Guide to Using the RIBA Plan of Work 2013 - Other - Page 73
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Building Information Modelling (BIM) is radically altering the way that we design
buildings. While early BIM projects harnessed the potential of emerging software
to create buildings with more complex geometries, the acronym BIM is now being
used as a wrapper to discuss many subject matters and as a catalyst for change.
In the UK, the Government Construction Strategy (published in May 2011, see
www.gov.uk/government/publications/government-construction-strategy) has
provided the impetus for many current BIM initiatives. A number of pilot projects
are under way and new standards and protocols are being discussed, developed
and published. The emergence of BIM has to be set within a broader context:
the ongoing development of internet and associated technologies which are
radically altering many business models (for example, consider recent changes
to publishing, the music industry and the retail sector). Economist Jeremy Rifkin’s
vision, in his publication The Third Industrial Revolution, is endorsed by the
European Parliament and underlines the radical changes that are occurring.
Designers are finally reappraising their working methods. Computer-aided design
(CAD) replicates the ‘analogue’ processes applied to the drawing board. BIM
(despite its rather anonymous acronym) is championing a more revolutionary
process and moving design into the ‘digital’ age. Although more long-winded, BIM
might be better defined as ‘the means of harnessing technological change and
developing new ways of briefing, designing, constructing, operating and using a
facility’; in other words, creating a new Plan of Work.
At first glance, particularly for those accustomed to the jargon associated with
BIM, the RIBA Plan of Work 2013 may not appear to be greatly influenced by BIM.
However, the RIBA Plan of Work 2013 has been conceived in a manner that works
with the most progressive of BIM projects. Conversely, the RIBA Plan of Work
2013 has also been devised to accommodate the transitional phase that allows a
practice or project to incrementally change their working methods from analogue
to digital.
BIM Levels
Level 0 (L0)
Level 0 BIM is the use of 2D CAD files for production information; a process that
the majority of design practices have used for many years. The important point
to be derived from L0 is that Common Standards and processes in relation to the
use of CAD failed to gain traction as the use of CAD developed.
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