This post is going to bring together a bunch of themes on the future of architectural documentation that I’ve been writing about recently on both Shoegnome and BIM Engine. If all the hyperlink, URL, and QR Code talk doesn’t make any sense, read these posts. And if by some chance you’ve missed all my posts about going digital, catch up here.

My house has a better website than your Architecture Project

I am in the process of selling my house. Real Estate marketing has changed a lot since I last had to deal with realtors (2003, 2005, and 2006). Well not changed so much as evolved. My house has a website. You can reach it by visiting my realtor’s site, clicking on the listing in the MLS database, going directly to the site if you know the URL, or by using your phone to capture the QR Code that is on all the glossy full color handouts. On the website you can learn all the details of what a great house it is, how it’s priced perfectly, and what a great deal it is-a steal really. There are plenty of images and tons of data that remind me of BIM (room sizes, heating system, site maps, etc.). On some of these realty websites-not mine-there are floor plans and even virtual tours. Also every one of these websites (and MLS listings) is connected to Google and Bing Maps.

See where I’m going?

Imagine if in addition to a printed set of documents (or a PDF set) every project also had a website. This could be a service that the architect provides, so the website doesn’t need to be www.1234fakestreet.com or www.greenroofapartments-MPLS.com, but could just as easily be www.smartarchitecturefirm.com/projectname. The architect gets to be the steward of the site (read: one who makes extra profits from new services). What’s on this site? Anything project related you can imagine. Perhaps all those links in the PDFs and all those QR codes don’t lead to a million places on the web, but to one centralized website portal. From there the owner/contractor/subcontractor/etc. can access the contracts, the construction documents, the cut sheets, the schedule, 3D images, the BIM file, BIMx files, videos, construction photos… the list of things is endless.

But let’s focus back on just the sheets for a moment. What if every sheet had a QR code in the titleblock. That QR code leads to an online sheet index that has the date of the latest version of each sheet (and download links of course). Every morning the crew on the jobsite can check if their documents are still up to date. Someone pricing the project can check if they have an old set. The architect can download the sheets when visiting the lighting consultant. The contractor can call up the list at the lumberyard from his phone. The architect (or AEC team) just has to coordinate one website. I’m sure there is project management software out there doing this already. But are we linking it DIRECTLY to the documents and making it accessible to everyone involved?

The Future of Architectural Documentation

This all touches on two bigger topics that are very dear to me: the value BIM provides to the communication of design and the misplaced insistence on the supremacy of the physical paraphernalia of architectural thought (ei, hand sketching, reviewing sets on paper rather than on a screen, mock-ups you can touch vs. digital ones you can rotate, etc.). If a PDF set or 3D model is just a direct copy of the traditional physical version, then it’s not hard to argue that the traditional method is better. The tactile nature of something you can hold in your hands is a very strong force for developing connections between the imaginary (the yet-to-be built design) and the real (the ownership one feels to the future). The loss of this is one of the big lamentations of the shift to digital. But if the shift to digital is not mimicry of the old, but an enhancement and advancement, then the value proposition changes. A PDF set becomes BETTER than a printed set because of the additional properties that provide other, deeper connections: internal links within the PDF and external links to the internet and the rest of the digital environment.

Paper or PDF? Perhaps neither.

One more thought. What if we stop printing documents and stop publishing PDFs. What if the construction documents were always a website? Then there are no sheets. Just live slices of the model. Or snap shots of the model so the site isn’t updating every time someone is working on the model (unless we want that). Imagine a website that is just a live link to the Layout Book of an ArchiCAD file (or whatever the Revit analog is). But would be more than that: all the data could be accessed via this site. Revisions and change logs. Histories, etc. would be saved and accessible. Just like a Wikipedia page. It’d all be there. All the history. And it would never be printed, because printing is too dumb. And it’d never be published to PDF. Because both those solutions orphan the documentation and degrade the information in different ways.

Forget Paper Documents and remember that PDF Documents are just a transitional solution. We need documentation that actually supports the complexities of BIM and modern buildings. Maybe that’s a website-type armature. Maybe it’s some superPDF. Maybe it’s just waiting to be developed. Who wants to get wealthy and famous giving the AECO industry a data and documentation sharing tool that puts everything else to shame? Not something that just organizes what we have done in a better way, but a jumpshift in value and utility.

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