Last night, after I got home and finally slept for a bit, I awoke with that fullness feeling inside of me. The same feeling that got me out of bed every morning in that dreaded MidTown. I immediately got a buzz of energy and decided to unpack so I could look at everything I brought home. I dug my pinup drawings from my presentation out of my bags. I stared at them for a while and thought... this is all I got??? I was extremely disappointed with the artifacts I had to share, as they did not encompass by trip in its entirety. It suddenly became blatantly evident that what created that wonderful sense of fullness was not the objects that flew home with me on the plane, but the experiences and people that I met while on my Bostonian journey.
I miss everyone already.
As I sit at my desk today, trying to change the world one power point presentation at a time, I am completely uninspired. All I want to do is break out the trace and get rolling on my design from studio. Matter of fact while I sit here, I am sketching out ideas in my head and trying to store them in my magic memory bank for later when I get home. It is going to drive me mad!
Last Friday I completely changed my research topic and now I am slightly freaking out. I am switching from "places where we feel we belong" to, "Can architecture’s acceptance of technology better in the future? And if so, how will it help our profession and the clients that we serve?" I am particularly relating to BIM. It is not like me to change things at the last minute, but I'm hoping that I can travel down a path, less traveled by someone before, with this new topic. What do you guys think???
I plan on researching the evolution of technology in architecture, starting from the pencil and t-square and hopefully ending with some of the latest and greatest technology out there. I am just hoping that it doesn't all change by the time I get this paper written. After I get a feel for the architectural profession I plan on comparing it to some others out there in the world, particularly the ones that people are always complaining about. "Why is architecture not held to the same respect as ____ " so and so. After that is said and done, I'll be diving into BIM and all of the claims it has for bettering our profession, life and the world. Sounds dramatic, I know, but most of its die-hard followers really feel this way.
Time to hit the library again and try to dig up some new resources. If any of you know of some off the top of your head please let me know, I have a feeling this may be difficult to research since it is still fairly new to our profession.
Best of Luck to everyone over the next 5 weeks. May our minds be buried as deep in thoughts as our noses will be in books.
Cheers!
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10 comments:
Kate, you couldnt have put it more eloquently! I was attempting to explain my experience to my friends and family, but without including the context of the new friends I made, the stories seem uninteresting. All I can say is "Ditto that Schommer!"
So glad that we met, and that you didnt cancel your hotel reservation with "Michael Singleton."
:)
The AIA did a "future predictions" piece on BIM about a year ago in one of their mailings. I think you can find it stored on their website here:
http://www.aia.org
/aiarchitect
/thisweek07
/0105
/0105rc_face.cfm
Kate-
Good thoughts. I have had the same issues with explaining last week to others...
One thought for your paper is possibly find a firm or multiple firms that have made the transition to BIM and see how it has changed their office in the positive or negative way. If you want you can talk with some people in my office. I came onto this firm when they were making the transition.
Kate, aka Katie, aka Katherina, aka blondie:
Can you think of any other profession that would experience such a dramatic downtime and loss of revue that architects do when they adopt new technology? I'm not sure I can and that could become a focal point for study. Allow me to elaborate, if you will, and if you won't I will anyway.
I'm envisioning a scenario where my office would decide to make the shift from Autocad to BIM - let's say Revit for example. Having solely used Autocad my whole career (yes, shockingly as you recall Autocad was invented even before I graduated) and knowing absolutely nothing about Revit my employer must invest a considerable amount of time - unbillable time - to retrain me to bring me up to a level of comfort with Revit before I can begin to generate any income again. What took me 4 hours to do in Autocad, now may take 2 days until the interface becomes second nature, so even then my productivity is greatly reduced. Multiply that situation by 5 other employees and you've created a recipe of financial disaster that not many firms can shoulder. So what about departmentalizing the training? How about train a couple folks at a time and make the transition gradual. Now, I don't know anything about Revit, but are Revit produced drawings seemlessly compatible with Autocad, for instance? If no, then I've just severed the ability for 2/3 of the office to work on any Revit drawing I have produced. In this context, I think the resistance to radical technological changes is somewhat justified.
On the flip side consider a new medical technology. If science produces a fantastic new way to perform, say, a colonoscopy as a doctor I can learn that technology and apply it, but at the same time I can still maintain my other methods of practices without having to completely shut down all other operations.
If I had to pick a similar industry so prone to a massive loss from downtime due to a technology shift, the best I can come up with is accounting - maybe explore if there was some great resistance from an industry switch from spreadsheet program A (Lotus?) to spreadsheet B (MS Excel?)? Were the interfaces so inherently different that they experienced a massive downtime during retraining?
Don't ask me, I'm not an accountant.
Kate - I think you are missing a hose. That fire looks like it could use one. ;)
Just out of curiosity, what about this interests you the most? what do you hope to discover?
Melissa,
Yes the extra hose would've helped ;) This pic was taken at a training burn from last summer, right before we let it burn to the ground. And no, We don't usually take a pause during a house fire for a photo, haha.
What interests me the most about this topic is that we are one of the only professions out there that are sooo resistant to changes in technology within our work place and I'm hoping to discover why. Have we been burned by some crazy new technology in the past, or are we just naturally attracted to what we know and terrified of what we don't. There are issues on production and deliverables to our clients. But bottom line, when it all comes down to it, is one way or the other more beneficial to the world (architects, clients, contractors, $$$) at the end of the day and if so why.
Yes, I know BIM and I have used it on a project before, but I was once one of the most skeptic people you could find when it came to using this new program. The learning curve was intense and I wanted to pull my hair out most of the time. But it was also a great experience and once it was all said and done, I really felt as though I learned more about every practice from mechanical, structural, electrical to even interiors. That and I knew how that building was going to be put together from inside out. I was able to design a building and learn how it was going to be put together all at the same time.
It was pretty cool.
I wonder if any of this "resistance" is due to the fact that many *ahem* older architects that I know, still insist on drawing by hand. Many of them say "it helps to develop keen hand-eye coordination and helps give you a true sense of what you are working on." Perhaps after all those late nights with their Kol-i-Noor drafting pens, accidentally spilling ink onto the vellum drawings, or ripping the drawing while trying to erase an error with a "ink eraser," smudging the text as they drag their triangles (I mounted mine on pennies) across the page....perhaps after suffering through all of that, they feel as if using computers is an "easy way out." Almost as if saying "without suffering there is no glory!"
I could take this in two directions here...but I will leave the "good 'ol boy club" explanation out.
Perhaps these folks who have been drafting (whether by hand or with just regular versions of AutoCAD)feel as if these methods are like an "old shoe." Comfortable and reliable.
I know my own boss refuses to upgrade to 2008 AutoCAD because the menus are slightly different. He can actually work much faster in the earliest version of AutoCAD (without having to stop me every five minutes.."michelle where can I find this line type" or "how do I save to a PDF?"So perhaps theres some validity to "sticking to what you are comfortable with."
But if we had all continued to draw by hand, just think of how long the design process would be!! (and the costs associated with that time!)
We as designers should embrace technology, even if it means spending a little time to get to know it better.
So I'm old enough to remember taking Typing class in high school. It didn't hurt me any (I could get up to about 35 wpm on the old manuals we had), but there wasn't any real purpose to it. Going to college and writing papers wasn't going to be all that big a deal. But now, old and crippled up, I can type about 50 wpm because that's how I communicate with the world. I didn't hire a typing coach, or have typing skills as a goal -- I just wrote a lot (probably 30% of my work day is typing) and got better at it naturally.
So my way of working with the world is through words, spoken and written. Yours is through objects. But if we imagine that we have the same goal -- to make people's lives better, to change the world in some fundamental way -- then we need to quit focusing on the tools and just use them. I could focus on typing 90 wpm, and quit paying attention to what I needed to say. Designers can be high-powered BIM experts, but at the risk of thinking about what matters. I say use the technology at hand, badly and often, to do things in the world. You'll automatically get better at the technology.
Kate,
This is a great topic and one that hits home. Currently, I am one person in my office, of a team of five, that are heading up BIM and implementing it into the firm. The firm has a goal that all new projects will be in Revit over the next few years. Very ostentatious goal. So I can provide a first hand account of alot of what has already been commented on here. There is much debate within my office about Revit, and whether or not it is just good marketing or if it is capable of what they claim.
I am of this opinion: we should always be looking to use new tools if they in some way are a benefit to us. However, you can't forget about the other tools you have to use and, you should always use the right tool for the job. AKA-why just use a hammer if you also have a screw driver, wrench and saw. AKA-why only use Revit, when you have ACAD, VIZ and hand drafting. (you can insert any amount of programs in the above list). Bottom line is that each tool has it's weaknesses and strengths. A good project team will use ALL tools at there disposal to produce their design output.
I have several articles on introducing BIM into practice and BIM pros and cons, I will send them to you once I dig them out.
My company is in a similar situation as the previously mentioned scenarios. Although discussed for many years, they have finally decided to take the leap and use Revit at their next opportunity. Along with this choice they have decided to get everyone trained, I will be in Revit classes this coming Mon-Wed. It will be interesting if the sales information is backed up by actually using the program during training and then if that is backed up by actually making it useful in the work place. Time will tell and I will keep you updated on our progress.
As I have said before my company is made up of a majority of engineers. Our last project produced construction docs from a program called ProEngineer, a program specifically written to produce detailed drawings of engine blocks or other mechanical widgets. The architectural portion ended up being 60 sheets that had to be pulled and twisted from this obviously inappropriate tool for the job. Like Herb said, we used the program badly but in the end we produced what really matters, a complete and understandable design.
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