A new ally for architects: The 4 advantages of BIM

Building Information Modeling (BIM) is a digital information storage and manipulation system used to assist in the construction and maintenance of buildings and structures.

This term is used very often to cover everything from 3D models to digitized architectural plans. However, BIM is much more than that. The BIM methodology extends beyond physical space mapping, as it also includes specific characteristics and cost metrics.

Why is incorporating BIM considered to be so important for architects?

BIM’s great potential lies in its ability to warehouse architectural data in a new way.

Instead of relying on graphical representations, BIM technology works using information stored in shared databases. You can flexibly access and edit this data, making teamwork much easier and efficient.

These are the 4 main advantages that explain the importance of BIM in Architecture:

1. BIM improves team collaboration and optimizes workflow efficiency

Architecture and design are typically manual processes, often completed in distant and remote offices. Architects, structural engineers, and builders often work remotely; to continue designing, they must perpetually email and manually update project changes. This is a way of working that can lead to confusion, poor time management and inadvertent mistakes.

Instead, using the BIM method allows all these specialists to access the information in the format they need, without duplicating the data while working on the same material. The collective use of a single data set means that changes made in one format are automatically propagated throughout the system, eliminating the need to update multiple drafts as plans progress.

Thanks to this technology, teams can complete the project in a more collaborative way and no longer need to waste time cross-checking documents and files.

BIM also eliminates the need to repeatedly visit a physical location during planning. A team can scan a site and BIM specialists can analyze that data in their office when needed.

2. BIM offers a stable platform for creating computer simulations and 3D models

In addition to promoting collaborative workflows within a shared BIM database, this methodology provides a convenient archive of architectural and design data for 3D modeling and simulation software. These programs and data can be used for other designs. Architects can view and test their projects before construction, which is producing more innovative realizations and with adherence to construction plans.

3. BIM allows clients to interact with projects before construction

The same 3D models can be used for design purposes by simplifying the brainstorming process with clients. It can also allow those without specialized architectural training to envision the plans and understand the end result. BIM creates 3D models that anyone can explore or modify. This capability helps building designers, model makers and architects to be more proactive when facing customer demands.

4. BIM tracks the buildings built throughout their life.

BIM schematics are not only useful for construction teams. The data processed by BIM procedures form databases with the most relevant information about a building or a structure. A BIM scheme is given to the building manager at the end of a construction project to have a kind of building identity document.

This documentation allows building managers to easily familiarize themselves with the building’s structure and other relevant information.

The importance of BIM for architects includes: visibility, collaboration and workflow efficiency.

BIM is essentially a database filing method for creating work and design schematics. The main advantage of this approach is to allow architects, structural engineers and builders to work collaboratively on the same data set and simultaneously produce documents and projects, reducing the risk of errors and misalignments on the initial project.

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Bamboo Bamboo, Canopy and Pavilions | IILab.

Bamboo Bamboo, Canopy and Pavilions

The Impression Sanjie Liu, Yangshuo, Guilin is located in one of the most dramatic landscapes in China. Endless greenery surrounds the site filling space between large karst towers of rock. With a landscape, so grand any moves to dismiss it, let alone compete would make little sense. With this understanding, it was decided that the natural elements themselves would form the premise for what architecture would inhabit the site, one element, in particular, bamboo.

Photography by © Arch-Exist

The Impression Sanjie Liu is already well established, now in its 15th year of operation. The project presented a situation where most existing structures would remain untouched. Instead, the focus shifted to how introducing new interventions could support a pre-existing condition. At present, large clusters of bamboo cover most of the site, creating structures of mingling pipes and leaves. As a means to coincide with what is already there, the new architecture looked at borrowing the materiality of the bamboo, reconfiguring it to form new space. In doing so, this new space means not to contest. Instead, it aims to augment, albeit very gently, the surrounding bamboo groves and hills.

Currently, the night show entertains guests in two areas, one at either end of the island site. The entry and pagoda where guests arrive, and the main stage, perched at the bank of the Li river at the other end. Between these two points, little interaction takes place. It is here in this middle ground that two new assemblies of architecture are introduced. The first, woven bamboo lantern structures, scattered where guests circulate, whose purpose is to guide and intrigue. Then the other, a stretch of woven canopy amongst clusters of bamboo, providing an area to walk sheltered from regular rainfall. In these, the architecture relies on bamboo not only for its composition but also for its constant referral to parts that constitute the place.

Photography by © Arch-Exist

When entering the site, lanterns small in stature line along the pathway cast out signals of dappled light. As visitors travel further the once small lanterns become drastically larger to a point where the guests can find themselves able to walk inside. The makeup of the lanterns remains sincere, with a structure of bamboo lengths encased in lashed bamboo either side. On closer inspection, one can get a sense of the random beauty that can only be created when something is truly constructed by hand. The slightly dark appearance of bamboo framing shows markings of how it is bowed with fire to create the curved lantern silhouette. Over this, piece by piece, teams of local craftsmen has threaded numerous stripes of bamboo in an unintentional pattern that requires no glues or nails to hold its shape. This method of production is a showcase of intricacy, clearly shaped by the hands of people and their intuition of beauty.

Photography by © Arch-Exist

In the daylight, the lanterns appear solid, the yellow of the shell in compliment with the green surrounding. Come night the personality of the lantern shifts from something more unyielding to a porous shell. The lantern itself is a diffuser of light, playing theatrics of scale and light with guests. As a whole, the lantern looks at home under the arching towers of bamboo in its peripheries. Almost by chance, when looking to the distance the lantern silhouette is echoed by the stone towers of the Yangshuo, Guilin landscape strewn along the immediate horizon.

Further along the edge of the island, the canopy shrouds itself within the large masts of bamboo. At first glance it appears to rely on little for support, only the columns of bamboo shooting up and through circular openings. Hidden amongst these living clusters columns twist from their footing upward and outward mimicking the indecisive route of the bamboo to meet the structure above. Supported by the columns in a maze of tubes, the structure of the canopy while seen doesn’t look out of place.

analysis diagram

The hand-woven layer obscures what is in front and what lays behind. Stretching 140m from where you stand the woven ceiling takes on the shape of an inverted landscape, undulating between different levels of surfaces. The stepping surface of the canopy is pieced together entirely in the same irregular hand-woven bamboo as the lantern, but on a scale that seems that it should be seated in fantasy. The resulting intention means to enchant while still extending recognition to the natural condition of the site.

Photography by © Arch-Exist

Under daylight, light streams through to the woven canopy bringing patches of dappled light to the ground below. While reprieve from the sun is apparent when walking underneath, in an unexpected compliment when looking up the ceiling appears illuminated, the entire canopy giving off a temperate glow. In the transition to night, introduced light within the volume rises in intensity focusing the spattering of light in a more vivid pattern on the pathway. Fragments of bodies dip in and out the view as light streams down through the ceiling above onto guests making their way the stage.

In acknowledgment of the theatrical spirit of the Impression Sanjie Liu, moments of performance make its way into many parts of the design: The hand weaving, bamboo playing off the tension of one another. The topography of the canopy ceiling dancing between columns of bamboo as if unsupported. Even the way guests are intended to move from lantern to lantern, in a narrative of interaction. Together these subtle hints encourage a particular frame of mind, readying the guest for the main feature.

Photography by © Arch-Exist

Project Info:
Architects: LLLab.
Location: Guilin, China
Area: 1900 m²
Project Year: 2020
Photographs: Arch-Exist

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C+N House | ALH Taller de Arquitectura

C+N House

The C+N family house is located in Rio Negro, Antioquia, within a parcel of houses on a 3,630 m2 lot.  It is strategically placed on-site to blend in with its surroundings, making the forest an active agent in the architectural design. Taking this main purpose into account, a volume with internal gaps was raised where the forest merges within the house, making a direct interior-exterior relationship. In some parts of the house, it is evident how the landscape becomes the protagonist.

Photography by © Mateo Soto Ph.

We sought to create a timeless project, using raw materials that preserve their original characteristics, such as: burnt brick, concrete, wood and steel, building a natural environment, that fusions with the context. Inside, the space is clean, open and welcoming, generating connected spaces where family life is integrated.

Photography by © Mateo Soto Ph.

On the façade, the double wooden skins in front of the windows stand out, controlling the entry of light, ventilation and interior thermal comfort. They work as a sunshade when open, and when closed they generate a thermal chamber that prevents the loss of heat from the interior to the exterior, keeping the inner temperature much more constant and comfortable. This elements project shadows that vary with the movement of the sun and give dynamism to the house where each space can be accommodated to the user’s needs.

Photography by © Mateo Soto Ph.

Project Info:
Architects: ALH Taller de Arquitectura
Location: Retiro, Colombia
Area: 5166 ft²
Project Year: 2019
Photographs: Mateo Soto Ph.
Manufacturers: AutoDesk, Anticuario Novecento, Conmarmoles, Construmetal, El Cedro Rojo, Greenfield, Ladrillera Santafé, Milk Luminance, NEUTRA CARPINTERIA

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