MythBusted? BIM/CAD is no panacea for lacking experience

Images from the Gommateshvara Statue I visited yesterday... and some of those 650 steps that I am about to mention (yikes on the calf muscles today)... As to this post: CAD/BIM may have even helped the builders of this (get the steps even, etc ;-) -though I doubt it) but their vision and know-how needed to be there first!!! I salute all of their bloody knuckles!!!

Yes, it's the world's largest monolith, they say...
And I am so glad it' take's navigating over 650 steps up through /over solid Granite...

DId I mention barefoot? Since it's in a Temple... well, in and at the top of a Temple built into a solid Granite/Shist outcropping of the Sub Continent.


Phew, finally at the top, and only 20 minutes to get there.


Tools are to use; Not to be...

CAD, BIM and the like are simply tools and in my opinion ones that can magnify ones abilities or lack there of, in a given field. (I really don't know how I am not making any juvenile comments about tools right now... Oh well... :-)

If an Engineer or Architect or Designer or User isn't worth their salt then no tool can save them. For instance; if a designer can't design within the budget, well, that is an HR problem, not a software problem. BIM/CAD tools just do what we tell them and if we don't have experience and know-how to guide us then it will surely show... I have heard some say that is "the problem" with Revit (and other BIM tools -that "users need to know construction methods" before being able to model correctly, furthermore junior, inexperienced staff can't be simply thrown into all levels of the BIM... PROBLEM??? I think that's one of the best things. If an "Architect" doesn't know how to build a building or at least the fundamentals of construction methodologies then I question the term Architect being appropriate I think they should not necessarily have primary project development/input responsibilities without the foundation of know-how, experience, etc... if a person needs to learn then great let them and help them learn -but don't think that just because they can draw pretty pictures that "look like" buildings that what you'll get out the other side "is" a good building; if they are in BIM with lacking know-how and experience that lacking can surely rear it's head.

ARCHITECT:

• Main Entry: ar·chi·tect
  
• Pronunciation: \ˈär-kə-ˌtekt\
• Function: noun
• Etymology: Middle French architecte, from Latin architectus, from Greek architektōnarchi- + tektōn builder, carpenter — more at technical master builder, from
• Date: 1563

1 : a person who designs buildings and advises in their construction
2 : a person who designs and guides a plan or undertaking architect of American foreign policy>

The following quote is from a Popular Mechanics interview of Mythbuster Jamie Hyneman. Thanks Jon!!!

"...Let’s look at a staple of home-repair toolboxes: the pipe wrench. You just know it was designed by a guy who needed to get a job done in close quarters, and it was based on bleeding knuckles. The jaw is at 90 degrees to the handle, which is unlike any standard wrench. The heft of the tool, the rounded shapes of the pieces—all of these features were informed by users with years of experience in the field. And there’s a great deal of slop—loose tolerances of all the moving parts—so that the wrench still works with rust, dirt and gunk all over it. The slop also means that the more torque you apply, the more the components shift, and the tighter the jaws bite into the pipe. Sometimes slop is our friend, but I’ve never seen it on a pull-down menu."

I just love that last line!!! "Sometimes slop is our friend, but I’ve never seen it on a pull-down menu."