BIM is the medium, but interoperability is the message — “Share Data no more Models”
I start from the image below that pops up from a LinkedIn post (credit is in the image):
“Revit is just another tool in our BIM toolbox”
It is always very useful to underline this substantial distinction between a process and software, I agree. Another aspect that, in my opinion, is closely linked to BIM as a process is that of interoperability because in the same way it must always be remembered that:
Operating with proprietary formats is extremely advantageous for a loyal user (totally devoted to a single software house) and it undoubtedly has a certain productive advantage, but we cannot speak of interoperability if we are not able to put two software of different origins and with different production objectives in communication if we do not fully embrace the Open philosophy (and therefore of neutral formats). There is no more neutral format than “data” because it is its structuring into “information” that makes it something useful and therefore valid in terms of design
Just to be clear this is my opinion.
If I think about the meaning of interoperability it immediately comes back to me when I first used the cross-platform application Flux.io (a Google X program project) … it was amazing how the concept of interoperability and unchaining from the “slavery” of formats how really came to life in that way.
On the occasion of the webinar — share data no more models — (on GoToWebinar platform) held in May 2017 by Anthony BUCKLEY-THORP, managing partner of Flux.io (cloud data sharing, data storage and data design platform), the possibility to learn some aspects of the envelope design workflow followed by the BUROHAPPOLD Engineering articulated around data sharing and interoperability between the design platforms used in the design phase of the ARTIC — Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center by Hellmuth-Obata-Kassabaum (HOK) gridshell.
Flux.io was one of the innovative platforms that emphasized once again, a certain preferential relationship that the AEC industry has with the Software Houses that deal with technology at different levels, this is a determining factor for the innovative aspects that characterize the workflow of the big Firms and especially for large incoming projects. As evidence of what he learned, Anthony BUCKLEY, member of the FAST sector (Flux Advanced Service + Technology) of Flux.io, a spin-off of Google’s X program, explains that his training began at ARUP as a structural engineer having the good fortune to be able to develop multiple applications related to digital design and process automation.
Currently, the state of the art is recognised among the projects similar to the aforementioned experience, Speckle (with a great DEV Team), which in my opinion is among the major candidates to collect the cultural heritage left by Flux.io [1]. This is because, as interoperability between platforms is a central theme in the philosophy of building information modelling, software projects related to data sharing/archiving/design represent a real “Eldorado” because they are able to ensure total strategic coverage among the most widespread application modules commonly used by design firms.
In operational terms, this digital integration could be interpreted as an improvement, for example, in preserving the copyright (think of the sharing of the source codes of the algorithms to rigorously define the geometric configurations of any work) and likewise the immediacy of sharing, between different teamwork, the input and output data necessary to implement the efficiency of the project pipeline. Hence the company’s motto was “share data no more models”.
BUROHAPPOLD, this is just one of the many virtuous testimonies, has benefited from the advantages offered by the cloud platform just mentioned by integrating multiple digital tools in order to improve and optimize its workflow shows the diagram that the engineering company has adopted for the realization of the geometry of the ARTIC gridshell. In the image below, I have graphically re-elaborated it, it is really clear how BIM is the medium and interoperability is the message — in the sense of profound meaning that all informative design processes encompass to produce the geometric-annotative artefacts.
Other important Firms have adopted and are still adopting a systemic and holistic approach to design and these diagrams below illustrate the different phases of the production and design process bear witness to this.
The ZHA diagram workflow above, used in the design of the Hadid Tower and the Podium in the CityLife district of Milan (the shopping district), is a further testimony of the systemic approach.
The architect Paolo ZILLI [2] between 2008 and 2010 supervised the aspect of design interoperability between the various involved partners and, in particular, to ensure the operational transition from the level 1 BIM model to the more specifically executive level 2 (2014) in order to maximize the performance of the entire teamwork compared to the traditional tools and workflows adopted until then. . ZILLI always specifies that the first parametric models of the project (concept elaborated in 2004), were initially developed by integrating the use of Autocad with that of Excel spreadsheets, later it began, with the progress of the technologies integrated into the modelling software, the adoption of the Paracloud and Rhino, approaching then to the VPL Grasshopper platform and the scripting procedures in Visual Basic in the same development environment as Rhino.
As evidence of the spread of a professional practice based on the workflows just described, the methodology that the international design and engineering firm NIKKEN SEKKEI uses in the field of integrated design and construction based on the interoperable BIM model is shown as a demonstration of the interoperability concept. The second diagram image above shows, again, the diversified and intense use of IT tools and platforms capable of managing the constructive and design complexity of the integrated services offered by NIKKEN. The firm’s workflow has been tested since 2014 using the Archicad BIM platform (from version 17) for the management of construction aspects and integrated design. The Japanese firm has signed an advantageous partnership with the Software House GRAPHISOFT, as told by Mr Tomohiko YAMANASHI, executive officer and principal of NIKKEN SEKKEI in Tokyo, also underlining that half of the employees at the studios scattered around the globe (around 2400 professionals) are mostly architects.
The constant and growing presence of architects and personnel of the AEC industry within the Software Houses or in support of Software Developers is now a thriving practice to be pursued especially in view of the immediate mutations of professional roles in the architectural, design and obviously engineering fields
The diagrams above have shown, especially in specific technical sectors, the huge presence of the IT platforms to define a consolidated practice recognized by many international professional realities. In each of them emerges (ZHA, HOK, BUROHAPPOLD, Nikken Sekkei etc.) a constant propensity for process customization using programmable digital tools and the data sharing platforms, for example, for the NIKKEN SEKKEI the Midas Gen platform represents a shining example.
However, the shadow of the disruptive power of interoperability can be a serious problem in terms of the growing demand for highly specialized professional profiles — profiles that are the result of practical rather than academic speculation. The work of the architect and the designer is probably the profession most exposed to radical changes in the immediate future subject to the constant and progressive evolutions that occur in each of the technological levels described by Kevin KELLY [2], changes perceived both on the instrumental and on the cultural side of the production of the digital project. The meaning of this last assertion is found in MOSER [3], the researcher tries to describe a new figure of architects to whom they are increasingly associated and assigned different and innovative tasks.
“A new role that interfaces with solutions that are often unique, customized and designed to define a symbiotic relationship between the idea and the prototype”
MOSER reports in his book BIM disruption 2016: the disruption of interoperability, that the central role of the architect and designer is mainly linked to destiny and the continuous birth of new forms of work for which we need and will need new spaces, new geometries, new interactions. architectural and, for these reasons, the designer of the Digital Era must necessarily be oriented towards the problem-solving of specific critical issues in total becoming as the future job market is defined.
Once again the aspects of information modelling, since it is aimed at people, recognize strong and essential human connotations in interoperability, potentially unrelated to the logic imposed by the Software House or at least it should be
Finally, I have the personal belief that the power of interoperability is mainly contained in its “soft” aspect even before “hard”, I refer to the community aspect (and not so much to the hardware/software aspects that are functional). More often some significant “technological upgrades” come right from the bottom, from virtual communities, from the “Discourse forums” for example (it is well known that many beta-testers of the AEC industry are enlisted in these places). These are places where human interoperability is palpable from which collective technical knowledge takes shape not as a sum of the individual one but as collective intelligence, but this will probably be discussed in my next article.
References and Notes
If this article has inspired or just driven you curious and you want to cite this or simply read the Italian version, please have a look at my site → BIMisMediumInteroperabilityThe Message
[1] The Google X Team on March 31, 2018, officially terminated the provision of the data sharing and data storing service offered by the Flux.io platform.
[2] Zilli, ZHA Project Associate, has collaborated on numerous international projects of ZHA and among these also at the High Speed Station in Afragola (Naples).
[3] Kelly, K. (2017). The inevitable: understanding the 12 technological forces that will shape our future (3rd printed.). New York: Penguin Books.
[4] Moser, C. (2017). BIM Disruption 2016: The Disruption of Interoperability. Independently published (January 1, 2017).
[5] F. Aimar, (2017), I professionisti del BIM — eBook
