and 2023 for infrastructure works.
The ACA and Australian Institute of Architects wants to understand the digital capability of architectural firms and identify any problems encountered so far in implementing digital processes.
This information will enable the ACA and the Institute to recommend actions to assist architects implement and use digital processes. These will be articulated through the development of an Institute BIM Policy, guidelines, updated standard forms (such as client architect agreements) and CPD events to provide strategic, managerial and technical skillset required by architects to deliver digital processes.
What is BIM? For the purposes of this survey, Building Information Modeling (BIM) is understood as a digital representation of physical and functional characteristics of a facility. 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 the extraction of different views from a building model for drawing production and other uses. These different views are automatically consistent, as they are 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.