[ Page 1 of 3 ]

Fall conference presents new case studies in digital collaboration
By Deborah Snoonian, P.E.

When architects gathered in San Francisco last October for Connecting the Dots, a three-day event aimed at practitioners and planned by the AIA’s Technology in Architectural Practice (TAP) committee, the theme that emerged was one that’s been pressed on the profession since CAD has come of age: Take Back the Process. But unlike in years past, case studies were presented that indicate it’s now feasible for firms of all sizes to combine digital tools with new methods of collaborating with partners to make design more information-rich and less production oriented.

Tom Brady, AIA, gave a presentation about the ongoing construction of the Letterman Digital Arts Center in San Francisco, a campus of several buildings designed with standard, off-the-shelf CAD software. The builders are using a digital 3D model instead of drawings as the basis of construction. “They are finding that the time invested in making the model has already paid for itself many times over, because they’re able to detect conflicts you can’t see in 2D drawings,” says Jonathan Cohen, AIA, TAP’s chair.

ADVERTISEMENT

Also during the conference, representatives from two organizations, the Project Alliance in Australia and the Private Finance Initiative in England, were on hand to provide insight into ways to partner with contractors and other parties to reward risk and limit liability for the project team. Architects in the U.S. could use such models as a basis for their own practices, said Cohen.

To bring the event full circle, representatives from leading software companies like Autodesk, Bentley Systems, and Graphisoft were assembled in a panel discussion, where attendees posed questions about how their tools were evolving to accommodate new ways of teaming with building partners. Cohen added that more than 250 people attended Connecting the Dots, and many of the attendees were firm principals, rather than IT managers, as they have been in the past—indicating increasing interest in and commitment to transforming architectural practice.