Evidence Based Design (EBD)... performative design in the computational design and environmental simulation fields etc have dominated architectural education over the last decade. I guess it had to come with Moore's Law and the spread of the internet.
EBD and other 'objective' approaches to architectural design are of course de rigueur in the station/infrastructure sector, as both client and consultant bodies are dominated by engineers. Even the term 'architect' is often replaced by things like 'premises engineer' :-)
While there are a lot of analytical/calculation tools like Ecotech (defunct, I know) that allow architects to get a handle on a lot of environmental metrics in order to inform their designs, and tools to demonstrate compliance with various sustainability standards, there does not seem to be much on the market to help with other 'calculation' chores that the architect would normally deal with. The structural guys have their ISM link... I guess.
So, the architect left to deal with 5th grade math problems, at worst. All the rest is been delegated to the other consultants like the environmental, services, structural etc engineers, or to the sub-contractors via a performance spec... right?
Or is it?
"Design problems...are often of such size and complexity that no single individual, or organization, or design environment is capable of effectively addressing all aspects of the design. In such situations the design problem must be addressed by a team of specialists or experts... Although many computer-aided design and engineering environments have been developed, few are capable of supporting the type of distributed, multidisciplinary team-oriented approach such problems require"
Kitzmiller, C. and Jagannathan,V . Design in a Distributed Blackboard Framework Intelligent CAD.I: Proceedings of lFlP TC/WG5. 2 Workshop on Intelligent CAD
Extracted from WS93-07-018 "Where design engineers spend/waste their time" R. A. Crabtree, N. K. Baid, M. S. Fox... which is pretty good read. A lot of the problems mentioned are being addressed by current BIM concepts like CDE, BS1192 model sharing procedures etc.
OK, most AEC design tasks are not that complex. A lot of structural engineers exclude secondary steelwork or cladding support design from their scope. They expect the architects (5th grade math only) or installers to speak to the suppliers and extract the member size, movement joint spacing etc from them. Ditto for cladding supports and sandwich panels.
The problem is that the suppliers will not be able to provide much input prior to them getting the job. This results in a lot of 'design intent' info that will need to be firmed up under very tight programme restrictions later. A recipe for problems and sub-optimal results where one goal is usually prioritised at the cost of others. The typical 'contractual' response to this problem is to coerce the consultants to take this on at novation.. or earlier. Usually with mixed results due to chronic skills shortage problems.
Coincidently, there seems to be a growing pool of analytical tools that have been provided by the suppliers like Halfen, HILTI, Tata Steel, Ancon, Metsec, LINDAB, RUUKKI etc that deal with and speed up the 'secondary' selection, analysis and sizing, detail design tasks the design consultants have excluded. The problem is passing the 'design rationale' partially described in the paper above. This will entail scoping the performance requirements for the works at a level that will be over and above the FM requirements that are typically targeted today (COBie etc). This will also extend to capturing the decisions and/or calculations made leading to the perf requirements ie 'design rationale'. Is the BIM model the best place to store this? Not without more tools, I think.
Not unusual to find that just going for cheaper substitutions (usually the suppliers who do not have good advisory services!) is not enough... to save real money/programme, the brief will have to be challenged. To be fair, the consultant is duty bound to comply with the Employers Requirements and will be focused on getting compliance approval, not questioning the brief which will be prone to be open-ended. But as the job progresses, there may be opportunities to relax the initial requirements. See Crossrail example.
BTW: A lot of the kind of apps start out as small web-based tools that are designed to help reduce the technical hotline staff's workload. Simple stuff like acoustic rating, themal u-value 'engineering toolbox' type calculators; or product selection decision support tools. On the other end of the scale, there are full-blown addons for concrete formwork which include direct-to-fabrication tools like scheduling and nesting.
Large infra jobs like Crossrail, are the natural place for this kind of 'supplier'-centric design. As mentioned, MEP system suppliers tend to be limited to one or two suppliers (who wants to have stock a multitude of different parts that do the same thing etc etc). The suppliers would end up having a much longer and more lucrative relationship with the employer / asset operator anyway, compared to the builder/contractor... and will therefore have more incentive and scope to invest in the BIM tools to get it right.
Back to the numerically challenged architect... No one wants him/her to do heavy duty calcs (including the P.I. insurers!). Best to leave to the 'specialists' who will do it day-in day-out. Resisting Taylorism is futile.
But, what happens when the design is completed by the specialist subcontractor and submitted for approval comment? I suppose that, ideally, any structural calcs would need to be checked by the structural engineer, any services-related calcs by the services engineer, general buildability and sequencing by the contractor etc etc... right?
Given the turn-around restrictions, this kind and quality of checking is pretty limited. A simple example would be checking that the cladding system deadweight or lateral load assumptions correspond to the assumptions made in the backing wall / structure, or the cladding movement joint envelope corresponds to the primary structure's movements and tolerances. A lot to get through in limited time frame.
'Status B' submitalls and re-design by the subcontractor is hugely costly due to the amount of documents etc that will need to change. It would make sense to communicate as much of the 'design rationale' as possible. The traditional remedy to this kind of problem is to use IPD to secure ECI. The problem is most specialist subbies are not interested in giving 'free advice' and will only engage when they get the job. So, the pressure to do a lot during the shop drawing submission stage will still be intense on most jobs.
Maybe the calculation sheets need to be linked to the corresponding elements in the BIM model?
Thematic visualisation tools would be key. There should also be a way to display structural loadings the 3d model. Something that is available in STAAD but not in Aecosim or Navigator, Revit can display loadings in the model view, regardless if they are generated in RSA or Revit. A means to quickly visualise deflections without having to go back into STAAD would also be good.
It is usual for the cladding spec to ask for thermal and condensation risk checks for ALL panels. What you normally get are the calcs for the typical panels. Sure, this is permisible under the right circumstances and you could ask for calcs for panels that you are worried about, but what would be good is if ABD has some quick checking tools like THERM, BL WINDOW, UcanPSI or even Assembly U-value Calculator. The last one is very similar to what is already in Hevacomp. This would allow the ABD user to Ref attach the submittal drawing or model in and just do a quick check to confirm and add weight to the additional calc request.
Hi Dominic,
dominic SEAH said:visualise deflections
Regarding this, are you suggesting to inter-op post processing data through ISM and then display in AECOsim?
Warm Regards,
Subhamoy Kundu
Yes.
There should also be a facility to synch the view points of ABD and STAAD, so that users can have ABD and STAAD 'side by side' and chat things through on the phone/skype.