shelidonApril 14, 2018Leave a Comment

Post originally authored for the blog of Strategie Digitali, on April 14th 2018.

BILTasia2018: it’s a Wrap!

We love Singapore, we love BILT, we love what we do. Therefore we decided to repeat last year’s experience and came back.

It has been a grand week, as usual, and now that it’s over it’s time to draw some conclusions on what we did, what we saw and what we didn’t.

Trends this year

Collaboration

Collaboration was a big thing this year, unsurprisingly. As Asia remains one of the biggest markets in the world for the AEC industry, it’s strongly needed to start a conversation on the interaction with clients, subcontractors, manufacturers. Lots of classes revolved around this topic:

• Establishing Employers Information Requirements – A clients journey in BIM by Wei Loong Wong of JTC.
• Our own class Taking the Highest Challenge in the Collaborative Process: The BIM Leading Consultant.
• The Pilot Approach: Proving the ROI on BIM for Facilities Management by Leo Salce of Microdesk.
• The roundtable Unlocking the Value of BIM for Owners led by Anand Mecheri of Invicara.

Implementation

In a broader sense, implementation was also a key topic, just as much as last year. In 2017 we were part of the trend with our class Implementation Best Practices for Small Offices. This year, we saw some really interesting lectures on the general topic of how to work at a corporate level.

• Implement Anything: A Generalized Theory of Technology Implementation and Process Change by Kelly Cone of ClearEdge 3d.
• Innovation in Construction: the art of making your project tangible by Greg Demchak.
• Implementing Revit Twice… The Story of Two BIMs by Jeames Hanley of Warren and Mahoney.

Manufacturing

Last year a peculiar trend was Interior Design and that’s where we met Takrit Jirawudomchai of DWP, also teaching this year on the topic of visualization. This year, we would say that the pleasant surprise was seeing lots of high quality content of the subject of fabrication.

• The lab Re Invent Revit: Inventor For Revit Users!! by Behzad Meskini of DP Architect.
• Revit Fabrication Parts – Design to Construction Lab by Ralph Schoch of Victaulic.
• Integrative Computational Design Workflow for Origami Modular Ceiling by Zhifei Cheng of Gensler.
• Our own beloved lab Adapt or Die: Clever Ways to Exploit Adaptive Components for Your Everyday Design.
• Autodesk Advance Steel for BIM: Seamless Workflow from Design to Fabrication by Deepak Maini of Cadgroup Australia.
• Bridging the Gap – Between Infrastructure and Craft by Adam Kolsrud of John Wardle Architects.

Surveying

Another big topic this year. You could make up your mind about it by following these classes:

• The lab Taking Control: Construction Quality Control using Verity again by Kelly Cone of ClearEdge3D;
• Surveying and Scanning – What, Why and How? by Daniel Kruimel of AAM;
• The lab Photographs (not Photogrammetry) to BIM: A Quick and Practical Alternative for Scan to BIM by Virat Manchanda of Imagine BIM
• Revolutionising 3D Scanning Solutions by Stanley Neo of FARO
• Capturing the Real World for Design, Analysis, and Immersive Experiences by Simon Yorke of Aurecon.

The Mighty Revit

The horizon has been broadened a lot, since RTC changed its name to BILT. Still, Revit is our favourite tool and we’re always happy to see labs and classes digging deep into its techniques and potentialities, Dynamo being a big player in all this. It’s difficult to list all of them, and we’ll get into few of them for our top ten.

What we did

The BIM Leading Consultant

Did you manage to see it? If not, don’t worry: you will get another chance at BILTeur in October.

Adapt or Die

We’ll be back with somethin along this line as well: a double slot version of this one will be at BILTna in August, involving a little bit of Dynamo as well.

Partying and Mingling

Meeting people and jumping into amazing swimming pools with the committee is a huge part of BILT. We are not shy guys and the reception was great. A good way to do business too: something nice is cooking though I can’t get into detail right now.

What we saw (and what we didn’t)

It was tough to pick classes and sometimes I was tempted to miss my own to attend something interesting going on elsewhere at the same time. Being two of us, we were able to cover some ground and it was tough to distill a top five. We decided, therefore, to have a top six: you’ll get two number ones, one being my favourite and the other one being Claudio’s. We’re sorry if some great classes are not on this list (there seems to be a conspiracy for which I’m never able to attend Carl Storm’s classes, though this time they didn’t put us in the same time slot and this leaves us with some hope for next time). We’re eagerly waiting for the official top 10 to be announced, to see what we missed.

Anyway…

Number 5: Andrew Seyed Mehr

Measure and Analyse the Pulse of your Revit Model using Dynamo! by Andrew Seyed Mehr of BVN. A very fine application of Dynamo for model management with the showcase of a possible end-user tool that I really hope will see the light.

Number 4: Takrit Jirawudomchai

Visualization World of Revit (key success) by Takrit Jirawudomchai of dwp. We love this guy and we love his teaching style. His technique of flooding the Marina Bay wih different visualization tools was impecable.

Number 3: Zhifei Cheng

Integrative Computational Design Workflow for Origami Modular Ceiling by Zhifei Cheng of Gensler. A beautiful class, neat and focused, with a sprinkle of demo. Very well done.

Number 2: Joe Banks

Revit Productivity Tips and Tricks, an evergreen by the one and only Joe Banks. You don’t follow his channel? Well, go ahead and do it.

Chiara’s Number 1: Kelly Cone

Implement Anything: A Generalized Theory of Technology Implementation and Process Change by Kelly Cone of ClearEdge3D. My favourite session of the whole conference had everything: implementation strategies, dynamo and excel tools, random music coming from the nearby room.

Claudio’s Number 1: Scott Crichton

The lab Everyday Dynamo: Practical Uses for BIM Managers by Scott Crichton of BVN. The spirit of Paul Wintour was strong with this one: a huge and amazing collection of scripts from the well-known Australian architectural Firm. Impressive knowledge, impressive scripts for an amazing practice which clearly has amazingly grounded standards. Add some really brilliant improvisation, giving that the first half a hour had to roll with interpretative dance, without the projector. If he doesn’t rank as a top speaker, there’s no respect for art.

And what about next year?

A Roadshow! BILT doesn’t come back to Singapore with the full conference, but offers a tour of smaller conferences in few major cities of Asia: Shanghai, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Bangkok, before coming back to Singapore.

Claudio brought me to Singapore. Maybe it’s time for me to bring him to Shanghai. We’ll see.