Implementation of Building Information Modeling (BIM) on the Renovation of the Art Gallery of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta

Abstract

There is little argument that Building Information Modeling is the way of the future in the AEC industry; however, few would freely admit that the future is not here yet for the type of the building projects that the current wave of architecture is pushing for. It is interesting to note that for most of the conferences and presentations widely available on this hot topic, few negative opinions are voiced. We found the article by Michael Tardif, titled Faith-based BIM, to be one of the few such articles. While with each release of the BIM upgrade, the programs improve by leaps and bounds, as of the time of writing it is still very cumbersome, inaccurate, if not plain impossible, to model more complex geometry so prevalent in modern architecture, as so noted by the authors' experience, as well as Dr. Lachmi Khemlani's honest review on the AECbytes website. Of equal, if not more, importance is the lack of standard and clear delineation of liability in the building information model between the design and construction team. For an ideal project to be conceived in BIM, there needs to be a high level of trust between various parties involved that are unfortunately not commonly found in the current atmosphere of the industry. A series of surveys commissioned anonymously by Adobe Systems in 2004 and 2006 revealed an interesting finding that was covered in Sara Ferris' article on the Cadalyst. Amid the advancement and widespread availability of computing power, the AEC industry is relying on paper more than before: CAD files are reviewed in paper format more often in 2006 than in 2004. In 2004, 33% of the responders reviewed CAD files solely in electronic format, and that number dropped to 23% by year 2006. This apparent regression of acceptance in technology was commonly attributed to concerns about document security, with a substantial size of the responders sharing documents in noneditable digital format (e.g. TIFF or PDF) at 44%, and with another 37% of the survey participants providing paper copies only. While this particular survey did not cover the topic of BIM and the sharing of data in a central model, one gets an idea of what kind of comfort level the industry is currently operating in and thus the resistance one can expect for the implementation of BIM across not just the offices of the various design consultants, but more importantly, between the design team and the construction team, and ultimately, given to the building users for long term maintenance. For our project, the design team is comfortable and has prior experience with sharing information electronically for construction. However, the decision was made that only Rhinoceros files were released to the construction team for geometry control. The BIM files were only used to produce 2D construction drawings and were not released as part of the construction document due to unclear liability issues. At the time of writing, all eyes are on the National Institute of Building Sciences on their National Building Information Model Standard project. As part of the buildingSMART Initiative, this committee is charged with the follow standards: BIM scope, Coverage of Version, Reference Standards, Business Processes, Business Rules, Data Structures and Models, Implementation Guidance, and Maturity Model. It is the hope that with better definition of BIM, the AEC industry can have a better understanding of the risk involved in its implementation and thus be able to better manage the associated risk and make an informed decision about its adoption.