The Tocci VDC team has been sharing and discussing the video below on Bjarke Ingels’ 8-House, as well as his TED talk. Not only is the technology behind the video cool, but the systemic methodology that Ingels uses to explain the progression of design intent is amazing.

Tocci Building Companies

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On September 30^th our CEO, John Tocci, attended and spoke at the UK Contractors Group (UKGC) London BIM Conference hosted by Autodesk, Inc. The conference brought together a prestigious panel of British industry leaders from RIBA, CIBSE, ICE and UKCG: leading architects, engineers, academics and government officials from the UK…and Tocci as the contractor’s perspective.

As the conference progressed it was clear that in the UK there are some stellar architects really utilizing BIM, but they are the dramatic minority. Their BIM work is sadly largely unknown because it is almost never used downstream in the construction process. When John spoke he issued a challenge: “If you do not adopt BIM within 3 years you will be irrelevant.” This call to action was echoed in the keynote address by Paul Morrell, the UK’s Chief Construction Advisor. He said that the British government will be requiring BIM on all their projects going forward, it just remains to be seen what the time table is and who will control the process. John wrote a lively summary of the whole trip, which can be found here in three parts:

Part I

Part II

Part III

The BIMForum is a multilateral professional focus group for Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Virtual Design and Construction (VDC) and is the fastest growing, most diverse industry group on the subject. Tocci’s CEO, John Tocci, helped found the BIMForum in 2005 and remains the chairman to this day.  The BIMForum meets three times a year at various locations around the US to discuss topics relevant to BIM research, adoption, implementation, ROI and market demands.

The 2010 Fall conference was held on October 14th and 15th in Atlanta, GA. The theme was “The Evidence on BIM,” a discussion about whether real-world evidence substantiates the claims that BIM leads to measurably higher performance in design, construction, operation and maintenance.

John Tocci, Laura Handler and Pierce Reynoldson attended and came back recharged about the potential of BIM to fuel faultless project execution and extraordinary owner satisfaction.

The most compelling part of the conference was on Friday the 15th, when five owner groups presented how they are implementing BIM throughout millions of square feet of their existing and new projects.  Attendees left knowing that any owner hesitating at this point will find themselves playing serious ‘catch-up’ later and any CM or designer playing with BIM rather than diving headlong into full implementation will find themselves relegated to the has-been category in as few as twenty-four months. One of the owners on the panel had this to say:

“I can only speak for myself, but I was very proud to be part of this event. We, as owners, made it clear we are involved in BIM and hope they (A/E, consultants, contractors) will be ready once we start to demand BIM on our future projects, with detailed expectations and deliverables. Our job now is to educate other owners.”

Birgitta Foster, Sandia National Laboratories

Here is a comprehensive review of the BIMForum Atlanta meeting from one of the attendees:

James Vandezande at All Things BIM

Last week our CEO, John Tocci attended and spoke at the London BIM Conference hosted by Autodesk, Inc.  Here is his first person account of the trip (this is the last of three parts, click here to read part I and part II):

PART III

At a conference where the attendees don’t pay (like this one) you always expect significant fade in the afternoon attendance.  Much to the credit of Adam Matthews from Autodesk and their typical high-class preparation, they avoided that.  We had almost full attendance again after lunch.  The afternoon session was comprised of a panel discussion with a bunch of academics and professional society leaders and a deeper dive into architecture and contracting.  The panel was a little on the dull side, but the architect, Richard Wise from Ryder Architects, was great!  He rescued us from irrelevance by showing practical examples of using axon’s and semi-renderings in their construction doc’s to make design intent clear.  It was lovely. He showed animations of elementary schools with foot traffic simulations to study how the kids will travel from space to space –to design a markedly better school.   The morning owner-speaker had shown a statistic for a typical 1000 student school—with how many kids (out of the thousand) suffered with depression (close to a hundred), how many had OCD, how may had attention disorder, how many had disrupted backgrounds and behavior issues. It was staggering and sobering. So when Richard showed how they used BIM to design lighter, airier schools with more communal and organic spaces, it really landed (at least on me).  He ended.  They clapped.  I got up.  It was clear (to me) that they hadn’t clapped enough though.  So I began by asking everyone to stand up and after a second exhortation they stood, nervously.  I asked everyone to join in a round of applause for Richard because that was truly remarkable and that’s what BIM is really all about—building fabulous spaces that make life and lives better. Richard was still on stage because we were set up to do a panel Q&A session after my talk. I went over and said to him (we were both still mic’d): “I love you man.  I want to work with you.” He replied “I want to work with you too!”  And we hugged.  It was a good moment.

My talk then focused on the details I had to leave out from the morning presentation.  A unique part of this afternoon session was a request from Adam to talk about the specific, tangible advantages of BIM for Tocci and also the intangible benefits.  I led off this intangible list with a photo of the VDC Department and explained that BIM is bringing excitement back to construction and helping us attract the best and brightest young professionals in the country.  And when they come they bring crazy stuff and shake things up. The office/field divide is falling as we bring in superintendents  to model and advise modelers – working side by side.  Collocation is pulling down the walls between designers and constructors… and subcontractors.  Another intangible benefit?  Q5, and the chance to help others implement and continue our R&D efforts for future projects and serve clients beyond our hard-build geographic boundaries.

The conference keynote speech was given by Paul Morrell.  Paul works for the UK government and is in charge of ALL government spending on construction. He gave a fantastic presentation with extraordinary use of comic jabs and hilarious understatement. But beneath it all was a dead-earnest mission of supporting the current (new) government’s edict for cost control and waste elimination and budget cuts—doing more with less.  He fully intends to make BIM a requirement for all government work and will be meeting with the Finance Minister and other cabinet level officials to make it happen.  While he was speaking I suggested to Phil that we kidnap him and bring him back to the US. I was able to spend some time during the pre-dinner reception chatting with Paul; he has asked if we’d be willing to return in about 5 or 6 months to meet with him and them to support this objective. Very cool stuff!

There was a lovely dinner with 25 select people and great BIM conversation until I couldn’t talk anymore. We dragged ourselves to the underground and took the train back to the hotel (which was without hot water the entire three days we were there) and crashed asleep.