Demolition of life,

Yesterday, one of my colleagues showed me the video below, created by GlidebyJJ - Jody Johnson, its a moving little piece, for a number of reasons, The building was a mental hospital in the USA, called Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital, it was built in 1876 and was the largest building in the US at the time. This beautiful, historic masterpiece was demolished from May - November 2015. and for all sorts of reasons it was not a nice place, but putting that aside, the video is packed with interesting construction, its actually reversed, and as the film proceeds, you see the building come to life.

I had to watch it several times to get the full impact of the construction, the brickwork, the roof construction, and the floor structure, and as the building completes the final impact of the estate.

So often classic buildings are lost to the demolition crane, some are lucky enough to have been photographed, and some even filmed. The film at the bottom is packed with similar wonderful Architecture, and a search for Demolished Historic and see several like minded videos.

The CPD here is huge, I can easily see six or severn major classifications to add to your list, 

• Construction
• Architecture
• Landscaping
• Planning
• Material selection
• Services
• Demolition

My own city of Birmingham in the UK has similar lost Architecture, grand and hansom buildings lost to such poor replacements, the last video is of a classic building lost some time ago to a modern library, which has just been pulled down for yet more modern Architecture, when will we learn.

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Standardised process for the sharing of product data

I see this a lot in the construction industry, a committee wants standardisation. The BIM Task Group in association with the Construction Products Association, BIM4M2 and CIBSE are looking to develop a standardised process for the sharing of product data, You have to ask why, does it not go against the very nature of the development of big data, what Hadoop, Hana and all the other new ways to view and analyse large datasets, which I might add do not need standardisation, rather the opposite.

Large projects need to establish data use before it gets to site, develop rules to show how relations are make and kept, data shared, looking to associations for advice not rules, but thats for an individual project, and it may change as new projects are started, adding the benefits of hind sight and advances seen in the industry, but thats for a good project team to sort out, not a committee.

I sit back an wonder who is pushing for this and why, I feel like writing a paper on this and submitting it, just to outline the danger of rigid control, which seems to be at the for front of the way BIM is being developed, at least in the UK. The USA seem to be a little more open and allow the system to develop on its own.

I had a similar conversation yesterday when I had a tech chat with the some colleagues re the use of Point Cloud and laser scanning, 3D CAD files, IFC, and how we can pull them together, and we have not even scratched to ground re data. As for planning don't even go there.

Are we not inventing a new way of designing and transmitting that design to the construction team, and developing the use of the data we generate, so why control that development with rules right at the start of its development. 3D its use of BIM, and the way we are using it must be aloud to develop on it's own, we the market place will trial and develop, look for new ways, pull in new methods, and most of all talk and develop. Adding rules now, just throttles any thought process.

I am open to the rules if they come in the form of an academic paper for all to see, read, and act upon, but free thinking and market development is the way forward.

You might notice I have not mentioned the law in this piece yet, the courts scare me, and I fear once they get involved because of a spat between contractor and who ever, they will impose rules without any thought to any one but the winning party, but I can live in hope here.

You can add the teaching of this subject, to the list of why I want a free and open development, I am supposed to develop young minds, teach them to think, look at whats happening, and add to the development, not sit there and say, ok we need to control with a few rules, might get out of hand here !.
I want to teach students to look at a 3D cad file and ask, what BIM information can I add that will increase the data pool, that some one will find useful, adding open industry rules that prevent this is wrong. But adding rules to a contract controlling a job is correct.

Food for thought I hope.

Todays photo has no relation to the subject, just a dining table laid for 6 for a dinner party. Notice the gap down the middle, ready for the Terrines. Wine to the far right so I can keep our guests topped up.

2015, What a Year

As years go, 2015 must stand out, for me it was packed with everything, from a lot more teaching at the beginning, to my sons move to Hong Kong, to my blog being hacked, to a long holiday in France.

The blog though was and is a highlight, who ever hacked my site, a pox on you, but it caused me to review the whole set up, and move to Blogger, a simple yet effective platform, it does not have the bells and stuff Wordpress has, but I suddenly realised that its the content, not the fancy gizmo bit, interesting they are, that make a site, so a lot more effort on content. So how is it going well thanks for asking, so far the reach, according to Google Stats, is remarkably good, so far I have hit a large area, but I have a way to go.

The last time I looked at the map on Wordpress, I saw mostly dark green, so Thanks to the USA for getting there first, on the new site, I have auto directs from all my old site, so is your still going there, I hope no problem.

So 2016, whats my wish list, well Blogging, I would like a few more speaking engagements, see my personal website for more details. Next, I want to get at least one book out, I have two on the go, one on Architectural Technology, and one on 2D Vectorworks. Travel is high on the list, I want to see just a few Architectural buildings from my wish list. Academic papers I have a load on the list, so I want to get two or three published, one I have already sorted for ICAT, so two or three to go.

The Web site is more or less sorted, so 2016, I want to use it more, adding documents and articles.

My Bucket list of places, grows with every film, I watch, so some for the blog, some for me, my pictures tend to go on Flickr, so part of my list is to sort that out, is it still for me.

My own CPD is complicated, but part of my list has to include a Masters started this year, thats partly sorted, so 2016, needs to be finalised.

I have neglected YouTube for a while, so thats back on my list, to produce a few more, but split between my Students and me.

Thats it,  my 2016 wish list / Bucket list, lots to do, and certain changes to my past years.