Rendering of Google's new Sunnyvale campus (BIG Architects)
nologies capture market presence and share.
Will this happen anytime soon? That is the big ques-
tion. And the AEC industry may be saved (or ultimately
destroyed) by its current structure, where various pro-
fessionals often work in their own silos.
Keynote speaker Dennis Sheldon, director of the Dig-
ital Building Laboratory (DBL) at the Georgia Institute of
Technology, shared some insights into the challenges
(and opportunities) that the technology creates for link-
ages and collaboration between the various AEC indus-
tries, including BIM, virtual and augmented reality.
Meanwhile, Phil Bernstein, the associate dean at the
Yale School of Architecture, said current trends suggest
big data, computational design and integrating machine
learning could “eventually help architects design more
optimized buildings and reduce the waste that comes
when expectations don’t line up with how a building ac-
tually performs in the real world,” The Architect’s News-
paper reported.
But BIM and virtual reality have been around for sev-
eral years now, and while they have certainly influenced
design and construction practices, they haven’t
changed the universe, it seems. Something else needs
to give – and the suggestion from some speakers is that
it will come from highly capitalized new integrated in-
dustry organizations, and individual owners demanding
greater technological adaptation and accountability.
The disruptors, such as Katerra, combine
modular/factory building with a beginning-to-end de-
sign, engineering and construction collaboration
process, meaning that the owner places the order, ar-
chitects and engineers (often in remote locations), pre-
pare the design, and the work is scheduled in factory
settings, with modular components shipped to the ac-
tual construction site for rapid assembly.
If these services catch on – and billions of dollars in
investment capital have been staked on the proposition
– the traditional design and construction model will be
upended as designers, contractors and subtrades either
need to buy into the new competing mammoth building
organizations or fight for a shrinking market share
where traditional practices and relationships remain in
place. Another drive for change is happening at the owner-
ship level. Jeremy Munn, a senior capital project man-
ager for the design and construction department within
the facilities division of Northeastern University in
Boston, for example, described how the university is fi-
nally getting all the pieces together in a digital procure-
ment/building cycle, but not by using a one-size fits all
system, and with plenty of training and support to en-
courage compliance (and this progress is coming be-
cause the owner is driving the agenda, not the
architects, engineers or contractors.)
Munn said his department manages 250 new proj-
ects a year, of varying size and complexity, from minor
retrofits to multi-million dollar new structures.
His goal: Build an e-procurement and building sys-
tem that has consistent templates, reporting dash-
boards, automated project delivery processes, and
advanced document management capabilities. There
are different software packages that do some, but not
all, of the tasks the university is seeking – but the solu-
tion is not to force everything into a single piece of soft-
Florida Construction News — SUMMER 2018 – 5