In late 2020, co-founder of Reid Brewin Architects, Adrian Brewin, was invited to share his thoughts on how BIM is adapting for the future with Luke Christou of Design & Build Review. In case you missed it, you can read the full article here – or check out Adrian’s contribution, below.
In our experience, OpenBIM can be something of an oxymoron.
The aspiration is great in the sense that we all want to share data across multiple disciplines. By its very nature, it should improve coordination, avoid delays, enhance quality and help firms to stay on budget – as efficiently and seamlessly as possible.
However, the reality is that we each use different software, and the technology is evolving at such a rapid pace, that there is an inevitable lag while everyone tries to catch up.
The benefits are not in question though, as we can see that jumping between different software broadens our range of in-house capabilities. For example, by moving our working day-to-day BIM model to another package, it enables clients to visit the building in virtual reality – something which is particularly important in the current climate.
However, there is – and likely will always be – a resistance to sharing the intellectual property across companies, particularly when there are projects with NDAs in place. This then raises questions about responsibility.
To improve the construction process, we must collectively make better use of the increasingly large amounts of data at our fingertips, and OpenBIM is undoubtedly the way to share standardised information that guarantees interoperability between all business software.
