1984 was a long time ago
I read a lot of things that annoy me. It’s hard not to. Thanks Twitter. You’re really helping me out. Sometimes I get smart and stop following people who write too much that frustrates me. I’m also doing my best to just unfollow people who only tweet boring stuff. On an overly personal note I also went through and unfriended about 30% of my Facebook friends recently because seriously do I really need to know what everyone from High School is up to these days? I’ll tell you: no. I’m trying to only keep friends on Facebook that I’d want to hangout with in real life. I digress. There are just so many things to read now and people to interact with that I don’t need to keep reading the same shit that continues to aggravate me. Or try to stay in touch with that kid I was sort of almost friends with when we were 12. We’ve all got more important things to focus on.
Speaking of things that piss me off.
Too many people make reference to how BIM is new. Last time I checked 1984 was an eternity ago. So what if it was called Virtual Building Model, Integrated Project Modeling, just not CAD or whatever. Maybe the acronym BIM was only coined somewhere between 2000 and 2002, but that wasn’t the birth of our movement. And for that matter even if BIM sprang to existing in 2002, that was a million years ago. Think about what we didn’t have in 2002… functional tablets, smart phones, laptops that were lighter than college text books, wi-fi and internet just about everywhere, a world dominated by Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple. In your personal technological landscape, name all the things you can’t live without. Now look up when they came into common use/available for public consumption. 2002 was a million years ago.
Regarding that acronym… BIM
Too bad Graphisoft didn’t steer the industry towards Virtual Building Model when they had the chance. Then we could all just say BIM VBM has been around since 1984 and not get tripped up by semantics. Now for a really interesting look at the arrival of the term BIM, read this article by Jerry Laiserin from 2002. In it Jerry Laiserin talks about getting our industry to unify around a specific term for what we now call BIM (SPOILER ALERT: you can thank Jerry for getting us all to agree on the term BIM). It’s from late 2002 and he’s absolutely correct. And remember even when this article was written, BIM was close to 20 years old.
Bonus Reminder: I come across this article by Jerry Laiserin every year or so. And each time I read it, it gets better and more valid. Do yourself a favor, bookmark it and make a note to reread it every so often.
Jared Banks
Now to connect today’s post with yesterday’s post…
(https://shoegnome.com/2012/12/10/99-invisible-a-podcast-we-all-should-be-listening-to/)
Read both then listen to this 99% Invisible Episode about Airport Design and what’s changed since 2000/2002.
http://podbean.99percentinvisible.org/2011/07/27/99-invisible-32-design-for-airports/
Like I said, 2002 was a BILLION years ago.
PS – solution to my need to listen to podcasts: cooking.
Darren Bell
I have been using ‘BIM’ since around 1991,
I still find it quite amazing that the software which seems to be taking the lead on BIM is owned by a software company that discounted the value of building models for many years, brainwashing loyal followers of 2D drafting that 3D is a fad and had no value, bring out their own badly implemented architectural package that needed to be operated by the office boffins.
Now the same company is using their marketing power and customer base to saturate the market with poorly trained operators and software which although good, is not as advanced as some of the longer established BIM applications such as ArchiCAD.
Its the world we live in, very happy to be an ArchiCAD user for now, each year when my renewals come due, of course I take a look over the fence, so far the grass isn’t any greener and for my planned uses, the options just don’t have the interoperability which I require.
Jared Banks
Darren, thanks for your comments. No disagreement on my end! 🙂
Ken
Jared, I for one agree. BIM is a terrible acronym–to0 close to BM–or maybe it sways my thoughts by its scatological proximity. I much preferred Virtual Building. It was self-explanatory. It had fewer syllables than Building Information Model(ing). BTW, is it “model” as in a product or is it “modeling” as in a practice. Awkward ambiguity. How often do you see/hear BIM Model? No metaphorical value. No irony. All the charm of CSI MasterFormat section heading.
Now consider “www”. As I understand it, Tim Berners-Lee (who actually invented the world wide web, not Al Gore) chose the name “world wide web” because of its ironic grandeur at the time he put it into service on the LAN at CERN and because the abbreviation took three times as many syllables to pronounce as the actual phrase. Now that’s an acronym’s acronym! -Ken
Jared Banks
Ken,
BIM is a little ambiguous. Don’t forget it also could be Management instead of Model or Modeling. And that’s not even getting into the issue of what even qualifies as BIM. I also think a different term might have helped architects maintain ownership of the process. Maybe. But that’s a little idealistic on my part. That all said, I am very glad we at least have a term to rally behind. Helps with the apples to apples discussions and comparisons and service offerings.
(by the way, congrats on getting the new archicad blog going!)
Djordje
… also, remember Architects in the information Age by David Marlatt …
… find the presentations by Gabor Bojar from mid 90s … still ripped off by many BIMwashers today …
It is sometimes frustrating to listen to someone that heard yesterday about something you have been doing for decades speak about it as a new exciting proposition. Puke.
Jared Banks
Thanks. I’ll check that all out. Sounds like I’ve got some internet sleuthing to do this afternoon!
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Djordje
yep, it’s here … 1994:
http://www.jtburk.com/products/product1d2.htm
Jared Banks
cool. thanks!