In 2011, property owners initiating construction projects will be smarter, forcing cost-saving cooperation between designers and builders utilizing the latest tools in pre- and post-build technology.
This prediction came out of the Construction Institute’s Visionaries Forum on Jan. 28 in Cromwell where five panelists laid out the short- and long-term future of the industry.
The industry already has made moves toward building information modeling, or BIM, in which all the design and construction aspects of a project are outlaid digitally before any physical work begins. But this approach will take off in 2011 as more BIM projects are successfully completed, the benefits are realized and technology makes it easier, the experts said.
“It is going to be a completely different profession,” said Scott Simpson, senior director at Massachusetts designer KlingStubbins.
The owners are the common denominator in all construction projects, Simpson said, and they will drive the changes throughout the industry.
Construction projects run 30 percent over budget on average and 37 percent of products used are wasted. As a $1-trillion industry — the second biggest in the nation behind health care — these wastes add up significantly.
Owners will realize new cooperative methods eliminate waste inherent in the old methods of bidding a project and utilizing a fragmented mix of architects, engineers, contractors and subcontractors, Simpson said. BIM will become the new normal in the industry. That old model, in which the owner bears all the cost and risk and contractors low-bid projects while adding change orders, will fall by the wayside, he predicted.
With owners at the wheel, the focus of construction will no longer be on the completion of a project but the continued use of the completed project. To that end, designs will cater to the intended purpose of a facility, such as a music school designed to amplify sound.
This shift moves beyond BIM into virtual design and construction where all parties involved in a facility’s design, construction and use map out the entire process to best incorporate the various needs of a project.
“There is quite the sociological benefit of having everyone in the same room,” said Pierce Reynoldson, virtual design and construction association for Massachusetts-based Tocci Building Corp.
Once the virtual design is laid out, mobile computers such as iPads and smartphones will enable workers to bring that design into the field. Projects can be laid out in 3D on these mobile devices so workers can look at a space and see what else needs to be done.
“You can save time by easily finding what you need,” said Paul Maclelland, regional sales manager for Massachusetts construction software provider Vela Systems.
This modeling for the end use of a building will help facility managers, too. Instead of receiving piles of paper from subcontractors explaining how to maintain the project, BIM technology will enable them to receive a single database on a project’s many faculties and how they interact.
Computer-assisted design,gives owners more creativity with their projects. The Yale University School of Architecture uses tools from automotive designers and animation studio Pixar to develop buildings and surfaces to interact better with their environment, said Mark Foster Gage, assistant dean.
Students study concepts such as fluid dynamics and origami to explore ways of stacking bricks and creating surfaces. The architecture program also incorporates various surfaces occurring naturally — such as the skin of a lizard — to see how buildings can make better use of water, among other things.
“We are exploring how Mother Nature uses textures in the environment,” Foster Gage said.
But everything from interactive BIM to surface modeling will enter the field as owners develop an understanding of it, realize the value in it and ultimately decide to implement it.
“They are going to start driving those changes,” Simpson said. “We are not in the same business that we were 10 years ago.”
