What if we’ve had it wrong this whole time. What if the I in BIM isn’t Information. What if it’s Intelligence. We went from pencil to CAD (Computer-Aided Design) to BIM (Building Information Models). But what if we are really just still in the process of moving to real BIM, to Building Intelligence Models.

Deep data is useless if we drown in it, or can’t benefit (profit) from it. We need relevant information. We need curation and intelligence. We all want information, sure, but what we need is understanding. Our models are good if they have lots of information in them, but wouldn’t they be so much better if they had lots of intelligence in them?

Perhaps you’re familiar with the Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom continuum. There are tons of examples and diagrams out there to look at. It’d be easy enough for me to make a BIM-centric pyramid, but I’ll refrain. Just Google it. Or go to Wikipedia. That concept is at the root of this Information to Intelligence shift. We need to not only be smarter about what goes into the models, we also need the models to use that data in a better way. We need the models to have Intelligence so that they understand what information they contain. Why? Because of two inevitabilities.

The future is augmented reality. I believe this more and more everyday. Every time I write about the possibilities of what architects can do, I always start thinking about augmented reality. BIM linked to smartphone Apps. BIM linked to Google Glass. BIM linked to our buildings, our transportation, our brains…for that impending future, we need our BIMs to be better. We need our BIMs to be ready to integrate with the user experience of the buildings. We need our Building Intelligence Models to be responsive and active, not static repositories of information.

The Robots are Coming

One day I hope to never model again. I hope to have a conversation with a computer and have it figure out the details. It can do the lower order mechanics, while I focus on higher order thinking. If I just keep modeling, if we all just keep doing the same tasks as we did a hundred years ago but with better tools, there’s a limit to what we can charge, and what we can offer. But…if like so much else in modern society, we take advantage of automation and technology. If we stop doing the things that can be mechanized or techno-ized, then we can really increase our value. But to do this, to really leave the grunt work to our tools, we need better tools. We need to go from Building Information Models to Building Intelligence Models to Building Wisdom Models. Because with BWM, we will truly do wondrous and world changing things. We will have models that know not only what to do with the information, but why that information needs to be used. And then we designers will go from creators of design to organizers of design. We will be able to shift from making patterns to connecting patterns, from micro-design to macro-design.

One Step at a Time

Perhaps before we get to Building Intelligence Models, we need to focus on Building Intelligence (into) Models. What do you think? How are you turning Information into Intelligence in your models?

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Bonus note: I’m not the first one to talk about Building Wisdom Models. Here’s a post from a few years ago by Randy Deutsch that comes to that same term, but from a different angle and with different conclusions.