Thursday, February 23, 2012

Fun With Revit & Cows

Here's a bit of fun with Marcello's Cow for LARUG (Hey, check out LARUG's Group Site and sign up/join if you want to come to the monthly shows).

Good thing The Cow doesn't cast shadows on the sample building or Filet Mignon would have been served!!!



Friday, February 10, 2012

Get Your BIM Specs On: LA CSI Nite Thursday, February 23rd 2012, 3-9pm


To all LA area Architects & AEC Professionals, -Or those who will be in LA later this month...

I am pleased to announce a speaking engagement at this year’s LA CSI Nite event. So if you can make it please register and join us for a great afternoon and evening of learning & networking. Remember that all professional attendees are free!!! All the presenters are awesome so be sure to arrive early to get a good seat...
LA CSI Nite 2012 Product Show & Seminars Thursday, February 23rd 2012, 3-9pm HSW/CEUs free!!!
Marriott - Downtown Los Angeles, 333 South Figueroa Street,Los Angeles, CA 90071
CSI Nite Official Page –Registration Direct Link is further below, in this posting…

What's Going On?
 
Seminar #A1 3:00-4:00 (Not to miss!!! ;D )
QA/QC of Project Delivery
Credits: 1 LU/HSW
Presenters: 
Bill Schmalz AIA, CCCA, LEED AP, Principal at Perkins+Will
Jay B Zallan Director of BIM at Perkowitz+Ruth Architects & Studio-111

Seminar #A2- time 3:00-4:00
Industry interest - Evolving CA Practices: Shop drawings and other submittals
Credits: 1 LU/HSW
Presenter: Debra Gerod Gruen Associates

Seminar #B 4:00-5:00
Integrated Project Collaboration Software - The Missing Link for IPD
Credits: 1 LU/HSW
Presenters: Steve Will Sales Manager for Submittal Exchange

Product Show 5:00-7:00

Seminar #C 7:00-9:00
Integrating BIM and Specs is Real!
Credits: 2 LU/HSW
Presenters: 
Mark Kalin, FCSI, FAIA, CCS of Kalin Associates Specifications

There's a bit of confusion on the registration page so be aware that the only truly required information you will need to use to register is as follows:

     1)      First Name
     2)      Last Name
     3)      Email Address
     4)      CTRL+Select sessions  
     
     All other fields are not needed for individual registration!!!





Then scroll to the bottom of the page…


     5)      Hit Registration Confirmation, then simply show up, Learn & Enjoy!!!

We hope to see you there,

Friday, February 03, 2012

Dear AEC, Get #BIM or a new career. Sincerely, Present Reality

Andy Partridge is an awesome writer and really encapsulates brilliance in his works... Do get into him & XTC if you like thinking!!! Now (below the video) onto the letter...



Dear AEC, 
Recently I tweeted you to get #BIM or a new career and I would like to follow up with more. 

Can you see the fucking elephant in your room???


First let me say I love you.
Building realities from imagination is so natural a human pursuit.
Artists would agree.
Many of us really want to help you leave the inefficient past behind and innovate the industry to become the shining societal leaders we believe ourselves to be...

Unfortunately too many in AEC act like fat bloated politicians interested in personal standing and appearances and not the greater good.
AEC: Not enough of you see the dire straits you are in even though it's all around you.

You are acting with the ignorance similar to the commentator who said of Banksy's (hiding in plain sight) elephant:


I'm not sure what the point of having an elephant in a warehouse in downtown Los Angeles is
Jason Bentley US radio commentator 
Perhaps you are just able to ignore the elephant in the room but some of us will not be so deluded and self absorbed. 

Those of us who see the need to evolve and act on it will be more than happy to swoop in and take your projects more and more (as we have already started to do), so either get on the train or watch as your industry shrinks... We do not need more Architects for instance, we just need better ones... those that hold back technological evolution and betterment will find themselves in different careers... And some already are!!!

As a group your buried head is in the sand
You seem to stick with the status quo and fail to appreciate that obsolete technologies are helping kill you
Those that do see the future and to those for whom evolution is the present, we know it takes courage... courage to step outside of comfort zones and learn better processes and allow oneself to grow.  

Without courage all one has is fear. If AEC doesn't act in the face of BIM fear they are doomed to ambivalent, neurotic impotence.

AEC, you must see that "continuing CAD (drafting) and not completely embracing BIM" is the elephant in your room. The elephant that you ignore (to a large degree)... and you must see how it will impact the world for generations to come... Negatively!!!
Builders of new things must see things anew and use the best tools for the overall good and CAD drafting tools are surely no longer that!!!


Your backwards, destructive ways will catch up to you... shit just look at your own fucking slideshows...



Your archaic ways of thought will splinter you into irrelevancy
Like too many of your ideas
Vision too stale to see through your egos
Driving yourself, powered by fear


I am writing to let you know that BIM can help
BIM can help you win projects
Shit BIM can help you keep projects
BIM helps production
BIM helps lessen litigation
if only you'd hear our cries: Kill CAD (drafting), fully mandate BIM.

We do not mean to kill true CAD: "Computer Aided Design" 
but the CAD that most people hear when they use that term: "Computer Aided Drafting"
That's what is leading the charge in killing you, allowing the lowest common denominators to run the show... How laughable a business model that is!!!


Not able to evolve due to the fear of change and the initial investment needed to learn and grow... You have to recall that without great struggle and risk there can be no great success... you used to know that but now it appears that many in AEC are lost in an ego-drunken, fearful stupor.


Solutions do exist but are being ignored by too many in A, E & C (O too)
I don't feel you can wait 
Please listen to what we say: Kill CAD (drafting)

When you're asked Why BIM?
There's an answer that sums it up nicely:
Because AEC does not want to become insurance salespeople.

Just before I go a few more morsels to think about when you contemplate your business model... (not BIM Model) -There you go #BimModelingFluffyKittenKillas strike again :-)

There are too many people who call themselves designers who are nothing more than glorified graphic illustrators. 
-If a design is over budget or the budget and program is not followed to inform the design, then the "designer" is nothing more than an illustrator, without any insight to client needs or reality. 

I know that "reality" is a debatable topic but I simply mean "the agreed upon business reality" Where the client is given what they want for the money that they want to spend.

Integrated firms are much more able to handle all projects efficiently, which will help save the building industry from itself: the more that teams can work efficiently, even if not integrated the better AEC will be.

Architecture positions in too many cases don't pay enough (like other Professionals get) because so many firms undercut each other in hopes of slamming extra services and printing costs onto the clients, then adding a shitload of fluff, like tons of wasted paper just to recover losses.

Bottom line:
Those firms and people who don't adopt BIM & further IPD will continue to lose work and find themselves needing new careers, so if you want to stay in AEC we will see you on the BIM train immediately.

Sincerely, 
Present Reality