Overview | What is it? | Agenda | Sponsorship

What is a BIMStorm™ Build Live Event?

New technology can revolutionise the way buildings are designed and how the public can be engaged in the process. By using the power of collaborative working, the web and international developments in interoperability, BUILD LONDON LIVE will show the capabilities of these new paradigms for architecture, engineering, planning and construction.

BUILD LONDON LIVE develops the ideas of the Onuma BIMStorm™s and the UK TEAMWORK initiatives of 2000-2004. BIMStorm™s focused on the earliest stages of design and TEAMWORK relied on physical co-location of people and computer equipment. BUILD LONDON LIVE will span more of the design process and by working across the web, allow many people to participate.

Taking part in a 48 hour event:

• Allows time for both early stage design and for more detailed design
• Gives flexibility in timing of peoples involvement around the world
• BUILD LONDON LIVE will give "Seeing is Believing" the time and space it needs to truly demonstrate what is now possible
• It will boost the profile of the participating organisations and put them in touch with a network of active users
• It will boost the profile of collaborative BIM in general, and give impetus to all those taking part to show their developing skills and capability

What will actually happen?

At midday on Tuesday 24th June, a specially chosen and internationally recognisable site in London will be announced, along with a brief for a significant multi-use development. All the key information will be published in interoperable formats. Teams will be free to exploit any interoperable technology and to add updates to a public web-site. All visitors to the web-site will be free to comment. Build London Live will attempt to explore many scenarios, working practices and the use of BIM technologies:

• Real time cost and area/program calculation linked to 2D and 3D models
• Using web enabled tools to allow for multiple users to collaborate in real time
• Massive real-time collaboration
• A series of rapid-fire live charrettes or "BIMStorm™ to design the project at warp speed
• Making sustainable decisions in real-time
• Identify potential errors faster
• Using collaborative open standards based exchanges of information and BIM
• Make the process transparent and available to be watched and participated on-line
• Pushing BIM and collaborative tools to their limits: Asite, Adobe PDF, ArchiCAD, Autodesk ADT, AutoCAD Architecture 2008, ALLPLAN, Cadwork, Calcus, City GML, Data Design System (DDS), Digital Projects, dRofus, EliteCAD, IFC2SKP, IFC, Knowledge, Google Docs, Google Earth, Go To Meeting, Google SketchUp, IFC Engine Viewer, InfoCAD, Bentley MicroStation, Triforma, Architecture & Structural, MagiCAD, MS Excel, MS Word, NavisWorks, NIST CIS/2 to IFC Translator, Octaga, Onuma Planning System (OPS), ONUMA BIMXML Converter, paper, PDA, pencil, Revit Architecture & Structure, Riuska, RYHTI FM, Skype, Solibri Model Checker, StruSoft, Tekla Structures, Vectorworks, Vico Software Constructor, Webex, OGC WFS, 3G cell phone etc.

Demonstrating a new way of working

In a traditional design and construction process, a developer must find an appropriate property and define a program for a project. They must then run through multiple scenarios of what to build to support the changing market and their bottom line. At the same time they may need to negotiate with city agencies and stakeholders, and broker for the various properties they are reviewing. They may bring on an architect at an early stage of development to study several scenarios and create an early plan. All of the above activities and many more are dependent of each other.

In a traditional process much of the early planning and design and is linear and disconnected. The architect prepares early plans and documents and submits them to the developer after a few weeks. By that time the requirements may have changed. There is a constant back and forth between experts, engineers, cost estimators, local authorities and stakeholders to review and approve the next step or in many cases to backtrack and redo work. This is just for the early design process.

The BIMSTORM method

Collaborative working and new tools allows the experts to collaborate in decision making in real time which helps to spot problems and identify patterns and trends as the project progresses. Corrections or philosophy revisions can be undertaken immediately. Experts can be brought in to view the project data and give advice as the design evolves.