On September 29th 2017, Manon Roger (Marketing and Communication Manager at Polantis) and Olivier Celnik (Architect) leaded the special morning meeting “Small and bigger questions to ask me to settle a BIM approach within my agency” organized by l’Ordre des architectes Ile-de-France.
This morning meeting was meant to be practical and had a purpose: to help the architects to understand better one of the main topics within architecture and to help them to obtain a BIM know-how.
What was the end purpose? To answer the questions of the architects who want to settle a BIM process within their agency, and to remind them of the stakes of the BIM for their jobs. It is therefore more than just replying to questions such as “Am I doing it or not”. This morning meeting gave the key steps to take an action and made a dialogue possible.
Olivier Celnik and Manon Roger had considered eighteen questions as important: these questions structured the morning meeting.
The first part of the meeting was about how to settle the BIM within an agency. Here are a few examples of the questions asked:
- Will the BIM stop me from being creative? Now worries about that. Olivier explains that once the software is well-known, the creativity can be as present as it used to. Plus, the time saved thanks to the BIM represents more time for the architect to focus on his project.
- Do I settle a BIM approach in a more general way, or do I settle it depending on a project/a context? There is no need to do BIM just to do BIM, we better find the right project and the right context to do it.
- How long does it take to be more efficient? There is no right answer to this question, it all depends on the agency, on the capacity of the architects to adapt themselves to the software…
- What tools? Do I need to get a new computer? How much money will I spend? Instead of what we tend to think, there is no need to invest this much to do BIM. “We just need a good portable computer, but not necessary a really expensive one.” Concerning the software, he insists: “When we are architects, we can do BIM with some tools from numeric models such as ArchiCAD or Allplan with Revit or VectorWorks, or else sometimes with SketchUp or Rhino for particular or limited uses.”
The purpose of the second part of the morning meeting was to talk about the conduct of the project in BIM. Here are a few examples of the questions asked:
- What about my learning agreement? BIM and insurance, what do we know about it for now? The agreement was often discussed during this meeting: intellectual property, responsibilities, fees… Good news: from now on, the MAF adherents can download some basis of learning agreements. “We need to get to know more with our insurance company, but for the MAF adherents, some examples of learning agreements for BIM Manager or AMO BIM are now available.”
According to the MAF website, some distribution tables of the missions and terms have been established to allow the developer to lead their missions in the best conditions possible.
Then, the question of the moment where to start the BIM process was talked about…
- Which contest to get things started? The BIM Contest by Polantis is a very good way to train ourselves to the BIM for beginners.
We suggest you the following articles:
- Alto Production’s CAD and BIM Catalogue modeled by Polantis
- 2018 BIM Contest Team Standing
- Thursday Prescription #9 with Rafik Remal: meeting minutes