Ethical Architecture

I recently read a blog posting by Steve at Revit OpEd (http://revitoped.blogspot.ca/2012/07/due-diligence.html) where he “was musing about a recent conversation where one guy's position was that BIM is hype, unnecessary and worse really just being foisted upon our profession in a scheme to get more money from "us"

This got me thinking…

I typically find that people who express comments like that are both short sighted and closed minded about opportunities to do what we/you do better.

Yes we can create magnificent architecture with a pencil but should we?

Personally I find that in the region that I work (Western Canada) we talk about BIM but we are still not fully embracing BIM, we say were using BIM technology but basically all we have done is replace ACAD with RAC… this is not true BIM, it’s Lonely BIM!

We still hand over a set of drawings to the contractor, not a building information model (unless we are legally obligated too). We coordinate with other BIM lonely consultants but there is still resistance to sharing a complete model…..Why? Are we afraid of Liability? Responsibility? Do we not have confidence in our model?

Knowing the people that I work with, I have absolute trust in the ability in the technicians creating the model, the information they have been given or gather is true and correct given the usual parameter that we work within. Which are the same parameters that we have worked under for many, many years.... so why the fear? Maybe it’s because we haven’t done enough to educate those members of a firm who make these kinds of decisions on the capabilities of BIM and Revit?

Integrated Project Delivery may be the saviour in regards to this, if everybody associated in a project signs a piece of paper (simplified here I know) stating that they wont sue each other everyone involve would be more willing to share information, confident that  that if the information may be incorrect the ramification wont escalate to a legal scrimmage. This of course does not reduce the responsibility of ensuring that the information you are passing on is as correct as you can possibly make it. This is called due diligence!

We need to be more confident in our capabilities and the capabilities of the people whom we place in roles of responsibility.

Once this is achieved I believe we will move forward and create true “responsible” Architecture, or "Ethical Architecture"!

Sc