shelidonApril 28, 20171 Comment on BILTasia wrap up & look beyond

I know, I know, it’s been a while and I should have wrote something about BILT asia way before but when I was back we had the Design Week and then there was Easter and then we had this Dynamo workshop to prepare and then a cat ate my article and… well, you got the picture.

Anyway, all I needed was a little time and here we are.

Now the RT… oooops, I mean BILTasia was wonderful and I was so happy my BIM manager convinced me to go there. Singapore is a wonderful city and I can’t even begin to list all the amazing people we met there. If you want to have a hint on all the crazy stuff that was going on these days, just check the #BILTasia here and knock yourself out. Although I am a little disappointed that Joe Banks got towel animals and we didn’t.

Amazing service at the Marina Bay Sands I love these little towel animals. #BILTasia pic.twitter.com/a939UBfqvp

— Joe Banks (@j_bim) 1 aprile 2017

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Anyway, the conference was great. If I have to summarize its main trends, they would be:

1) Implementation of BIM in your office and training of your staff. Yes. Again. It’s a thing. Don’t reverse-Dunning-Kruger yourself: just because you did it, it doesn’t mean everybody did. The topic is still interesting for lots and lots of people and the topic of training will always be relevant, so let’s try to never forget that. The main classes I would mention regarding these topics were: – Implementing BIM In Your Organisation – How Hard Can It Be? by Dave Willard; – Start Your Engines: Keys to Implementing a Smooth Transition to BIM by Joel Martineau; – YOU DID WHAT!!??!! | Bat-Shit Crazy Revit by Jay Zallan (probably my favourite class of the whole three days). And then of course there was us. We did a second take of the implementation class some of you saw in Vegas, with a couple of twists and some additional material in the third phase.

Hey @C_VittoriAntisa should we put this one as well in the drinking game?#BILTasia@BILTevent pic.twitter.com/HKyIzGSqTr — Chiara Rizzarda (@CrShelidon) 1 aprile 2017

2) Virtual Reality and real-time Renderings
It’s the next best thing and it totally makes sense: once we’ve learned how to deliver better documented buildings (or at least we should have learned by now… se point above), now we need to communicate them in a better and more efficient way. Exit traditional renderings, enters interactive, video-game inspired real-time stuff where you can roam around and shoot zombies while you’re evaluating the project. Who wouldn’t like that? We talked about it in our interior design class but there were amazing classes just focused on the subject and among those I just have to mention:
– BIM To VR Via FREE Gaming Engine by Dominic Martens;
– Virtual Reality for AEC: As Real as It Gets by David Weinstein of NVIDIA;
– Real Time Rendering And VR For Revit by Joe Banks;
– Stop Rendering and Start Exploring: Getting Started with Revit and Enscape by Phil Read (this guy is so amazing he managed to deliver a touching presentation even when talking about textures and maps).

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Talking about Enscape, below you find a sum-up video those guys did. They are wonderful, we’re crazy about their product and I urge you to support them, if you have the chance.

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3) Data-based Collaboration
We’ve had the golden age of file-based collaboration (IFC) and I kind of think it was like a really shining copper. Time to try something else.
If you’ve been following us around, you know we are really fond of the concept behind Flux and we were really happy to see that this conference had lots of spots for those guys. It’s another product we try to support whenever we can because, just like it happens with Enscape, it’s a workflow improvement and has a huge concept behind it. Lots of classes about this kind of collaboration, and collaboration in general.
– 25 Flux/Dynamo Scripts for Everyday Use by Dominic Martens;
– Flux.io – User Success Stories and the Google Doc-ification of BIM Data by Anthony Buckley-Thorp of Flux itself.

Together with Buro Happold, Flux presented the Smart Space Analyzer: try it out here.

4) Generative Design
Lots of labs and talks about Dynamo, still a golden boy of these kind of conferences, and adaptive components. Our favourites were:
– the MTR Disneyland Resort Line Sunny Bay Station offered as a case study by Arthur Gunawan;
– Dynamise Your Facade with Operations and Optimisation by Ritesh Chandawar and Adriel Sim.
Amazing material provided by both of them!

5) BIM for Interior Design
Well, this was a surprise. I didn’t think we were the only ones to do that, but sometimes it does feel a little lonely although the advantages are so obvious it drives me crazy. Therefore we were happy to see other classes talking about the same topic and lots of people in the audience being interested and active in the field. Let’s stick together, guys: it gets cold at night.

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So here we are and there we were: we had fun, it was really interesting and if I failed to mention something just come back to me: you know where to find me (and unluckily enough I’m not by the swimming pool anymore).

But enough about Singapore, time to think about Vegas ’cause yes (hell yes) proposals submission is open for Autodesk University.

Now, unsurprisingly enough the trending topics  are all about those next things I was talking about:
– smart manufacturing;
– augmented reality;
– business management;
– infrastructure design and engineering;
– virtual reality.

You’ve designed and documented that damn building: time to start thinking about how to communicate it (on one hand) and manufacture its components on the other hand.