Back to basics, what is BIM?
It's a project strategy that uses a digital model, representing a digital pre- construction of the building, as the unique source for producing, managing and communicating all the needed project information to the appointed consultants. Most of the standards and BIM protocols currently in force throughout the industry have to deal with two key points: collaboration techniques and discipline segregation. And while on the collaboration side multiple tools and procedures are arising every day, from the disruptive platform Flux to the new ISO 19650, there seem to be few disciplines that are being left behind.
But what does constitute an autonomous discipline? The National Institute of Building Sciences provides a list of what are considered to be Design Disciplines, alongside a definition: "Each design discipline has a different set of skills, professional standards, and issues that drive how they operate in the building process." The list includes Structural Engineering and Architecture, Electrical, HVAC and Plumbing Engineering, Fire Protection: all well-known disciplines in the realm of BIM.
Interior Design, on the other hand, isn’t for sure the most common discipline nominated when is the time to speak about the advantages of Building Information Modeling. While institutions such as the British Landscape Institute are producing guides to aid their discipline’s transition to BIM, such as the purple-covered handbook published in 2016, Interior Designers still seem to resist the change. Furthermore, the tools don’t seem to be happy: we all know that Revit wasn’t created primarily to deliver Interior Design. Right?
Well, all these things being true, transitioning a practice to BIM is no small thing, regardless of the discipline. There are, however, certain tricks you can start to put into place in order to get off on the right foot, with a structured set of best practices for information modelling of interiors.
The Discipline
"Interiors are the space in which all manifestation of architecture are applied and conferred quality to."
-Bruno Zevi
Designing for interiors is an autonomous discipline with a whole different set of rules, and can improve its processes by going BIM: advantages in a better coordination and a smoother communication of pieces are there to be harvested and most criticalities can be effectively counteracted with efficient strategies.
An overview for few of these strategies to flick through are provided in the presentation below.
Strategie Digitali (Italian for Digital Strategies) is a Computational BIM & Project Management consulting firm based in Milan, Italy. Chiara Rizzarda and Claudio Vittori Antisari founded the Firm by merging their different working experiences, united on the idea of using digital tools in order to improve quality, efficiency and effectiveness of architectural design and building production. Nowadays they spend most of their time doing what they like: helping firms, companies and individuals to improve their competencies with digital tools.
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