BIM, small sustainable projects, and VectorWorks

While at the AIA National Convention, I gave presentations of a project of mine at the Nemetschek North America booth. They are the makers of VectorWorks, an outstanding design application for Mac and Windows. A buzzword these day in the practice of architecture (and other building professions) is BIM: building information modeling. Largely seen as a design and documentation methodology rather than a specific technology, BIM allows designers and users to get greater efficiencies out of digital files through the use of data-rich building models. Largely seen as appropriate to large projects with fees to support "left-shift" in the design process, BIM is often ignored by some of VectorWorks' competitors in the context of small projects, at least on trade show floors.

Sustainable design is also often seen as an approach more appropriate to large projects, again where design fees can absorb the requisite additional research and design innovation. Never mind that houses represent about 20% of American energy consumption (see my previous post); energy efficiency in housing is ignored at our peril.

On the other hand, the project of mine that I showed was a single-family residence designed in VectorWorks, using a BIM approach. I've posted a 4.3 MB PDF of the slide show (incidentally entirely built in VectorWorks ARCHITECT with RenderWorks and consisting of "live" drawings, not screen shots). While the slides alone don't do the talk justice, they might be of interest in their own right.