The Old Order Changeth Yielding Place to the New: Think Big; Think BIM!

Since time immemorial, civilization has progressed steadily by following a single principle—the principle of change. This change has, at times been rather sudden, forceful, and violent and at other times, it has worked slowly and steadily so that in the end, the tentacles of the change proved to be too strong to be ignored and avoided. Thus, while the extinction of the dinosaurs and other prehistoric life forms came as a sudden jolt that paved the way for humans to rule the roost on earth, the slow and steady change brought about by the spirit of science helped us to shed the ignorance of a life that was clouded by religious indoctrination. Although religion has not deserted us completely nor have we been rid of myth and superstition, yet it has ceased to exert the same asphyxiating influence on human beings as it did centuries ago.

Building Information Modeling, or BIM in short, has had a similar impact in the world of architecture and construction. Slowly and steadily it has emerged as an important tool that has replaced the tried and tested, but unusually long-lived, 2D design methodology.  When Douglas C. Englebart gave us an uncanny vision of the future architect in his paper Augmenting Human Intellect in 1962, he was little aware of the impact it would ultimately have.

Although it took almost 20 years for BIM to actually take shape and another 20 years to have a world-wide impact, it did prove true Englebart’s prognostication. This technology has revolutionized the construction industry like never before so much so that we can say from its perspective, “Think big; think BIM!”

References
http://www.architectureresearchlab.com/arl/2011/08/21/bim-history