The latest Cadalyst AEC Insight column, Modeling Technology for Building Engineers, by Jerry Laiserin talks about the particular challenges of coordinating designs produced by architects with the needs of engineers involved in designing mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) services. It reiterates a message conveyed several times over the past year or so: there are different flavours of building information modelling (BIM) for different professionals and they are not (yet) easily integrated (see my December 2007 post Collaboration: standards, viewing, plus industry education, for example).
Meanwhile (and still on BIM), AECbytes talks about interoperability and sustainable design, courtesy of a contribution by Australian architect Sid Thoo. In the light of the recent Bentley/Autodesk interoperability announcement, he looks at how interoperability and innovative communication and collaboration relates to green building design. Extending Jerry’s theme, Sid writes:
“What we really need is the ability to create a single building model that can be used not only for architectural and engineering workflows, but also for the purposes of building simulation and analysis.”