Defragmenting the AEC Industry through a Single, Component-Based Building Information Model

This paper argues for the adoption of a single, detailed, component-based, Building Information Model as a strategy for handling all design and construction information about a building at any stage of design. Using the recladding efforts for the Aronoff Center for Design and Art at the University of Cincinnati as a backdrop, the paper frames current issues that plague the building design and construction industry then illustrates how a single, parametrically driven, component-based model can reunite the fragmented industry and deal with vast amount of information that accretes during the design-construction process. The paper also describes how the detailed, comprehensive, single model paradigm opens the possibility of more sophisticated structural or energy modeling and analysis taking into account contributions of interior walls, mechanical systems etc. to overall structural stability, thermal mass, etc. The paper concludes with implications to practice in the current splintered AEC industry and a candid discussion about obstacles and limitations. BACKGROUND The processes of designing and constructing a complicated building in a contemporary society have grown exponentially more complex over the past century. As more knowledge of building behavior is explicated, new strategies and technologies are developed to improve building design. (Eastman 2008) These new areas of expertise have resulted in a dramatic departure from the “craft” model of design (Alexander 1979) where a single individual can be expected to have all the knowledge and skill required to design and construct a solution to a problem. In the contemporary building environment it is impossible for one individual to possess all knowledge and skill required to design and construct a complex, technologically intense building and the consequence is a very complex and fragmented industry.