Future Problems with Revit/BIM - Arthur McCloskey

     While Revit is getting increasingly popular among design and engineering firms, it still has a lot of drawbacks.  Revit can be a confusing program to learn, especially for those that are unfamiliar with object based modeling.  Particularly, employees that have been accustom to AutoCAD can  have particular difficult adjusting.  As the industry moves closer and closer to making Revit the new standard of modeling, it can only be assumed that the problems will minimize over time.  Many people see Revit becoming easier to use, have increased capabilities, and better sharing capabilities.  However, it is an interesting exercise to think about what could still be a challenge as more and more improvements are made to the program.

     Perhaps one of the most obvious drawbacks to large-scale adoption of Revit is the decreased understanding of traditional architectural design or engineering.  When issues arise in the field or in design, over-reliance on computer modeling hinders innovation, and encourages a narrow-minded perspective.  In the article "Want to be an Architect?  Don't Learn Revit" speaks a lot to this point.  Over-reliance on BIM puts architects and engineers in programming and drafting positions exclusively, which suppresses the potential of these individuals [1].

     In addition to the effect that Revit has on people, it can also have some technical drawbacks in the coming years.  These are more difficult to research, as most sources report that it is expected Revit will become more robust technically.  I think that there is a potential for the program to include capabilities like structural calculations, HVAC flow calculations, electrical component sizing, etc.  These may sound like a benefit (and they are), but all this increased computing requirements will be burdensome on our computers.  They also will now require a particular care in construction of a model.  This opens up new problems when, for example, an architect goes to edit a wall section, rendering the structure unstable and crashing the model.  Additionally, these models can become inflated in size, which can make using them on-site nearly impossible.  On most of my co-ops, our field representatives would often open drawing generated by traditional CAD programs.  If these 3D models are brought to the site, perhaps this ability will be overshadowed by the enormous model sizes as functionality increases?    Overall, I see many of these potential issues being mitigated and overcome, as that is just the nature of progress, but it is important to consider them as the program develops

Comments on Others:

Brennan Connolly - I think the article you linked was very interesting.  I always saw Revit being incorporated to analyze aspects of design we usually use other programs for, but it is interesting to see AutoDesk already developing a plugin to assess energy performance.  This, as you mentioned could really have a profound effect as more and more buildings are pushing for LEED certification.

Zhijing Zheng - The list of current issues with BIM was really useful to me as I constructed my blog post.  I was very interested in your comments on the effects on smaller firms.  We often do not think about how these large software agglomerations can put a huge burden on the little guys who might not have necessary computing power or technical infrastructure.  Perhaps BIM could be a major player in the reduction in small engineering/architecture firms.

Ronald Herazo - I found the figure you have on your post particularly interesting.  We always seem to assume the construction industry is far behind on the adaption of technology, but it is stark to see how far.  As BIM gets more and more complicated, we might just be trying to take on more technology that could prove useful or operable for us.

References

[1] Architectural Ellipses, Intern Architect.  "Want to be an Architect?  Don't Learn Revit."  Web.  Available: http://archinect.com/arch-ellipsis/want-to-be-an-architect-don-t-learn-revit