Guest Blogger Shivang Rajvir: 3 Responses to Technology
The days and nights we used to spend creating drawings by hand during the early days of college are still fresh in my mind. It was then that this question first hit my mind hard, and it is still with me today.
“Why do we use computers?”
Since my college days (i.e.2002-2003), there have been innumerable arguments regarding this, with senior faculty members, students, professionals, and even with CAD and BIM users. I have heard various responses, and I have found that over time we talk less about “why we use” and more about “what we use”.
The world that we see today is not what we got from Mother Nature; it is our own transformation of “what we got” to “what we made”. The human species is special because we can adapt to nature and reuse it for our own comfort. This is the reason behind the importance of the Construction Industry.
In India, building construction is one of the fastest growing and highly active domains among many professions. We design, discuss, calculate and build, but do we really use the appropriate technology for all these steps? We consider construction professionals to be important because they deal with the savings of a lifetime. BUT do they really accept the importance of technology in their profession?
There are three prominent responses that we face when we talk about the latest technology.
The 1st: Why do we need to learn something new when we already know and work regularly?
These are the Comfort Zone Lovers.
The 2nd: If students start using such an easy tool/technology won’t they stop thinking and being creative?
We can understand their concerns for students and their creativity, but by using outdated technology or not using digital technology at all does it guarantee that the students will be highly creative?
The 3rd: My software is best because people talk about it the most.
We are often surprised by such arguments. Does that mean Poonam Pandey is a better actor than Irfan Khan?
So, why do we really use technology for construction jobs?
Shivang Rajvir is the Chief Strategist at dimension plus. If you enjoyed this article, read his first Shoegnome Guest Post Top 9 BIM Myths in India. If you’re interested in BIM or ArchiCAD in India, you should be talking to him. Learn more at dimension plus’s facebook page.
Vistasp Mehta
In response to the 2nd point:
When I went to my first ArchiCAD demo in Bombay in the mid-90s, an architect (who claimed to have been using it already) gushed that it was “so easy to use that even a layman can design buildings with it” and “we should not let it get into the hands of all and sundry or we’ll all be out of work”. What a twerp!
Any BIM software is merely a tool just like a T-square — except that it’s far more advanced, can do a lot more for us and needs a substantial amount of training to use effectively. It is not a substitute for your creativity, training or experience.