If you’re an optimist, then you’ll have to agree that the best architecture awaits us in the future. I’m an optimist. I’m a romantic too, so I’ll always dream of and love the great buildings of our forefathers. My three favorite buildings are probably the Kimbell Art Museum, the Library at Phillips Exeter Academy (both by Louis Kahn, obviously), and the Sainte-Geneviève Library in Paris by Henri Labrouste.  Well they are in my top five. It’s always hard to remember the exact order… Enough about my love of history (I will never grow tired of visiting castles and ancient landscapes); let’s talk about the future. As much as we all love the past, the list of the best stuff is littered with examples from modernity and beyond. The best phone isn’t a Princess Phone. It’s some fancy smartphone. A smart phone which will of course look old and clunky a year from now. Same goes for so many other artifacts in our world. Objects keep getting better. So what about processes? I’d say so (obvious example: manufacturing).

Now let’s focus in on our profession. On architects. Are we so amazing that our skill set reached perfection in the Renaissance? It’s not just production and visualization that have benefited from technology and computers. But design as well. You might not love the aesthetics of Parametricism, but it signals a potent new direction. This returns me to thoughts on Michael Graves New York Times piece. Again. If your design process hasn’t been improved by technology; if your process doesn’t continue to improve because of technology then you are doing it wrong. And you are falling behind the curve. Let me say that again, if your design process isn’t being improved by technology, you…are…doing..it…wrong.

BIM offers some amazing potential as a design tool. And as architects using BIM we owe it to our profession to explore these opportunities and share them with our community. It is through harnessing BIM as a design tool (the most powerful design tool we’ve ever had) that architects can own the BIM conversation, provide better value to the AECO team, and return to relevance. I would love to have some guest bloggers share their successes and failures with using BIM as a design tool. Who’s interested? EMAIL ME.