On November 30th the Chief Construction Adviser in the UK, Paul Morrell, published an Innovation & Growth Team report which documents the British government’s recommendations for the construction industry with regards to reducing carbon footprint, reducing waste and improving economy and efficiency. The report stresses the use of BIM and we are honored that Mr. Morrell quoted our CEO, John Tocci, on page 67:

“When we have the means of modeling a building in three dimensions digitally, it is perverse to attempt to do so for the first time for real, under site conditions. As John Tocci, an American contractor who makes invariable use of BIM (whether or not the design comes to him in that form) puts it, “Every good building deserves to get built twice”.”

Here are a few of Morrell’s important BIM related recommendations:

“Recommendation 3.11
That the industry should work, through a collaborative forum, to identify when the use of BIM is appropriate (in terms of the type or scale of project), what the barriers to its more widespread take-up are, and how those barriers might be surpassed, leading to an outline protocol for future ways of working.”

“Recommendation 6.14
To mandate Building Information Modeling (BIM) methodology for central Government projects with a value greater than £50 million.”

To see the full report, click here.

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

To see the full issue, click here!

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