00:01I'm going to introduce a guy that I've known for seven or eight years, Kimon Onuma, who's an architect, digital guru...

00:08...evangelist for BIM, and the integration of BIM with GIS...

00:12...and he's going to blow your minds and knock your socks off. And that's going to be an understatement.

00:17So I had lunch with some folks earlier today, and I said, Okay, here's where we are with geodesign in our minds...

00:24...and here's what Kimon's going to show you at 4 o'clock.

00:29Now take that differential and project it ahead and multiply it by 10, and that's where we're going, right?

00:37And a little about Kimon. Kimon is very soft-spoken, very modest, very quiet...

00:43...until you see his work and then he's quite provocative, quite attention-getting...

00:51...quite stimulating, and I think you're going to enjoy the hour.

00:54What's he's going to do for you is, he's going to redesign Hong Kong in an hour, live.

00:59Kimon Onuma, thank you.

01:05Thank you, Bill, and thank you very much to Esri for having me here. I'm very excited to be presenting.

01:12So the title of my presentation is Getting Real with BIM, getting real with geodesign and BIM.

01:17How many of you know what BIM is? Okay, everybody, just about, at a different level.

01:23Mashing up geospatial models with facility models.

01:27Just a little bit of background. We've been using BIM since 1993...

01:31...before it was even known as BIM, but it's essentially the same technology. It's advanced obviously since then.

01:36A lot of our clients were working with GSA and Corps of Engineers and school districts...

01:42...so it's been getting pretty exciting in the last couple of years. I though it was going to hit like in 1995.

01:47It took this long to finally kind of kick into gear and I think this year it somehow seems to be right.

01:51And this convergence that's happening and things that are connecting with the geospatial world with BIM...

01:58...is a very exciting place to be and I think this...it's a great place to be.

02:02So here's some early BIMs that we were doing in 1993 with the navy and the army.

02:06We weren't telling them that we were using BIM.

02:08We were delivering paper basically, and an interesting thing about it is we were using ArcCAD at the time, and we still do.

02:13We use ArcCAD and Revit as well. But a lot of that kind of overlapped a little bit conceptually with GIS.

02:18We had a 2,000 housing unit navy base for example, in 1993, with the technology back then.

02:25And we had to get pretty creative about how we managed the model...

02:28...because it was obviously...the processing power back then was a little bit less than it is today.

02:33I always like to start with this slide.

02:35I say, today the technology exists to get on the Internet and to make a reservation, real time.

02:41Ask a question, it gives you the price of a ticket in a simple interface.

02:45There's no BIM training or GIS training or anything. Basically, ask it a question, it gives you a bid in real time.

02:51It doesn't say, How much fuel would you like on the plane? It doesn’t say, Would you like the pilot's seat?

02:57It actually is intelligent. It says, Would you like a hotel to go with that?

03:01Simple. Simplicity is key. And that's what's driving everything that's happening in the last few years...

03:06...as we notice on the Internet and with the smart devices and everything.

03:10So how do we get there? The building industry is not there today.

03:14And I'd like to just flip to a present...animation real quickly here.

03:20Oops. I thought I had it open. Sorry. Let's go back to...okay.

03:35So here's to architecture. I'm an architect, that's my background, so I look at it from that perspective, architecture.

03:43We learn from the past, we dream about the future, we design it, we build it, we imagine it, and then we construct it.

03:53Some think we're crazy. We're doing crazy things with our environment.

03:59We're legends. We're teachers. We're dreamers. We think outside the box. We create poetry with gravity and light.

04:07We build. We inspire. We design everything from chairs to iconic buildings to entire cities.

04:19We move civilization forward, but there's a problem.

04:26Henry Ford once said, "If I ask my customers what they wanted, they would have said, 'A faster horse.' " Henry Ford.

04:35The building industry's pretty much still stuck in the nineteenth century.

04:38We're using processes and tools stuck in the past, even with BIM.

04:43We're not there yet. There's a huge gap still, so there's a lot of potential.

04:47The twenty-first century train is leaving the station.

04:53The US Coast Guard says the data about our facilities is more valuable than the physical facility itself.

05:00The buildings are just containers for their business. Life cycle, buildings are just boxes.

05:05The information of BIM is what drives everything. We are in the information age, and that's what drives everything.

05:12How do we get information and knowledge connected together? It's not about the tools.

05:15There are a lot of tools out there, and open standards and integration between these different processes is critical.

05:21It's incredibly complex, but we need to keep it simple. If we don't keep it simple, we'll never solve the complex problems.

05:28So back to Expedia. Expedia is simple. Anybody can use it. You can make a decision, real time.

05:34You don't go and print out every schedule out there today in a PDF...

05:38...and save it, and say I'll come back to it tomorrow. It wouldn't work.

05:41BIM can be simple. This is a BIM in our world. An Excel file that says, Here are the spaces I need...

05:47...here's the size of the space, drive it into a model server, and you'll see a little bit more of this later actually.

05:52Model Server on the web, real time, service-oriented architecture, cloud computing, BIM, and GIS connected.

06:00This has been going on for years for us. BIM storms have started about three years ago.

06:03This is Penn State involved in a BIM storm with 140 teams from around the world in 24 hours, designing 420 buildings.

06:11Crazy, right? It's not a real project, but this is how we drive our real projects...

06:15...having geospatial data connected all the way from the world level to the city level to the building level...

06:22...to the inside of the building, the piece of equipment in the building, to that light that's on in the room...

06:26...and it's connected to a sensor. Everything has a latitude and longitude connected together.

06:30So the intersection between BIM and GIS is where the explosion's happening.

06:34When you connect the two, information absolutely explodes in value.

06:38There's two different perspectives obviously, but...and there's no clear-cut line through this. It's really an overlap.

06:44BIM storms, if you go to bimstorm.com, you can participate in BIM storms. They're open to anybody to participate.

06:50We had one in Washington, D.C., a few weeks ago.

06:52Here's a client requirement for a site. Here's a site I want to put 300,000 square foot.

06:56Here's an Excel file that says 300,000 square feet, several hundred units of housing, Excel file...

07:02...import to this model server, this Onuma system. It automatically creates a block that says here's your building.

07:07Nobody's touched the design on this building yet. It's automatically generated from Excel, having all the spaces.

07:14You can start having discussions. Is this a good idea or a bad idea? We call this a train wreck.

07:17Is this a good train wreck or a bad train wreck? Bad train wreck; throw it away. Keep moving.

07:22Configure the spaces online. Because you're online and this is in real time...

07:26...I can start interacting with others and saying, What do you think of this arrangement?

07:30When they say that's a good idea, then we move back out again. This is within minutes.

07:34You basically get another version of this first design model, which usually takes hours or weeks sometimes.

07:39Then you say, Okay, now let's take this out to SketchUp.

07:41Automatically generated SketchUp model that originally data started in Excel, now in SketchUp.

07:47Same thing out to Revit. Interoperability. You want to move it to any tools. You don't want to re-create the data.

07:52Now in Revit, this is a requirement model to give the design team, saying...

07:56...here's what the owner wants, now go fulfill that requirement.

08:00Once you get into the life cycle, the "I" of information, the value of information kicks into high gear.

08:05If we can't manage information about our built environment, we won't be able to tackle all the problems that we have.

08:10So real time is what drives us. Cloud computing is what we use.

08:15Connecting people. It's really about connecting people and connecting decisions.

08:20Nothing about the tools again. It's the tools are just paper and pencil in the background.

08:24Owner being able to visualize the data on their BIM in a simple way, without BIM training, saying, here's your equipment.

08:29Here's a webcam to attach to that. Multiple servers starting to talk to each other.

08:34Cloud computing is about mashups. Mashing up BIM in GIS and visualizing it on any platform at any time and any place.

08:41Color coding things from databases. Visualizing a BIM, this is a BIM.

08:45It's one room on the 33rd floor, but it's still part of a BIM...

08:48...but it's simple enough that I can look at it in a tool like Google Earth and say, there's a sensor...

08:52...live sensor data connected to that in a mashup, saying, here's your temperature of that piece of equipment on that room.

08:57I don't have to download a 200-megabyte model to go and look at that. Then that's part of the city.

09:04The city obviously is part of the world and this all connects together.

09:07This is what our view of geodesign is. It's really about connecting the information.

09:11So what we're going to do...and here's Google Earth again.

09:14You click on things, energy use of the building, so kind of a portfolio-level view of thousands of buildings.

09:20We need to get past this building a faster horse. It's about the next level.

09:25We are the ones, as an industry, that are going to answer these questions.

09:30So let's actually...I wanted to try an experiment here, and this is kind of...we just decided this last night.

09:36I do this once in a while and decided, well, let's go ahead and do this.

09:38We're going to do a...actually, PDAs, Androids, connected laptops, open them up. I'd like you to participate in a BIM storm.

09:48Everybody is going to build a BIM in a few minutes.

09:52So...and I'll get to that slide in a second, but I'll start explaining.

09:56As an architect, I've constantly been frustrated with these lists of CAD files.

10:01You open up a file and it's all kind of a file-based system. Here's a third-floor plan, a fourth-floor plan.

10:05File-based exchanges just don't work in this world. You can't get to real-time data on there.

10:10Same thing with BIM. If we look at BIM as stand-alone stovepipe files, we're not going to be able to make transactions.

10:16We have to extract the data that's valuable with these type of exchanges.

10:22So, I'm part of the buildingSmart alliance. So I'm very much involved with open standards, OGC.

10:28We were part of OWS for a test bed. buildingSmart alliance, they have their own standard called IFC.

10:35I've struggled with this over the years. I fully support IFCs, but I also feel that it's taking a long time.

10:39Fifteen years is kind of a long time to implement a standard.

10:42We need to keep things simple and have the bigger picture in place, as well as this longer-term vision.

10:47BIM can come from many different places and it's not one model. BIM is not one model.

10:52It's impossible to think that BIM is going to be one bucket where we're going to put everything into it and it's going to give us answers.

10:57It's about connecting things. Just like the Internet is not one database.

11:02Location and geography and BIM connected. This is a JBIM magazine.

11:08Actually we have some magazines here we're going to hand out. I don't think I have enough.

11:12I might have enough for half of you here. You can also download this through the buildingSmart alliances.

11:16Great articles in here from others as well, relating to GIS and BIM.

11:22So here we go, bimstorm.com/mobile. It works from Androids, iPhones, iPads, Firefox, Safari.

11:32IE is not perfect for this, so I would suggest trying...the interface is a little different.

11:36So you don't need to put a user name and password in yet.

11:39But if you try that, and I have it written up here for those that don't...can't type this in quick enough.

11:43So it's bimstorm.com/mobile, and later on you'll use the user name and password.

11:48And I'll walk you through what we're going to do.

11:52So I'll keep this open on the side here and you should get an interface like this.

12:05[Unintelligible audience comment]

12:08Yeah?

12:10[Unintelligible audience comment]

12:12Pardon me? Oh, I'm sorry. This is from a previous...it's MOB, yes. Sorry. Human error there.

12:22Okay. We simplified it. So it's bimstorm.com/mob.

12:29You don't need a password, and at the very top I want you to type in "Hong Kong Convention."

12:35We're going to go to the Hong Kong Convention Center. And you should get this.

12:42There's a red dot on the map. You can grab that and move it anywhere.

12:45What we're going to do, there's an area in Hong Kong here...we're not very familiar with what's going on here...

12:49...but it looks like they're reclaiming land and building a lot of stuff here, so we've decided to focus on this harbor here...

12:55...and the waterfront...actually, there's no more...if I put that there, there's no more water actually.

12:59There's land there right now. So if you choose a spot somewhere between these two points.

13:03Just move your red dot there, and on the first line it's going to say Project Name. Put your name.

13:10So I'm going to put my name, and I'm going to call this Residential...

13:16...or just any kind of building name, whatever kind of building you want to put.

13:19And Hong Kong has some pretty tall buildings, as you all know. This is the site in Hong Kong.

13:26These buildings are all like, you know, 30, 40, 50 stories high.

13:30As an architect, I know that a 50-story building, a typical floor plate might be between 15,000 and 20,000 square feet...

13:36...so if I make a, like a 300,000-square-foot building...

13:40...I put in the square footage in next, and I'm going to type the number of floors.

13:44I'm going to make this a 20-story building. You can put in whatever you want. And then choose the facility type.

13:51I'm going to choose a residence and that's all you really need and then it's the Upload button.

13:55There's a lot of other optional data you can put in here. What this is doing, imagine an owner saying...

14:00...I want you to design a building for me in Hong Kong that has 300 residential units, or x number of square feet of office.

14:06That's a typical kind of request and then design, the team has to figure that out.

14:11You'll see later on where I'm going with this.

14:13This is obviously not going to create a final design, but what's happening here, this is collaboration...

14:17...kind of a swarming and social media and BIM kind of all tied together...

14:23...and if you hit Upload on this, you should get a confirmation right here.

14:30And you can go back and say, I want to upload another scheme.

14:32If you go back, you can keep on doing multiple buildings if you like.

14:36So that's the first step, and we'll keep this up here if you want to keep on adding later, that's fine.

14:42The next step I'm going to do is actually, it says, Log in to the Onuma system.

14:48If you log in here, and this is where the user name and password comes into play.

14:55You don't have to do this step, but for those who like to see the result of what you put up there...

14:59...you basically log in, hit the Login button at the very bottom here...

15:07...and I gave you the wrong information here. It's not sandbox, I'm sorry. Viewer and password is Onuma.

15:17So the user name is Viewer and the password is Onuma.

15:23This is an open sandbox model server that we use for demonstrations like this and that will get you into this next view...

15:32...right here, and you'll see a button that says Sandbox.

15:35If you open that up, you'll start seeing...Oh, there's a lot going on here actually.

15:40We just had a list of about 10 earlier on, so this is from you guys right now.

15:43These are your buildings, basically that you submitted.

15:46So Bill submitted a residential building. This just happened right now. I don't know which Bill this is.

15:51It might be...there's a lot of Bills obviously in the room, but if I click on that...

15:56...and scroll down, it's showing me how much it's going cost to build this building.

16:02It's showing me what the shape...it's obviously a block.

16:04There's spaces inside it, but it's showing me the cost...

16:07...and it's giving me some initial estimates of utility and operations and maintenance.

16:11How much is it going to cost to maintain? So it's generating a lot of data with simple input.

16:15Obviously, we still need to keep designing this. Now, real projects we continue to work to refine this process.

16:21So what's happening now, the buildings that you guys submitted...I have teams standing by, outside of this room...

16:25...actually around the world, that are going to descend on this and move them into position and start designing the city.

16:30So that's our goal. Our goal is to spend 15 million dollars in one hour here and fill in this part of Hong Kong.

16:35I mean, crazy project coming, it's, why not, right?

16:38Okay. So let's go back to this. So the Coast Guard case study.

16:49Coast Guard from years ago as we were working with them, they were using Google Earth before it was called Google Earth.

16:54These also used Esri very much too, so it's a combination of tools.

16:58They used our tool, the one with the green background there, to configure buildings...

17:02...the same tool that you're using, a different interface. Now tools can have multiple interfaces.

17:06When you're...when you're using the cloud and you're mashing stuff up from the web, you can have different views of data.

17:12You can have a view of the Expedia data for American Airlines that no longer is there...

17:15...and I can go to Orbitz and find it again, or I can go to American Airlines, and still buy the same seat.

17:19You're not duplicating data from one to the next.

17:21You're going back to the source, the authoritative source that's going to help you make those decisions.

17:25So the Coast Guard, we were building their existing facilities...

17:29...and quickly configuring new facilities and doing scenario planning.

17:32What if? What if we do this? What if we do that?

17:35And we did all that before we got into what we call the desktop BIM applications.

17:38They're using ArcCAD, but it could be Revit, way on the right side.

17:41Before you start creating the solution, you want to run the scenarios...

17:45...and now with the concept of geodesign, if we had access to geospatial data, that would have been incredible.

17:52We had to pull some of this in manually, but now you'll see later on how some of this stuff starts coming in automatically.

17:59So the concept of the value of the data for facilities management is critical, the "I" of BIM as we talked about.

18:06The configuration of...this is a case study again, Coast Guard, 35 command centers.

18:10It used to take them 10 months to configure and decide the design decisions for one command center.

18:17They had 35 of them to do. They completed them in a little bit over six months.

18:20So 10 months for one of them versus six months for all of them.

18:25It was an incredible time savings and higher accuracy as well.

18:29And the reason this worked is because they would go in from place to place, log into the system...

18:32...pull up the latest data, push it back into the server, and move to the next place.

18:35Instead of going and spending...oh it was mentioned this morning...

18:38...it's true, it takes 50 percent of the time to find background data typically. It's a huge waste in a design process.

18:47Integrated decision making, again, with the Coast Guard looking at different views of BIM.

18:50We can use BIM for planning a facility. We can use BIM for security analysis. You can use BIM for doing command centers.

18:57It's different again, different snippets of data all connected in the center to make decisions. So the simplicity is key.

19:05And, actually, as architects, Frank Gehry even starts with simple blocks like this to create complex buildings.

19:10So, simplicity for buildings is actually critical and it's actually very much about spaces.

19:15And that's what I think is the huge opportunity here, as far as interaction between GIS and BIM...

19:20...there's a subset of a building that's critical for facilities management and for geospatial analysis...

19:26...and it's not the full-blown design and construction model.

19:28We're going to get there eventually, but if we start at that simple level, there's a lot you can do with it at this level.

19:34So, just a little overview of one of the tools that we use.

19:37This is something that we created actually in the '90s and then we've been developing over time.

19:41It's a web-based system. It's cloud computing. It's service oriented.

19:45You log in from any PC or Mac and you have a view of a building. That building could have started in an Excel file.

19:54On the upper left is an Excel file. So here's a bunch of spaces and equipment and number of floors.

19:59It automatically creates a first version of the building.

20:01You start doing a quick blocking and stacking and start having discussions of, what's the cost? What's the energy?

20:05Does it fit on its side? Do we need to split it into two? Can a client afford it? Is this a bad idea? Good idea?

20:10And you can also drill all the way down to the furniture and equipment level.

20:14So, inside the room...inside each of those bubbles, there's furniture and equipment.

20:17Everything has a latitude and longitude to it. You can start doing analysis at this level.

20:22And then in the opposite direction, we were connecting to Google Earth at the time, and we still do...

20:27...and we also have connections to ArcGIS now, but you can start seeing how it fits on a portfolio level.

20:33This is called a model server. It's very much different than storing a BIM model on an FTP site.

20:38This is actual live data that's put into a server that I can pull just pieces of the data as needed.

20:43When you go to Expedia, you don't download the Delta schedule. You go and find that flight you want and you buy that seat.

20:49That's why it works. You don't have to wait for that download, translate it, and put it into something else.

20:53That live transactional kind of approach is what drives all of this.

21:00So, connecting the dots. Here's Penn State involved in the BIM storm. This is again a 24-hour session.

21:07A hundred thirty teams from around the world that had never touched a lot of these tools, were taught on the fly how to start interacting.

21:13And this generation, as we all know, is already wired for this. This is natural to them.

21:17Anything else would be ridiculous and they'd look at the way the industry is now and think, Why are we working like this?

21:21But you notice each student has a different view of the data, and one has a site plan...

21:25...one has a building plan, and this guy has Facebook.

21:27Everyone's doing their own thing here. They're...it's a social network. You're making decisions.

21:32You're throwing things out there, even if they're bad ideas. Again, the train wrecks are important for us.

21:36We want to create a lot of train wrecks very early on in the process before they out to the site and get into construction.

21:43Make the mistakes early. How do you make mistakes and know you're making a mistake?

21:47You have to have good data in the background feeding you, just like we saw this morning.

21:50If you have data in the background, then you can make decisions...

21:54...and those decisions need to be pushed back out so others can see, Here's what I'm thinking, I'm putting this building here.

21:59Okay, GIS analysts, what do you think from your perspective, from a zoning perspective, from a cost perspective?

22:04That's what was going on here. They were looking at projects coming in. Four hundred and twenty buildings.

22:09They're analyzing them and giving us cost and constructability input on those buildings.

22:16So it can be simple. This is what we did several years ago at the AI convention and we did this today with you guys too.

22:22If that that Excel file again, this is an automatically-created-in-Excel file.

22:25It could have come from an iPhone too, if you'd typed in all those rooms.

22:28Obviously, that would take a long time, but if you had a spreadsheet that's saying...

22:31...here's a 500,000-square-foot building, hotel's on the upper floor, offices on the lower floor...

22:36...nobody's touched the design other than in Excel.

22:39This is sucked in from Excel through the Onuma system, out to Google Earth saying, Is this a good idea?

22:44It's top heavy because we haven't imported the office spaces on the lower floors.

22:48Then in 90 minutes...we had 90 minutes in Boston.

22:50We had 130 buildings from the audience submitted. This was several years ago too.

22:55So the concept of simplicity. Simplicity could be an Excel file. It could be a block model.

23:00As you start heading up the chain and you complete a design and construction model...

23:04...then obviously that's a very important model for design and construction, but also it's a very heavy model.

23:08You can't access it quickly, and a lot of our clients working with GSA right now...

23:12...and it's surprising these models and Revit and Bentley and whatever was being used, get incredibly heavy...

23:17...and they're very important for design and construction, but the client can't even open it.

23:20If you can't open it and say, What's the square footage of my conference room?

23:24Well, you have to know how to use Revit or ArcCAD, open it up, and have a computer powerful enough...

23:27...and it's...it's all important stuff, but if you can't get to it, it becomes less valuable.

23:34So here's that same model now exported to Revit, automatically generated a Revit model. Los Angeles, 24 hours.

23:41Well, actually, no, I'm going to take a break here. That reminds me, I have Google Earth running in the background here.

23:47Let's see how Amber's doing. Let's see, okay, so there's a site. We should start seeing some models coming in here.

23:55Let me just refresh this and see if something comes in.

23:58So this is actually...the Google Earth site was already set up before you guys were submitting models.

24:02We already set up this network link so the models should start assembling here as my team starts bringing them in here.

24:09Okay. So, let's look at one building now.

24:13These are the 420 buildings in Los Angeles, 24 hours, inverted pyramid is the total square footage of all the buildings...

24:18...the color coding's by use, so you can start having discussions about what impact...

24:23...is that going to have on transportation, for example.

24:26When we did this several years ago, the City of Los Angeles did not have GIS data easily accessible.

24:30We had to actually go and get a CD and bring it over here and put into the server.

24:34But now, you'll see later on with the D.C. government and what was shown earlier with ArcGIS...

24:38...once this data becomes web enabled and through web services, you can start connecting to it in real time.

24:45So here's that building now in about 30 minutes. You start configuring it and you say, Okay that looks good.

24:51And then what we do, from our server now, we export to Google Earth obviously...

24:54...but then we also connect out to other applications through open standards again.

24:59So some tools were pulling data from us in IFC. We also had city GML going on. We had a BIM XML format.

25:08We had Ecotech through GB XML.

25:10So all these open standards, you basically use...

25:12...different teams from around the world are pulling that tower into their tool...

25:15...doing their analysis, and pushing it back to us, and saying, Here's what we recommend from a structural point of view.

25:22Revit obviously, and TEKLA Structure are desktop applications...

25:24...so they had pulled a model into that environment, designed it, and posted it back.

25:28Another team was saying, Well, instead of a structural steel building, what if you go to concrete?

25:34That's going to be shorter, floor to floor, it's going to be a shorter building...

25:37...it's going to be a heavier building, we need more footing.

25:38So all those discussions were happening within the first 24 hours of the design.

25:43Ecotech from the UK. So teams from around the world logging in, pulling their tool and doing their analysis.

25:49And this was the result of that first BIM storm - 24 hours, 11 countries, 133 players, 420 buildings, 55 million square feet.

25:57The equivalent of 2.8 million pages of documents that were never printed.

26:03You don't print out every airline schedule there is out there today.

26:07Everything is live. You access the data as you're making decisions, therefore it's lightweight so you can find the information.

26:12You don't have to go find that binder or find that PDF or go to that FTP site.

26:15It just becomes...you have to keep it at your fingertips...

26:17...so here's some of the interactions that happen with a lot of different tools.

26:22And what this generated actually, teams that played in this environment actually started generating real projects.

26:28Clients were starting to watch what was going on and saying, Can you do this for us?

26:31And some of the projects we were involved in and other ones we were not involved with...

26:34...but it was a way to kind of showcase what is possible.

26:39So again, connection of GIS to BIM.

26:42If you come from the GIS side, there's concept of location and latitude and longitude.

26:46But there's also information about, where's the source of that carpet or that material in that building?

26:51How do you know there's carpet in that room? You know it because from the BIM side...

26:55...I'm saying I'm designing a building, therefore I need carpet coming from here.

26:58Another very important concept, imagine if all the buildings in the world were in BIM and somehow we got them into GIS.

27:07Okay, now what? What happens when the buildings are not static, they're changing every day.

27:12As we were working with the Coast Guard, we're documenting a building.

27:15They were tearing down part of the building behind us, as they were doing renovations.

27:18So unless you can keep kind of a real-time cycle going on to update the building data as things are happening...

27:25...this data...information starts to rot. So that's another key thing to keeping it lightweight.

27:31Keeping it lightweight at this level of detail, again, tying into GIS like we talked about earlier...

27:35...it's actually...it's achievable because it's not the full-blown design and construction model.

27:39It's a lightweight model that says, Okay, now the building's complete.

27:42Now we're in facility management mode. Does that floor plan look accurate?

27:46You can start having discussions saying, Well turn...you know, that room no longer exists, turn it red.

27:50At least you know what is going on if you can get input from the building itself...

27:55...either through people that say that no longer exists or sensors. Sensors are starting to come into play now.

28:00So sensors that can start informing you, the lights are no longer on in this room because that room no longer exists.

28:06That's a valuable piece of information.

28:08Okay, everything I've showed you up until now is BIM storm and conceptual design...

28:12...but I'm going to show you an actual project.

28:13I can't show you the actual data, but this is for the Homeland Security headquarters. This is not the actual data, again.

28:19This is...but the concept was Homeland Security, 20 agencies spread around Washington, D.C.

28:24They're going to build a new headquarters, complex project, bring them into a new location.

28:29Each of the bubbles is a space. The lines are adjacencies between spaces.

28:34Data collected and pulled in from, you know, even sketches, and Excel files pulled in...

28:40...and actually create that first version or model and start running scenarios.

28:43How many floors is this building going to be? How it's a footprint.

28:45Is it going to be three stories underground, two stories above ground?

28:48What's the security level? What's the cost? What's the schedule? How do the people fit?

28:52And the administration was changing and the people were changing throughout this whole time. It's a moving target.

28:56Nothing stands still in a project like this. Client keeps changing their mind 'til the last minute.

29:02If we can't change quickly, it costs a lot of money.

29:05So what we were brought in to do was actually to represent the client, to keep that engine going.

29:10So what typically gets handed off to design-build team or an architect is a stack of documents.

29:14So here's what we need in this building. PDF files, thousands of pages, go read this, and design our building.

29:20We didn't do any of that.

29:21We kept it all live and what was handed to the design team was a database saying here's our requirement.

29:26It's an engine that you can keep on turning and start doing what-if scenarios.

29:30And they were actually already starting to excavate so we were in discussions with the construction team.

29:33How big is the hole going to be? How much concrete do you need before the design was even very far along.

29:39Same thing with equipment...furniture and equipment.

29:41Excel file that was creating spaces...now furniture and equipment comes from the Excel file and populates a space...

29:46...and you can start saying, Is this all the furniture and equipment you need inside that space?

29:50So conceptual models that start to solidify.

29:54The more you start engineering and creating the final solution...

29:57...the more time you're spending, and it might be the wrong solution, so we keep it very kind of loose.

30:01It's kind of like sketching with ideas and you keep on morphing until you get to that point where you say, That works.

30:07I'm going to hand that model now to the design-build team. I'm going to hand them a model in BIM.

30:12So from the model server, we output IFC or BIM XML, automatically create a Revit model.

30:18This is an automatically created Revit model of all the furniture and equipment. The design team starts with that.

30:22They don't have to interpret thousands of pages of text and say, Do we have the right piece of equipment in this room?

30:27Meanwhile, client's saying, Oh we'd like to change something here. Everything's moving along.

30:32So it's just like Expedia. You buy that ticket at the last minute or you pay and you buy that seat and that's it...

30:37...but you can keep on iterating as you run through different variations.

30:42So in the opposite direction, if you imagine this type of approach to be used...

30:48...not for design and construction but for facilities management.

30:52Data driving graphics. The graphics, by the way, on all these, are not static kind of JPEGs or CAD files.

30:57They're actually driven from the database.

30:59A database creates the graphics, which means that if you change the data...

31:02...it'll change the graphic, which is why we can connect this to sensors.

31:07We also have this project with the Army Corps with PBS&J at Fort Belvoir. A hundred forty buildings, oops, 140, no, how many?

31:16A hundred and seventy buildings I believe it was on this one, four-and-a-half years of construction time, let's actually turn this audio down...

31:26...and they were going through and trying to go to meetings every week with printed boards and saying...

31:31...Well, here's the status of the design and the road closure, and they were using GIS and BIM, and CAD in many ways...

31:37...but the output was being as paper. Going to the meeting saying, Here's the paper documents of what we're doing this week.

31:42They couldn't keep up with the change though, 'cause it was moving so rapidly.

31:45They had primavera scheduling and tables, they had CAD files, they had this...

31:49...so we pulled it all together, pulled it into Onuma system, used PBS&J's ArcGIS Server.

31:55We're merging ArcGIS Server and Onuma system model server together to visualize things.

32:00And one view was actually in Google Earth as well, too, so in Google Earth, the color coding is coming from a schedule.

32:06So instead of a schedule saying, "Here's a construction schedule," we're color coding things red/green as things are changing.

32:12So now they're going into meetings, and this is actually a very interesting thing from the army's point of view.

32:17They couldn't get Internet access at the meetings...

32:19...so they came in with laptops with Sprint wireless cards to connect to the server live.

32:23The data is lightweight, so you can pull it live.

32:27You're not downloading the Delta schedule. You're accessing that flight that you want.

32:32You're accessing the building schedule. You're accessing...

32:34So the teams in the office were continuing to work while they were in a meeting with the Corps of Engineers.

32:42This has actually a huge impact on clients, and we've actually worked with many different teams, just blowing people away...

32:49...'cause you walk into a meeting and you actually can start designing the project.

32:52We've won several contracts just by being at a presentation like this.

32:55I actually have an interesting story where I was watching my future client onstage presenting their project, saying...

33:00Here's what we're doing with our project. And I was ready with a PowerPoint. I got up, while they were doing their presentation...

33:06...I just, on the fly, decided to design their project and present it to them as they got up on stage.

33:10We got a five-year contract out of that. You have to think outside the box.

33:14It's Henry Ford concept again. Move that horse forward.

33:18So here's the Fort Belvoir project. It's a mashup of SketchUp, and the green and yellow buildings coming from our server.

33:23SketchUp was landed inside this. So any way you can make it work...it doesn't have to be perfect.

33:28If you wait for the technology to be perfect, it'll never get there.

33:31It's just like the Internet's not ready yet and yet we use it every day. And that's why it evolves.

33:35You just keep on mashing stuff together and keep on moving forward.

33:38You can't talk about the theory forever. You just have to get down and do it.

33:42So here's the result of that and there was a 40 VIZ tool that PBS&J created...

33:49...with ArcGIS in the background and our server pushing data into that.

33:52So it was many different views from many different tools, but the same data.

33:57And here's some of the conflict resolution that happened...

34:00...and kind of an overview of just a simplified diagram of what happened.

34:04There's a lot of things coming into this system. There was the ArcGIS Server. There was Onuma server.

34:10There was output from that in different formats, and there was this live interface in the middle.

34:14A live interface, not only to view data but to move stuff around. So let's say, let's move this building over here.

34:19Because it's live, I can be anywhere in the world...

34:22...and I can be interacting with somebody else that says, No, that's a bad idea, or that schedule doesn't work.

34:27It completely changes the way that we work.

34:30COBIE is another open standard for facilities management.

34:33We're very much involved with that, Construction Operation Building Information Exchange.

34:39With GSA, we're working on several projects where they want to be able to look at completed or existing buildings...

34:45...and say, What's going on in that building? So here's our interface on the left, Google Earth on the right.

34:52Google Earth with data coming from our server, color coding coming from sensors...

34:58...data about aggregated totals and square footage coming from our server viewed in Google Earth...

35:05...webcams connected to those dots. Those dots are pieces of equipment.

35:08There's no reason to have a beautiful 3D model of a pump if you're at this level of detail. It's again, a level of detail concept.

35:13How do you...you churn data really quickly and then visualize what's the schedule of lighting, real-time occupancy sensors.

35:23Another server. This is actually...again a mashup.

35:25Our server is pushing out to Google Earth doing the 3D, doing other data.

35:29Another server saying, I have temperature data for this room, you have the same room ID, common ID...

35:34...web services, boom, there's the temperature of the room. So these real-time charts are getting attached to the building.

35:40Same data again, but in a different interface. Here's a real-time data now in the Onuma system, but at the same server.

35:48Capturing design intent. This is actually a very interesting slide because when you design a building...

35:54...you're saying, Okay, we want to be lead whatever, so we want to have reduced energy and we want to do this...

35:59...and we're going to make decisions about what type of equipment to put in a building...

36:02...and we're going to design the building and give it to the owner.

36:05What does the owner do with that building now, unless they know what that chain of events was...

36:08...what was the design intent of that room, and is it above or below temperature based on that engineering assumption?

36:14For our GSA projects right now, they're working on three projects...

36:16...we're actually capturing the design intent into a database, not into a BIM, it's just a database, attached to a BIM...

36:23...and saying, This room was designed to be this temperature and it has this kind of requirement of airflows or whatever...

36:29...and then as you're running sensors through that...

36:32...then you can compare it against what was it designed to, what's it going on right now?

36:35A Delta comparison, to color code what's out of range, and drill all the way down to a piece of equipment.

36:41Notice that the graphics are kept very simple.

36:43This is the lightweight version of the data to keep live on the web, and we're also connecting to Patchbay.

36:49Again, we're just mashing up different tools on the web.

36:52And then creating a standard...a standard of...there are standards out there to work with facility management and BIM...

36:58...but we're actually creating implementation standards. We're not talking in theory. We're saying the project is running.

37:03How do we capture that data as it's going on?

37:05So we're actually implementing this as these projects are going on, which is really the only way I think that it could work.

37:11You really have to kind of hit the road and start doing it.

37:14You can have a lot of theory and discussion about what is possible and what is perfect...

37:17...but unless you start doing it, you never get there.

37:20So we're taking BIM data coming in for GSA for three different buildings.

37:24We're saying, How do you keep it in a neutral format so you can pull it into any FM application in the future?

37:29If you keep it in a neutral format, the data can come from a Revit model, it can come from another type of BIM model...

37:35...it could come from a list of equipment. It's not going to all be in one model.

37:39That's a myth that everything can be in one model.

37:42You look at any project right now that's running through BIM and you can't load everything in one model.

37:46There's different consultant teams, so you have to figure out how to merge it together and bring it out there.

37:51Okay, so let's...I think that was the end here, yeah. Let's go back to see what's going on here...

38:03...and actually open up...I'm in the Onuma system right now...

38:06...and I'm just going to take a look and see what's going on with it right here.

38:09And I've logged in and I'm going to look at the BIM requests that came in from you guys.

38:16Let's see if I'm still connected to the Internet. I think I am.

38:19Yep, there we go. BIM requests...okay, so this is what came...wow, there's a lot. Okay. That's good.

38:28So we had a lot of projects going on here and they're being moved.

38:32I guess my team is probably frantically moving them right now to the right site.

38:36If I open up any one of these, like Karen's building here...let's see what Karen's building's about.

38:43This is one building that came from the audience.

38:46It's just going to be a block, but inside the block, if I open up the block, it's going to show where it is in Hong Kong.

38:52It's sitting there on the edge of the harbor there, and this has 18 stories.

38:58If I go to the 11th floor, it's basically logging and pulling that floor plan of just that 11th floor...

39:06...instead of downloading the whole building again. And on the 11th floor, I see a block, where's the block? There it is.

39:12And it has some elevators and I need two stairs out of a building, and obviously there's an issue here...

39:17...because the square footage that was put in just defined that small size.

39:22So we have some talking to do about, Do you really want this skinny, tall tower, or where do you want that square footage?

39:29You're probably going to have to make a lower tower or...you start getting a sense of scale immediately from this.

39:35Let's look at another view of all this.

39:39Back up to the project level and pull in Hong Kong Geodesign, right here, master plan B2.

39:51Okay, so what's happening here is, I could actually see, Amber's editing the scheme.

39:55We use these models as communication tools. We don't use e-mail.

39:59We communicate through the model. We go in the model and we communicate to people.

40:02Whoever's touching the model, I can start communicating to that person.

40:05So we're having discussions about the design through the model. The model becomes an interface for e-mail.

40:12We don't use e-mail for this kind of stuff. We just go straight to it, and there's Amber.

40:16She's starting to line up some of your buildings on the waterfront.

40:18This just happened in the last 20 minutes, so she's basically taken stuff that was probably stacked on top of each other...

40:21...because I told you guys just to place it anywhere.

40:24But in a real project, we would actually start having assignments and say, You work on this, you work on this, and you work on that.

40:30And I can say, Well, let's go and see what's going on with the report here.

40:37Building comparison. So the point here is that, and I'm doing this with one hand while I'm talking to you guys...

40:44...so I might be missing some stuff, but it's about collaboration in real time.

40:50This is kind of like...it looks like science fiction when we come into some of these meetings, 'cause most of the industry...

40:55...like I said, is still working in nineteenth-century mode, which as an architect, it's a bad thing obviously, but it's also a huge opportunity.

41:02The opportunity is, even if we start incrementally making things better...

41:07...and I think the time is right this year with the concept of geodesign...

41:11...with the intersection of BIM and GIS, the technology is...

41:14It's possible to do this today. It's very exciting what is possible with all this.

41:19So let's do a quick export of this and see what's going on, Google Earth, I'll just do an export from here.

41:28There's multiple ways I can export out to...all of these models, by the way now, are SketchUp models, the Revit models.

41:34If I open up a Revit model of Karen's building, it would actually have those spaces in the restrooms...

41:37...and the toilets and sinks and objects, inside the Revit model.

41:40So as an owner, I'm saying, "Here's what I want in the building; now go and resolve it" to the architect.

41:46Okay, so let's see if that downloaded. Yep, it's still churning, I think. Something's going on here.

41:55I think I've got too much stuff running here, but anyway, so let's open up one more thing here.

42:03I'm pretty ballsy to do this live probably, right? But here's...let's just try this here.

42:11Any questions while we take a break here? I've kind of been talking a hundred miles a minute here.

42:17Okay, so there's all the buildings that are on the site and then let's just go to compare buildings...

42:24...and let it churn for awhile and run through all the numbers.

42:30And again, all these models, again would go out, we have city GML coming out of it.

42:34And it's not really...it's really not about only our tool. It's really...we use a lot of different tools.

42:38We just created this because we needed to create the links between the different things that were out there.

42:43And this has been around for five or six years.

42:45We've been building this version at least...

42:47...and before that in the '90s, we had another version that basically used this for collaboration.

42:51The reason we needed this is because I was ending up traveling a lot as an architect.

42:56I was flying around working on projects in the Far East. I got tired of traveling...

42:59...and then we'd call this low-carbon collaboration. The less we have to travel, we can make decisions.

43:05In fact the LA BIM storm that I showed earlier, we had teams from Norway saying...

43:09...We're going to fly to LA and participate in the BIM storm.

43:12We said, No you stay where you are in Norway and interact with us through the Internet.

43:16So obviously face-to-face time is very valuable, but not all the time.

43:20It's better to be connected, meet a few times, and then work virtually.

43:24That's how our team works, and we're a very small office actually.

43:27But because of these kind of approaches, we're able to keep very compact...

43:31...and then collaborate with like-minded groups or individuals. It's a different dynamic. You create teams on the fly.

43:38You're just swarming to attach to that project.

43:41So if a client has a special kind of requirement, there's no reason to build up a huge team and wait for that project to come.

43:46You basically work with the experts as you're interacting on these projects.

43:52So there's the...atlas...see, let's try it. I don't know what's going on there.

43:56I think my Internet connection just kind of came to a crawl. Okay, there it goes. That'll load. There we go.

44:03So it's flying down to the site and then it's going to load the buildings that we're looking at...

44:10...building volume, space volume, color code by departments.

44:13So that's our site there, and then you'll start seeing the buildings streaming in there.

44:19So let's go back to...this...I think we saw everything here. Yeah. Okay.

44:28Maybe we'll take a few questions. Do we have the mic here still?

44:32Are there any questions? I'm going really fast here, just shout out your questions and I'll...

44:36[Inaudible audience question]

44:38That's a good question. The question was what about civil and construction?

44:45The Homeland Security project I showed you, not everything is going to be solved in one tool.

44:50That's another very important concept behind all this.

44:52No single application's going to be able to solve everything you need.

44:56You just need to be able to say, I'm thinking of putting a building here and I'm thinking of having this kind of a footprint...

45:03...how far underground are you going to go and what's the soil condition?

45:05Like what Eric showed earlier was a great example. I'm going underground.

45:08Now I want interaction with somebody else that has that information.

45:11Where is that other information going to come about the site?

45:14Obviously GIS is a perfect place for that to come through.

45:17So it's about putting stuff in and then saying, Now I want to interact with you about this particular part of the process.

45:24And it happened with us actually with our Coast Guard project as well.

45:27And we were putting a building on a site and the Coast Guard said, What about security from that road to that building?

45:34We did not have to bring in a security expert to sit for eight hours in a meeting with us in the room to wait for that question.

45:39We said, Okay, we'll keep the group compact and we'll let you log in and say...

45:44...What do you think of that building next to that site, and so that's no good.

45:46That's a threat right there, so I moved the building back 20 feet.

45:50So we were able to immediately on the spot move the building back 20 feet or harden that wall.

45:54So you start, able to...having that discussion.

45:57This obviously is not the final design...the detailed design.

46:02We take these models, just like I showed with the Homeland Security project, pull it out into...

46:05...and in that case they were using Revit.

46:07We hand them a model from here, that's a IFC or XML file, BIM XML, in Revit, they continue in Revit...

46:14...and then we run a parallel and track it and say, Here's a client requirement.

46:17Now the architect is designing different versions of that. Revit's on the desktop.

46:20Eventually all these full-blown BIM models are going to end up in model servers too. They're not there yet.

46:25It's just too heavy and the technology's not quite there yet with open standards and model servers.

46:31There's some interesting things going on, but as other model servers are out there, we're a model server...

46:36...but you can start then having a desktop version of Revit, and our version, and we're starting to compare things. Okay?

46:42Do you have all the square footage you need? Do you have the number of...the right number of chairs and tables?

46:47Do you have the right...did you remember that stand-off distance that security expert talked about?

46:52'Cause that kind of stuff gets lost in the project always. You have all these different discussions going on.

46:58So it's really about connecting many different tools and many different experts...

47:03...to be able to have discussions about things that should not create that train wreck.

47:09Any other question? Yep.

47:11[Audience question] When you have collaboration on a project...

47:15...and let's just say your example of the security guy came in and gave you that [Untelligible]...

47:21...the architect or lead in this is trying to keep track of all those things that need to stay.

47:29What if somebody else starts moving the building around again?

47:31How do you control so much interaction so that you end up with something that satisfies all the initial criteria?

47:39Because there's so many people involved and things might change that might affect what you originally designed? Is that what you're thinking about?

47:44Yeah. The structure guy's going to change...

47:46Yeah, exactly. Well, what happens in the traditional process is, architect works on it, hands it off to the structural guy...

47:52...waits for two weeks, comes back, meanwhile the design has changed...

47:55...and he says, Oh no, that column...so that's happening already in the current process, right?

47:59What we're finding...and it's not...we're not...although there's some vendors out there that are getting model servers...

48:05...that are starting to interact live on the full-blown model, and I think ArcCAD has a version of it out...

48:09...and Revit's doing something like that too.

48:11When you start getting that immediate interaction, imagine if you're the structural and the architect.

48:15I'm saying I'm doing this and you're saying no you can't do that...

48:18...seeing that column in the middle of my room is going to create a reaction.

48:21If I don't see it, I keep on designing the room for two weeks...

48:24...and all of a sudden the column appears and I go, What's that all about?

48:27So it's really about how close to real time can we get to start having the discussion...

48:31...like we're right there in the same room together.

48:35And because there's just...buildings are incredibly complex, right?

48:39There's so much data that I think this is really the only way to start trying to narrow that gap of that lag time.

48:45Right now the lag time is weeks, or months sometimes, and then it also gets forgotten and ends up in construction.

48:51And I think that's the opportunity. If we can figure out what works today in real time...

48:55...and my approach here is that, I mean...my presentation is really all about a lot of this stuff can happen in real time today.

49:04We know where that limit is. You notice that we're not going into structural modeling when we do this.

49:08We're keeping it at that lightweight level and we're hopping over when it goes into design and construction...

49:12...coming back in the facilities management side.

49:14So it's about the early planning and the facility management and everything in between is still morphing...

49:19...but we're starting to move in and find those views and those transactions that can happen in real time.

49:26This is actually an animation. I'm just showing some things that I showed you earlier, but any other questions?

49:30Yeah.

49:31[Audience question] Do you find that a lot of your traditional architecture colleagues are threatened by this...

49:40...because it somewhat automates at least pieces of the design process?

49:46Yes. As an architect, that's been my struggle from the very beginning.

49:51When I first got into BIM in '93, I go, Oh boy, all architects are going to jump on board.

49:56The biggest challenge...and we've had this as part of our Coast Guard project...

49:59...the biggest challenge is not adopting the technology. It's the change management that has to happen.

50:05The threat of change and the threat of losing control of things, as an architect I'm saying this, but it goes for anybody really.

50:12It is a big threat. But it's also an opportunity for those that are ready to jump in.

50:18Unfortunately, when the economy was great, it didn't matter, right?

50:23We can do that. We can do it the old way. We'll scratch on paper and whatever.

50:26The best thing that's happened in the last couple of years is this economy that sucks.

50:32It's bad for us, but it's the best medicine. It's changed the outlook of everybody I've worked with.

50:37The people that didn't have time to look at this stuff are now saying, How do we become competitive?

50:43And we say, Well, let's talk about it. And we work with clients like this, and the thing for us to...

50:47...from our perspective is, we're not trying to do all...I'm touching on a lot of things...

50:51...but we're not trying to do all this ourselves.

50:53We're really looking for ways to collaborate, 'cause it's impossible for any single group to be able to do all this.

50:58But are there are going to be casualties in the industry and hopefully the people in this room...

51:02...because we're all here and we're thinking in this mode, obviously we're in a different kind of a mode...

51:06...but that's the biggest challenge that I've had as an architect, is not being able to get through to the architects.

51:10And there's also...there are risks involved with...there's contractual issues, the way that you work...

51:20...what information are you releasing, and all that kind of stuff, it has to go away.

51:25If we get too caught up and when we can't do that today, we'll never get there. We'll just have to kind of just go forward.

51:29Yep.

51:31[Audience question] Secondly, you were talking about a minute ago...

51:33...there's a wealth of security, if the security is working the way it is and they tell me to move the building.

51:39In your process that you're using, if you move the building and the substrate says, No, it can't go.

51:44Does it come back and tell you, No, geology won't support it, or geography...

51:49That would be the ideal...if we had Eric's tool, right? And I was moving a building, right now I don't have it.

51:55I can't show this slide. For some reason, my Internet connection's gone down...

51:57...but we have connections to ArcGIS Server live, we're pulling in parcel data and property lines...

52:02...and if we had soil conditions, and if that soil condition knew that as I move this heavy building around...

52:10...the soil here is going to cause more foundation.

52:12Well, that's something I want to know, but it doesn't happen immediately right now.

52:15I think the follow-up on that then too, 'cause we all know, everybody in here knows that not all...

52:20...I mean, soils maps don't really do what soils maps do.

52:26Sounds like, Yogi Berra, but anyway, the other side of it is that you do that and then you find out that the dataset is wrong.

52:33You made the decision on it. What do you think the legal ramifications of that are going to be?

52:36Right. It's a garbage-in-garbage-out question, right? And we deal with that a lot.

52:40It's...in an ideal world, yes, that information will be correct...

52:45...but I'd rather get something and know where I'm getting it from and say...

52:48...Okay, I can make some kind of a judgment on that.

52:50I still have to make a decision. Nothing's going to be automatic.

52:53That's the beauty of all this is, all this looks like we're automating everything...

52:56...but it's really about people saying, Well, wait a minute. That doesn't make any sense.

52:59It's just like working with Excel and not knowing anything about math. You don't get what you want out of it.

53:03So yes, it does require somebody to react to it, and the fact that there are more eyes on it...

53:09...actually reduces the chance of something going wrong. We, like I said earlier, we want to create a lot of train wrecks.

53:17We want to see the train wrecks and weed through it and we do that quite a bit.

53:20We start piling things on. We throw stuff away and we just kind of...and you create this trajectory.

53:25It might be bumpy as you go up, but at least you're getting to that point, you keep on refining it, and then you build it.

53:31But what's happening right now is you're doing all this stuff...

53:34...you miss a huge thing, and all of a sudden you're in construction, and you're wasting millions of dollars.

53:39There's a lot of statistics out there.

53:41The thing that I could not show you, I had another team, Balfour Beatty, in Virginia...

53:46...that was doing a study on this site and they were doing cost estimating on these buildings.

53:50We had started a couple of hours earlier; while I was sitting in the audience...

53:52...I was actually interacting with them and they had submitted some of their buildings with cost in it.

53:56So it really...it's not about me just putting blocks on a site.

54:00It's, I want to interact with the specialists out there that can give me answers to this.

54:03Yes?

54:04What are the implications for education?

54:06This kind of fluid, real-time, cross-disciplinary work that you're doing...

54:10...is so different from the way in which we still teach, so what would you suggest we do differently?

54:19I teach part-time at USC too, and I've just been so frustrated with schools, to tell you the truth.

54:25I mean, it's such a great place to experiment with stuff, but schools are so...kind of stuck in the past.

54:31The student's are itching to do this and I think the opportunity is ripe to make that change...

54:36...and I think schools are a perfect place to do this, but unfortunately, things move slowly some places.

54:41That's kind of the whole change issue again.

54:44But it is a perfect educational tool because you start having those kind of dialogs.

54:49It's not about the beautiful geometry that you're creating and how great it looks in 3D. I mean, the tool's almost like passé now.

54:55It's really...how do we make these decisions?

54:57So yeah, we didn't have a long way to go, but I think there's a lot of really great stuff happening out there right now.

55:01In the last couple of years, there's really some interesting things happening at schools.

55:04Yes?

55:06I'm going to play a little architectural inside baseball here.

55:10But you mentioned that you teach at USC, and USC at the moment is promoting itself as a center of digital design...

55:17...based around some very contemporary issues in architectural design culture to do with perimetrics and things like that...

55:23...and I wonder if you might...or, I would be very interested to hear you, for this audience...

55:28...describe the difference between what's going on in fashionable architecture circles around data-driven...

55:37...or "data-driven" design and the work that you're doing...

55:39...and how you would position yourself in that larger context of contemporary design culture.

55:45As far as...

55:46Does that make sense as a question?

55:47Kind of. I think you're asking, How does this fit in with data-driven design in the process of...

55:52I mean, if you looked at the...if we brought up the USC website, there would be a lot of stuff like...

55:56...biomorphic shapes that purport to be driven by data-driven processes in Grasshopper, or something like that.

56:03Yeah, Rhino, and then put scripts...

56:05Right. And so the...and I'm just interested to see how you would, maybe to an architectural audience...

56:13...describe the relevance of the BIM-driven work that you're doing to that thread of contemporary architectural conversation.

56:22I think there are relationships that...we've done work similar to that with kind of databases driving different shapes...

56:29...and then...but you still have to...you create a hundred different variations of that and you narrow it down...

56:33...and you make a decision and you keep on going, so it's kind of just automated...semi-automatic process...

56:38...and then being able to interact with that.

56:40And I think in that scenario, if we had a connection...in the ideal world, if we had a connection to Grasshopper or Rhino...

56:45...and you were doing that kind of thing and we could pull it in and put it on a site and actually get numbers out of that...

56:50...and saying, Well, here's the construction cost for energy or whatever.

56:52We're already doing that with SketchUp, actually. I didn't get a chance to do that...

56:54...but we can do a...SketchUp shape, import it in here, it slices floors, and have that shape there.

57:00So I think there...we have to have those kinds of discussions, and I think what I wish would happen...

57:06...is that more groups that are out there that are experimenting with this kind of stuff can start making connections.

57:10Because if we're in isolation, just like the great example that we saw at one-thirty about the crime maps...

57:17...of being able to leverage what has already been tried and then open it up and try something else.

57:23In this day and age, I think the most important thing to become relevant...

57:26...is to be connected and to share and we tend to close down and say, Well, this is what we're doing.

57:32And we really have to see how many connections can we make. And some of it might be threatening.

57:37You might lose some of your IP or you might lose some of your ideas...

57:41...but unless we make those connections, then you're...being isolated does not solve anything.

57:46And I think the schools are another great place to kind of push that, as well.

57:51Okay. Any other questions?

57:54Yes. Should I go ahead, or down there?

58:01Let's go down here and then we'll go up there.

58:04You've been demonstrating a very high level of hill climbing and trial and error as a design method.

58:11And in the...the ways you describe making decisions during that process are informal.

58:17It implies to me that your client does not have a formal decision-making process other than whoever's there making decisions.

58:25What would happen to your method if you were presented with a client who had a formalized decision process...

58:33...and would the design be decision driven rather than data driven?

58:37It's a combination of the two. It's not just a...it definitely is not an...I'm showing kind of glimpses of our process...

58:45...but in our actual projects, we use this just like you're sketching on paper and having a discussion with a client.

58:51And if there's a formal review process with the client, yes, that has to be part of the process.

58:55You have to be able to adapt to what the client needs, and each client has different needs...

58:59...but you need to have the information about the project to be able to interact...

59:04...and then become artistic about the decisions that the client wants to ask you.

59:08So it's not...that's another thing I get a lot of.

59:10As an architect, it looks like I'm just automating design and stuff like that...

59:14...but it's...yeah, but it's really kind of a...it's not one or the other.

59:18It's all together. How do you get all this together to make that happen?

59:24Okay, there was something back there?

59:25[Audience question] Yes. It's actually a related question.

59:27I think what you are showing is a process in which speed is emphasized as one of the most positive values here...

59:39...and some of the reasons for that are obvious and very compelling, especially in comparison with slowness.

59:47But I just wonder if you'd like to comment on that a little bit.

59:51Is speed the most compelling value and are there competing values?

59:57Definitely. Speed was an issue here 'cause I had 60 minutes and I wanted to make a point that this is possible...

1:00:02...but really the reason we automate...what I'm saying is, I want to automate the stuff that should be automated...

1:00:08...so I can spend more time to reflect and slow down, which this allows you to do.

1:00:14It looks like everything's kind of churning like this...

1:00:15...but the reality is you're kind of having pockets of things happening and then you have more options to look at.

1:00:21And then, we use paper and pencil still too.

1:00:24We're still sketching stuff by hand, but speed is not the primary driver.

1:00:28It has to be...it's again, it's not black or white.

1:00:31All this stuff is just another way of doing things and the tools that are available.

1:00:36I think we're at time now, right? If there's any other questions, or we could talk outside if you want?

1:00:43Right, Bill? We're done, right?

1:00:46Yeah. So thank you very much.