We would like to thank Arta Yazdanseta for taking the time and contributing the following article to digitalfutures. Arta is currently teaching a REVIT course @ Pratt Manhattan.

Professional Practice Lecture Series Pratt Institute  School of Undergraduate Architecture

Intro:

According to the McGraw Hill Construction 2009 Smart Market Report – The Business Value of BIM, the number of professionals in the AEC (architecture, engineer and construction) fields who make use of BIM as an

integral part of their practice experienced a large upswing in growth from 28% of professionals in 2007 to 48%

of professionals in 2009.

As the professional adoption of BIM is gaining momentum, the AEC industry is confronting the inevitable next step: that is, to use BIM throughout all the phases of a building’s life cycle; from its conceptual creation to construction to facilities management to demolition.

This research-based lecture series is aimed to answer some of the questions on the subjects mentioned above.

BIM + IPD (Integrated Project Delivery)

Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) is a project delivery method distinguished by a contractual agreement between a minimum of the owner, design professional, and builder where risk and rewards are shared and stakeholder success is dependent on project success.

Change in dynamic > Change in workflow

The new IPD Agreement redefines the traditional relationship of the three main participants of a project: the Owner, the Designer, and the Builder. The consequence of this change in dynamic is the drastic change in a project’s workflow.

In this lecture we examine the characteristics of this new dynamic between the key participants of a project and the resulting workflow.

Change in the main parties’ dynamic:

A California Council these changes in the relationships and roles of the main participants can be broken down into six main categories:

1- Early Involvement of the Key Participants:

From the very beginning the owner should identify the designer and the builder of the project. The relationships should be established on mutual trust and respect, and compatibility and comfort in collaboration should be tested. The team will help the owner to crystallize the project’s goals and objectives from very early on.

2- Shared Risk/ Rewards:

Full Integrated Project Delivery is a goal-oriented project delivery, wherein the team members share the losses and gains of a project. This new mindset creates a stronger incentive for participants to work towards the success of the project instead of personal gain.

3- Multi-Party Contact:

The IPD Agreement is a three-way contract, which unites the three main parties (Owner, Architect, and Builder) together. As a result, the success of one party is tied directly to the other. It is crucial, for the success of the project, that from the very beginning the risk and responsibility matrix of each participant be clearly identified.

4- Collaborative Decision Making/Control:

From the beginning of a project the main parties need to establish an agreement and a method to ensure that their representatives are involved in every step of the project. Also, the parties need to execute a previously agreed upon system where possible disagreements between team members can be resolved by an hierarchical management team.

5- Liability Wavers Among Key Participants:

To reinforce the sense of unity and a collaborative environment the main parties should waive any claim amongst themselves except for in the instance of a willful default. However, third-party liability (meaning, parties involved beyond the initial three-way contract, such as sub-contractors) should be addressed by the standard liability coverage.

6- Jointly Developed/Validated Target:

To gauge a project’s success the parties need to agree upon a clear and specific set of criteria. This set of criteria can be established according to the owner’s goal for the project and can vary from schedule and budget to sustainability objectives. The compensation of the non-owner parties will be in accordance to the meeting of the established targets.

Change in workflow:

“A Building Information Model is a digital representation of physical and functional characteristics of a facility. As such, it serves as a shared knowledge resource for information about a facility forming a reliable basis for decisions during life cycle from inception onward.”

National Institute of Building Science (NIBS)

Building Information Modeling (BIM) programs have revolutionized the workflow of IPD. From the very early stages of a project AEC professionals can have access to information that would not have been available to them in a typical project until the very end of the CD phase.

BIM creates an environment where designers and builders can come together to help one another

to make wiser decisions in advancement of a better and more responsible project. The resulting digital model would be used, not only throughout the conception and construction of a building, but for facility managing and, eventually, the demolition of a building.

In this new workflow, the idea of the clear phases of a project blur. Since the digital model is constantly evolving, and the building data is readily and instantaneously available to all parties, the traditional SD, DD, and CD sets change to “just in time” sets.

This increase of information requires a longer time period to manage and, as a result, the design phase of a project expands. However, by the end of the Detailed Design phase, the model has evolved to a high level of sophistication so that the Implementation Document phase shortens drastically.

Also, since from the very beginning the builder is involved with the project, the bidding and contractual negotiation phase will be eliminated and the cost estimates and market risk controls become much more accurate.

Shop Drawings will eventually become eliminated. Architects will not be obligated to create detail drawings to show the design intent. The builder must provide the digital BIM model with the required detailed elements. These elements will be discussed between the main participants and will be approved and used directly for construction and fabrication. According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s 2004 survey, estimated RFI management costs (combined contractors and architects/engineers) has been $500 million per year. Since IDP allows for a seamless and much more accurate coordination and collaboration between parties, the amount of RFI costs will be drastically decreased.

In conclusion, it is important to highlight that BIM can be explored to its fullest by practicing Integrated Project Delivery. In order to gain the maximum advantage of IPD, the team members should be willing to collaborate in a transparent and open-book manner to create an environment of trust. Integrated Project Delivery is an option for sophisticated and active owners, whose goals are not only their financial gain, but also a better design and higher quality of work.

A Case Study

The following case study is one of six case studies done by a collaboration of AIA National, AIA California Council, AGC California and McGraw-Hill Construction.

Autodesk AEC Solutions Division Headquarters is one of the few projects that have been fully developed through Integrated Project Delivery. Below is a summary of the study released by the AIA California Council in 2010.

Early Involvement of Key Participants

Autodesk conducted a selection process to find an architect/builder team willing to try Integrated Project Delivery. The RFP clearly stated the owner’s direction in terms of scope, budget, sustainability goals and the mandated form of agreement. At first, another team was the front runner but their corporate leadership asked for fundamental changes in the proposed IPD arrangement which Autodesk declined to make. In the end, KlingStubbins and Tocci were chosen because of their qualifications, familiarity with the local market, BIM and LEED sophistication, and willingness to abide by a “true” IPD agreement. But another factor was their proposal to allocate fees and incentives within the fixed project budget. Three major subcontractors were also selected early and included in the risk/reward structure.

Shared Risk/Reward

The contract establishes an Incentive Compensation Layer (ICL) in which the architects’ and builders’ anticipated profit is put at risk. If specific goals are met, designers and builders receive their normal profit, but jointly, not separately. If they are exceeded in measurable ways the firms are eligible for additional compensation. The ICL could adjust from minus 20% to plus 20% depending on whether project goals were met or exceeded.

Multi-Party Contract

The Integrated Project Delivery Agreement (IPDA) is a three-way contract between the owner, the architect and the builder. Each party’s success is directly tied to the performance of the others. Distinct roles and responsibilities are delineated in contract language and in a “responsibility matrix.” Major subcontractors (mechanical/fire protection, electrical, and drywall) were also brought in to the agreement, worked at cost, and shared in the incentive program.

Collaborative Decision Making/Control

By contract, three levels of collaborative teams were established to manage the project. A Project Implementation Team (PIT) was set up to handle the day-to-day issues of the project. The composition of the PIT included project participants whose work at any given time could impact the project’s outcome. A Project Management Team (PMT) with representation of the owner, architect, and builder, was established to manage the project and make decisions by consensus. If issues arose that could not be resolved by the PMT they were taken to a higher level for final resolution: a Senior Management Team, (SMT) again with representation of the three principal parties.

Liability Waivers Among Key Participants:

The parties waived all claims against each other except those arising from fraud, willful misconduct or gross negligence. Disputes were to be resolved by mediation or, if necessary, arbitration. Each party was required to maintain typical insurance but with the provision that policies be amended so that no right of subrogation (the ability to gain the rights belonging to one party against a third party who caused a loss) existed against the other partners.

Jointly Developed/Validated Targets:

The contract spelled out specific criteria that would be used to judge success. These included schedule and budget, sustainability, quality of craftsmanship, functionality, and design quality. Owner, architect, and builder jointly selected three comparable projects in the Boston area to serve as benchmarks against which these goals would be measured. It was agreed – after some hesitation from the team – that an independent evaluator (in this case an architecture professor) would be the arbiter of how successfully the project met the design quality criteria. There was a scorecard and the process was made as objective as possible.

Digital Futures Workshop Series

Pratt Institute

School of Undergraduate Architecture

Revit Workshop Level I

Location- Higging Hall Auditorium

Date + Time- 2010.02.20, 12-6pm (w/ a 30min break @ 2:45pm)

Requirements- Participants are required to bring a laptop with Revit installed and an extension cord.

Description- This workshop will serve as a basic introduction to Autodesk Revit. It will cover the software history and will begin to open up how it is being used today in contemporary practices. This is geared for people that have little or no experience in BIM software and will serve as an introduction to some of the other Building Information Modeling courses that are available in the UG curriculum.

Conductor- Joseph Nocella

About- Autodesk Revit is Building Information Modeling software for Microsoft Windows, currently developed by Autodesk, which allows the user to design with parametric modeling and drafting elements. Building Information Modeling is a Computer Aided Design (CAD) paradigm that allows for intelligent, 3D and parametric object-based design. In this way, Revit provides full bi-directional associativity. A change anywhere is a change everywhere, instantly, with no user interaction to manually update any view. A BIM model may contain the building’s full life cycle, from concept to construction to decommissioning. This is made possible by Revit’s underlying relational database architecture which its creators call the parametric change engine. (text via wikipedia)

Brochure (pdf – 3950Kb)

Workshop Outline:

I. Introduction

II. BIM- Definition

III. Advantages of Working in a BIM Environment

IV. Current State of the Profession

V. Technology at SOM

VI. A Tour of the Tool

VII. Workshop

Workshop Files:

intro_levels

CAD background

Digital Futures Workshop Series

Pratt Institute

School of Undergraduate Architecture

Rhino Workshop Level II

Location- HHS 416

Date + Time- 2010.02.17, 7-10pm

Requirements- Participants are required to bring a laptop with Rhino 4.0 (SR7) installed and an extension cord.

Description- This workshop will serve as an intermediate lesson in developing surfaces in Rhino 4.  Participants will be exposed to differing approaches to generating surfaces with a focus on the particulars of continuity and curvature.  Topics covered will include lofting, sweeping, patching, creasing, and blending with in-depth tutorials on digital topography creation/manipulation and generating layouts for a laser cut site model.  Emphasis will be placed on creating a procedural understanding of generating and managing surfaces and polysurfaces in Rhino.

Workshop Outline:

Curves and Curvature

-quantifying continuity: Positional, Tangent, Curvature

-strategies to blend curves and surfaces

-analyzing curvature in 2d, 3d

-Workshop Tutorial 1: Periodic Table of Form,

adapted from article by Gray Holland of Alchemy Labs

Generating Site Topography

-Importing/Tracing a site drawing

-Extracting Loft Curves to generate Surface

-Generate the surface, resolving issues/inconsistencies

-Adding Detail: Roads, Existing Buildings, Landscape Elements

-Workshop Tutorial #2: Creating the digital site model

Generating Content from a Digital Site Model

-Generating a site drawing, the contour command

-Creating a laser file for a site model.

-Workshop Tutorial #3: Creating Site drawings and laser files from a digital site model

Workshop Files:

Download: Rhino Workshop Level 2 files.zip

On Thursday, November 19^th at 6pm, the second in a series of lectures by Pratt School of Architecture faculty will take place in the Higgins Hall Auditorium. Fabrications 2 Lecture with Professors Lawrence Blough and David Ruy will be focusing on specific projects that demonstrate new means of digital fabrication and material experimentation. Directly following the lecture, the Fabrications 2 Exhibit with reception will open in the Siegel Gallery.

Conductor-  Richard Sarrach

Description- Workshop will cover work-flow and basic rendering in Maxwell. Maxwell Render is a rendering engine based on the mathematical equations governing light transport, meaning that all elements, such as emitters, materials and cameras, are derived from physically accurate models. Maxwell Render is unbiased, so no tricks are used to calculate the lighting solution in every pixel of a scene; the result will always be a correct solution, as it would be in the real world. Maxwell Render can fully capture all light interactions between all elements in a scene, and all lighting calculations are performed using spectral information and high dynamic range data.

Location- HHN 308 (TBD)

Date + Time- 2009.11.09 (6:30-9:30pm)

Requirements- Participants are required to bring a laptop with the following software installed:

Maxwell Render V1.7 >>> TRIAL

Workshop Base Files >>> df workshop maxwell v001

Credits: Mihai Iliuta

The Chip Replaces Palladio By John Lobell

The most pervasive principle in modern physics is described in the Second Law of Thermodynamics; the principle that all systems (including the universe as a whole) tend to run down. That is, they move towards disorder, randomness, uniformity, and a “loss” of energy which becomes trapped in useless low entropy forms. The principle of entropy will ultimately bring our universe to a condition of randomly dispersed gases in which no orderly or meaningful activity will be possible as all of its energy will be helplessly dispersed among the dancing particles.

The Second Law is unquestionably established (at least in a system where time reversal is not possible as seems to be the case in our expanding universe) yet we are living in the midst of a major contradiction to that law. Evolution on the earth in moving from the random molecules in the primordial “soup,” to organic compounds and particles, to single celled organisms, and finally to the complex plant and animal life we know today, is actually an expression of anti-entropic activity. From the random to the orderly. While this seeming violation of the Second Law could always be explained by realizing that a system as a whole must obey the law, while any part of it could be in violation, contemporary information theory gives a much more satisfactory explanation of this seeming contradiction.

It can now be shown that the energy reaching the Earth from the Sun is actually acting as information. Information and energy are interchangeable in much the same way that energy and matter are interchangeable, and formulas similar to those for matter and energy (E=mc2) can be used to express this interchangeability. Energy is expressing itself as information when it acts in an anti-entropic manner, thereby reducing the randomness in a system or increasing its information. This understanding of information as an anti-entropic activity makes it possible to objectively measure many qualities important to our lives which were formerly measurable only by the crude means of the dollar economy, sentimental attachment, or aesthetic tastes.

The unit of measure now being used by some sophisticated whole system thinkers is sometimes called the “eco-dollar.” The eco-dollar can be used to measure the true cost of electricity purchased from Con Ed by including the health and cleaning costs of pollution in the calculated sum. The eco-dollar can be used to measure the loss of a species of wild bird in terms of the resultant simplification of the overall system when we lose that bird’s concentration of information in its gene pool. And the eco-dollar can be used to measure the social worth of a novel in terms of the new information or new ordering of information it brings into the social system. Information theory used in this way gives us a more useful means of evaluating Con Ed, endangered wild life, and literature than the previous means (dollars, sentiment and aesthetics). It also makes it possible to compare the relative value of one to another, once they are all expressed in terms of the new units, “eco-dollars.”

It might at first seem absurd to claim that animal life, literature, and perhaps even human life can be measured in numerical terms. It is not actually as destructive of subjective values as it might seem, since the value expressed can only be for a given situation and will vary for different observers. Thus, the new ordering of information in a novel is new only for a reader who is not familiar with that ordering. For another reader it might all be “old hat.” The new information in a message (now expressed in bits) varies for different receivers. One reader of our novel may find it worth many eco-dollars; another, few.

What is the relevance to approaching a new energy economy in terms of information theory? The value comes in realizing that information is nothing more nor less than anti-entropic activity, and that so is everything else of use that we do. All useful transportation is the movement of people or goods from positions of less energy potential (home or warehouses, for example) to positions of more energy potential (office–where work can be done; store–where customers can effect purchases, for example). In realizing that all of our intentions are anti-entropic, it becomes apparent that these intentions can be fulfilled either by physical movement or by movement of information. Obviously the movement of information requires far less energy than the movement of people or physical goods. The telephone company uses far less electricity than the subway system, yet the anti-entropic value in “bits” or “eco-dollars” resulting from phone calls, telephone, xerox, and computer terminals is greater than the anti-entropic value of commuters moved by the subways.

Images by Andrey Kravtsov

In 1900, ninety percent of our GDP was manufactured goods and ninety percent of workers were blue collar. Ten percent of the GDP was services and information and ten percent of workers were white collar. Today it is fifty-fifty on both counts. In another hundred years, it will be ten-ninety the other way. Anti-entropic activity must be sustained, and must be increased if the population is to increase. However, this fight against entropy can be expressed in energy and material goods, or it can be expressed in information. Our culture is evolving towards the choice of information in its struggle against entropy, and thereby stands a strong chance of approaching (although not actually achieving) a zero energy situation. The amount of energy needed to process, encode, and move information is rapidly decreasing as we approach a state of one hundred percent efficiency.

The process of becoming an information based culture is not without its problems, which are threefold. First is the energy needed which remains substantial until more efficient techniques are developed, second is social adjustment to the massive amount of information floating around and third is the developing of channel capacity for th

e information to be moved. The cultural and psychic changes that will come about as these problems are rapidly solved over the next two decades will transform us into creatures we would hardly recognize.

Advances in communications and computers have already opened a lot of possibilities. At the same time we are being closed in on ourselves by the feedback potential of miniaturized hand held computers, the capacity for the electronic web encircling the globe to put us more and more directly in touch with each other and all sources of information is also rapidly expanding. A pair of telephone wires in 1930 could carry 60,000 bits of information. A co-axial cable introduced in the 1940s can carry 684,000 bits of information. Laser fiber optics are able to transmit 100,000,000,000 bits of information. The increases are no longer only quantitative.

image BSC

These recent additions to the electronic complex surrounding us will bring radical changes in the human form in just a few years, changes which will ultimately result in our leaving our bodies as excessive energy consuming relics and moving like hermit crabs onto magnetic tapes–biologic films–which can be stored in energy free states and which can run on a couple of AA batteries.

“I was traveling with The Intolerable Kid in The Nova Lark–We were on the nod after a rumble in The Crab Galaxy involving this two-way time shock; when you come to the end of a biologic film just run it back and start over–nobody knows the difference–Like nobody there before the film.” -William Burroughs, Nova Express

From Newton’s Space through Einstein’s Spacetime, we now live in a non-space, each point of which constitutes an entire four dimensional geometry. As more of our personalities can be stored and transmitted, and as technology makes time, distance and energy meaningless to human existence, we approach a cosmic nature in which all of reality is integrated into the personality.

The world becomes less matter and more information; translatable, storable, and transportable at the speed of light. The human personality as contained in its biological housing can be indefinitely preserved in liquid nitrogen. Translated into genetic code it can be stored and shipped on DNA. Translated into digital code it could be projected across the universe.

The new world created by a new perception becomes a timeless spaceless flux of simultaneity. Nations dissolve into projections of cosmic consciousness. Buildings and cities become the magnetic tapes and the fluidic valves that house and transmit projected consciousness. Photo-etched onto ceramic micro-circuits; structured on self-reproducing DNA, personality survives the ravages of entropy. Cities empty and circuits are occupied. The computer chip replaces Palladio.

top image credit: Argonne National Laboratory

/////

John Lobell received his architecture degrees at the University of Pennsylvania, and is currently a professor at Pratt Institute. His interests range widely, and include, besides architecture, cultural theory, consciousness, art, Buddhism, mythology, information theory, post-humanism, quantum reality and quantum architecture.

To find out more of what he is up to please visit:

http://johnlobell.com/

http://www.futurefeeder.com/category/jac/

http://www.cinemadiscourse.com/

Title- An Introduction to MEL & Expressions in Maya.

Description- This workshop will serve as an introduction to MEL (MAYA EMBEDDED LANGUAGE) and its use through the command line, script editor and expression editor.  Participants will be introduced to scripting logic within the Maya platform and how this logic can be harnessed to create geometrical complexity.  Topics covered will include interface and navigation within Maya, fundamentals of variables, attributes, custom attributes and expressions. Emphasis will be placed on understanding how to harness these tools and effectively implement them through a series of architecturally relevant modeling exercises.

Location- HHN 308 (TBD)

Date + Time- 2009.11.02(6-9pm)

Requirements- Participants are required to bring a laptop with the following software installed:

Autodesk Maya 2009

Trial link

Digital Futures Workshop Series
Pratt Institute
School of Undergraduate Architecture
2009.09.28
Maya SubD Workshop I

Overview -
-Differences between Meshes and Nurbs
-What subD’s are and why we use them
-SubD surface Workflow(s)

Modeling in Maya –
-Maya Basics
Configuring Interface and settings
Navigating in Maya
Icons, Drop down menu, hotbox, shortcut keys
Tool Locations

-Polygon mesh modeling
Mesh primitive creation
Mesh editing & modifiers

-SubD modeling
SubD primitive creation
Converting meshes to subD
SubD editing & modifiers

Mesh modeling in Rhino3D & Grasshopper-

-Rhino Mesh Basics
Configuring settings
Mesh primitives
Meshes from surfaces
Mesh editing and modifiers
Mesh mapping and deformers

-Meshes in grasshopper
Translate a component into grasshopper
Mapping a parametric mesh component to a surface.
Applying Data from an Image

-Preparing for Export
Unifying mesh normals
Joining meshes and Welding
Export selected as .OBJ

Importing Files into Maya-
Importing .OBJ files
Troubleshooting Geometry
Exporting for rendering/3D printing

Downloads:

documents:

pdf

digital files:

rhino

obj

maya

image maps

grasshopper

In September 2009, Storefront for Art and Architecture will inaugurate an exhibition of the work of Swiss architects Gramazio & Kohler, Architecture and Digital Fabrication, ETH Zurich and, in conjunction with NYC Department of Transportation’s Urban Art Program, Storefront will present the first architecture project to be digitally fabricated on site, at 1:1 scale, in the US.

Developed through their research at ETH Zürich Faculty of Architecture, Gramazio & Kohler’s work explores highly complex architectural artifacts, built by industrial robots typically used to assemble automobiles and perform other high-precision tasks. The accuracy, strength and speed of these robots allow them to fabricate architectural forms of unprecedented complexity and intricacy.

Gramazio & Kohler’s work represents the cutting edge of innovation in the field of digital fabrication in architecture. For many years architects have relied on digital manufacturing processes such as CNC milling or 3D printing as a tool for formal research at model-scale. For the first time, Gramazio & Kohler’s work explores the potential of mobile digital fabrication techniques that can fabricate at 1:1 scale on site.