Generative Design in Revit is a new feature that brings the scale, speed, and precision of algorithmic problem-solving to design decision-making. 

It seems like 2017 is a huge year for birthdays at Autodesk, earlier this year Autodesk celebrated its 35th birthday, Revit celebrated its 15 years' anniversary since acquisition, and now Navisworks is celebrating a double header!

20 years ago, today, the first code was committed to the original commercial release of Navisworks in Sheffield in the UK; and 10 years ago, Autodesk completed its acquisition of NavisWorks Ltd.

Back then NavisWorks was primarily used as a viewer for large files rather than what it is today, but much of that technology and principles are also found in other tools you may use every day like AutoCAD, Revit and BIM 360.

Tim Wiegand, the brains behind NavisWorks, was working on these problems for three years before anything commercial was produced; as architect of the wider BIM 360 portfolio today he had this to say about the anniversary: -

"Whenever I think about the impact Navisworks has had, I find it hard to believe that it all started in the corner of a scruffy University research lab, and that at least some of the code I wrote then is still in the product somewhere."

Peter Thompson, Managing Director of NavisWorks Ltd 10 years ago, and now Senior Director for Building and Product Design here at Autodesk, said: -

"Everywhere I go, every customer interaction I have, any time I talk about workflow, (and without me volunteering that I used to work at the company) NavisWorks is mentioned as THE key product that makes a project work. Still, to this day."

To celebrate these anniversaries, we're announcing the first ever Design Night Sheffield! Part of a global movement of celebrating design and making in all its forms we're really pleased to host this event at the beautiful Old Post Office in Sheffield, now the Sheffield Hallam University Institute of Arts on Tuesday October 24th 2017.

More details to follow in the coming days, and get a teaser here

As housing evolves into the future and begins to embrace technology, one technology stands out. Building Information Modeling (BIM). Housing’s transition to using BIM has been slow, much like most any progress related to housing. But, as the BUILDER KB Home ProjeKt team and other builders are finding, now’s the time to adapt and adopt. It’s time to discover the true potential of BIM technology.

Decades ago, field issues were more common and so was the talent to address them. Now there are labor shortages that have led to inexperienced hands on job sites that have no knowledge to deal with surprises.

“Every project is a fast track project now so we have to find ways to do more with less,” says Josh Bone, construction technology specialist at DeWalt. “And you have to be confident that it is going to work and that it is quality engineered. With BIM, you can find issues, and if you update it, it updates the model, the schedule and everything is linked and coordinated. If I see a laminated beam that is too low and not giving the clearance that we need, we can see that and resolve it in the computer as opposed to in the field, where it is more expensive and time consuming to solve.”

That real time information about changes and estimates is one of the biggest inherent benefits of BIM, according to Clark Ellis, CEO and co-founder at Continuum Advisors. The models have to be built intelligently in order for it to work right, and when they are, it creates accuracy and efficiency in every stage of the design, engineering and construction, which is incredibly important in prefabrication, the construction method for the KB Home ProjeKt.

“The big thing now is the MEP system and making sure that it fits in the walls and above ceiling,” says Bone. “That’s where the most opportunity is, especially with prefabrication. On the prefab side, everything is speeding up and we want things to be so tight. Now companies are prefabricating everything from pipe, to all conduits, that are fitted together ready to go.”

It’s all evolving to a DFMA – design for manufacturing and assembly – process and generative design that can eventually lead to full volumetric offsite construction. Plus, Bone points out, that robotics will be more and more integrated into the process.

“On a typical project, there is about 10% to 12 waste,” Bone says. “By using BIM, it can be reduced to 3% to 4% waste.”

Plus, here is a compelling example of how much a single clash can cost in the field if not detected early in BIM. In this example, the exact beam measurement was determined in BIM and then carried throughout the design and construction process, versus figuring it out in the field. With numbers based on the Association of General Contractors BIM Curriculum, the beam measures 24x55, costs $2,500 and cutting a hole for it in the shop costs only $210 for a total of $2,710. So let’s consider this same situation where the wrong sized beam is used because the BIM information wasn’t managing the accuracy, and an 8x28 beam is used instead. Without the guardrails of BIM, the project is now down the cost of the original incorrect beam, purchasing a new beam, the cost to remove the old beam, the cost to install a new beam, cutting a hole on site instead of being able to cut it in the factory, adding up to hard costs of $4,664, which is a 42% increase.

And that cost continues to escalate if you start adding on the soft costs. It takes five days from the schedule at a total cost of $22,000, and not even including the five days delay to the other trades, the cost of the five days lost and the liquidated damages.

In designing the ProjeKt, architect KTGY Architecture + Planning, used BIM to drive efficiencies and to model the performance and operation of the house. BIM allowed for clash detection and to manage the value engineering process. Here Keith McCloskey, executive director of design at KTGY, shares his insight on using these technologies to design.

“Reality capture is a big deal right now,” says Bone. “You can actually look at percentage complete, knowing how much of the building is done today with a laser scanner, compared to the model. It will also evaluate tolerances based on the model, which would allow people to stop and make adjustments at the right time and place, driving better quality.”

Ellis also is thinking about the evolution of BIM with virtual reality. He sees a way for national builders to create a system that bridges access to all nationwide offices to walk a prototype at the same time. And, on the sales side, it has huge potential, giving buyers the ability to interact with the product in a sales center environment, without the builder’s huge investment in building the actual product.

Virtual reality also is creating enormous collaboration possibilities. For instance, Nvidia’s Holodeck platform, recently featured in BUILDER, allows designers to import CAD models, so multiple users can navigate them as if they were a real structure, as well as edit and manipulate designs. The product allows users to take 360-degree screenshots and create video recordings of virtual meetings that can track design progress or archive for future use; “teleport” to different floors and elevations of any virtual structure; and test different lighting schemes to visualize how lights and shadows impact the plans.

More technologies will be explored through the BUILDER KB Home ProjeKt during the next few months. Track them at www.builderonline.com/kbhomeprojekt and visit the home in February 2019 in Vegas.