On top of all this we also have consultants and resellers developing and selling tools which they have created in the past for clients to solve specific problems. Similarly, Space Architects has developed TwinView for Digital Twin management and Ramboll has SiteSolve, a computational design tool for building analysis at the early-stage of the decision making process that is capable of iterative massing. In addition to Gensler Blox, Bryden Wood has launched PRiSM for modular development, Lendlease has developed Podium, a ‘property lifecycle platform’ for planning, financial, performance management of buildings. The trend for AEC firms to develop software is now becoming a lot more common. The firm has its own in-house programming resources, together with strategic investments in small application developers to augment its own product stack. Gensler has invested in technology to join up its digital thread, starting from the client brief to concept, all the way through to completion. AEC firms don’t just design and construct buildings they also write their own code and build their own bespoke BIM software. This was a new level of workflow productisation for Gensler, which was clearly making a statement to the market. However, it was a proprietary technology that was designed for its inhouse teams, as part of the firm’s inFORM suite of tools to boost internal design capability. It looked like something you could buy from a reseller and may well be a tool that many architects would like. It came with its own logo and branding and slick interface. The true scale of this trend hit me in the face when Gensler sent a press release last summer about ‘Blox’, an algorithm-powered design visualisation and computational tool. While investing in creating in-house tools might not be a new thing, the fact that many of the firms are branding and marketing their in-house code as a potential differentiator, indicates an increased level of programming competence. In the last few years, I’ve noticed an increasing number of AEC firms develop ambitious in-house applications, workflow connectors, AI, simulation and specific tools for project teams. With this current incarnation of AEC design tools and user skill sets, something is different. The net result of this has been a generation of designers acquiring scripting and programming knowledge, together with a realisation that design requires data flow through multiple software packages. keen to add additional functionality.įor end users, computational design tools like Bentley Systems GenerativeComponents, McNeel Rhino Grasshopper and Autodesk Dynamo have provided deeper levels of automation, handling geometric definition complexity. still include programming languages for end-user extensibility as well as APIs, spawning a range of modern third-party developers, like Enscape, Testfit, Strucsoft etc. These systems, namely ArchiCAD, Revit, Vectorworks, BricsCAD BIM etc. The move over the last 20 years to 3D modelling/BIM tools has further digitised the design process, pushing beyond pure symbology and ‘dumb’ drawings, capturing 3D geometry and detailed building information. The ability to adapt and augment has been a core part of our design tools for some time. Some firms completely tailored their CAD systems to their usage. This eventually led to industry-specific software firms, creating dedicated vertical applications, designed for very specific professions – architecture, structural, civil, CAFM etc.Īdvanced users utilised the programming extensions to automate repetitive tasks and integrate with external programs such as spreadsheets. Autodesk with LISP) and created Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for professional developers to build expert systems on top of their drawing tools. Software developers added support for programming languages (e.g. The beauty of being digitised in a computer meant that automation and higher levels of industry knowledge could be captured and used in vertical applications. When we first moved from drawing boards to desktop PCs running CAD software, it wasn’t long before the creation of lines, circles and arcs failed to give us additional productivity benefits. Martyn Day explores the planet of the apps With the increasing digitisation of the AEC design process, more firms are either developing their own bespoke BIM software or paying for the creation of custom tools to refine their projects through computation.
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