Architecture, Building Construction, Technology, AutoCAD, 3D Studio, Documents
This is a major deal to me because my first love and field of study was Architecture. Why did I leave it? Personal reasons made me make the hard decision to leave it alone for a while. A unscheduled break, if you will, for about 20 - 25 years. So I do plan to come back, but I will have the knowledge of business, technology and organizational behavior behind me to use in the Architecture field.
I think those things will make me stand out from the rest of the field. Plus, I plan to do more with Architecture than what THEY think it is supposed to be. I'll manage property, design, acquisition; anything real estate. Donald Trump, eat your heart out! Not to mention related financial business like home purchases and insurance as well as asset retainment and management, and building worth.
Yes I have big plans and will invest a lot of money in doing it. First technology. As you can see, technology has become part of Architecture. AutoCAD, 3D Studio and the like have changed the look of design and what Architecture can be. All of a sudden, models can be created for view and explorations in space and void have taken shape faster. materials can be tested better, forms can be designed and created quicker and stronger.
My main thing with all of this is that buildings cannot be just designed; they have to be maintained as well. A building should not cost more to maintain then it was to build it and yet more times then not a building operating costs and maintenance can be half as much a year as it cost to build it. Lets face it, even at a lower amount per year cost, after 10 or 20 years you paid for the construction and design of the building 7 or 8 times conservatively. Lets hope BIM technology (building information technology) and what is called Total Building Commissioning takes foot hold in the next 10 to 15 years. With those in hand, accountability goes up, accurate documentation reliability goes up, building design and security can be worked out, and more importantly asset control and maintenance can be handled properly (not to mention in the design phase the whole team knows what they are responsible for, what the concept of the building is about and how they can carry it though)
This news article gives me hope hat the Architecture field when I come back to it, will be the one I will actually want to be in.
SOURCE: CNET NEWS.com
Bye-bye, blueprint: 3D modeling catches on
Published: October 4, 2004, 4:00 AM PDT
By David Becker
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
You don't have to contemplate the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, or the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles for long to grasp the notion that standard two-dimensional drawings might be inadequate for architect Frank Gehry.
The buildings are fantastic explosions of curvilinear shapes, executed in ways that seem more appropriate for paper than structural steel. They're also representative of a dramatic new approach to designing and constructing buildings: building information modeling, or BIM, in which blueprints and other two-dimensional documents are replaced by 3D computer models, with each element of the design imbued with information about its real-world properties, such as how much weight a steel beam can hold.
Gehry became one of architecture's earliest practitioners of BIM techniques largely out of necessity, because his designs have increasingly relied on specialized fabrication and placement of materials.
"Bilbao was sort of the big landmark that showed the world things were possible (with BIM) that couldn't be done in any other process," said Dennis Shelden, chief technology officer of Gehry Technologies, a software and services firm commercializing some of the techniques and tools developed for Gehry projects.
"The types of buildings Frank does could not be done through conventional descriptive means and conventional ways of documenting," Shelden said. "The big question that's out there is where's the tipping point for this technology to be applied to more conventional work?"
That's the million-dollar question for architects, contractors, owners and others in the building process, which began a slow transformation two decades ago with the advent of CAD (computer aided drafting). The first generation of CAD products added digital authoring to existing design processes, for faster and more accurate production of blueprints.
The shift to 3D promises to dramatically change the market. A recent report by Jon Peddie Research concludes 3D tools are already dominating spending in the market, expected to total $3.2 billion in worldwide revenue next year, and will continue to grow in significance over the next few years.
But BIM promises dramatic opportunities for cutting waste and errors, shortening the schedules and improving management of finished buildings. However, the technology also requires major changes...
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