BLAUGI Blog of AUGI

BiLT ANZ 2018 Finale

There is more to BIM than technology and BiLT ANZ 2018 reflected an increasing focus on the human side of BIM and related AEC professions.

One prominent sign of this was a panel discussion, “Gender diversity in AEC: Challenging our industry sponsored by Central Innovation”, which featured on the Friday plenary mainstage. Moderated (with contributions) by Justine Clark (Parlour); Elizabeth Harper (GHD), Glenda Caldwell (QUT) & Todd Bartley (AECOM) challenged the majority male (~85%) attendees to address diversity in their own environment. Aspects discussed included the benefits of diversity, considering messaging in advertising, approaches to diversity in the recruitment process, training to address conscious/unconscious bias, and flexible working arrangements.

A great resource (for local attendees) is “Marion’s List”: a public register of women in Australian architecture and the built environment disciplines to approach for input, mentoring and speaking. It’s a proactive response to help address gender bias in industry forums/events and a fine example to consider matching (if not already established) in your region.

Saturday, the final day of BiLT ANZ 2018, skipped the previous days morning plenary and launched straight into the 75-minute streamed sessions. For me it started with Phil Lazarus’ session “Advance your digital agenda” which was also all about people. @bimtroublemaker was in great form sharing how to talk BIM with your management. It was an introduction to the psychology of management and how to frame your BIM strategy in a way they will embrace. A compilation of inspired career advice rounded out a great session which finished with the line: “Never curse that "They don't understand BIM", that keeps us employed”.

“A Guided Tour of Cutting Edge Creek with Some BIM Geeks” was a fast-paced multi-presenter tour of both technology and techniques led by Luke Johnson with Joe Banks, Dominic Martens, Adam Sheather & (via video conference from the US) Aaron Maller contributing. It ranged from choosing and implementing hardware (personal and network), approaches to evaluating/auditing models, tips for data wrangling (including a mention of Safe’s FME and the line “a Revit model is not a database”) and collaboration platforms. It ended with an overview of the diverse range of hardware they use every day. Aaron’s is missing from the photo below as needed an entire second slide…

Luke Johnson’s “The Worst BIM Projects - A Case Study of How BIM Can Go Wrong, and How to Avoid the Pain” was a frank, courageous, look at a project where BIM didn’t work. It was revealing that the failure was more the human, contractual and process aspects than a tale of technology not working. Luke addressed what happened, how to avoid or detect similar signs of looming problems in your own projects, and how to handle them if they happen. While it is great to hear of success stories it is also valuable to learn from other’s lessons, pain, hard as that can be to share.

My final session of the day was “Connect the docs: BIM 360”: Carl Storms’ impressive explanation of the mix of applications and services which make up Autodesk BIM 360. To compress the complex and twisted history of Autodesk’s cloud offer, the capabilities, duplications and limitations of the ‘Classic” and newly released “Next Generation” BIM 360 into 75 minutes is quite a feat. Carl did this admirably in a slick presentation which covered all aspects.

The Closing Keynote and Wrap Up was sponsored by ClearEdge and Kelly Cone hosted the Vision 20/20 Competition. It was a fast paced (20 slides, of max 20 seconds each) and fun look into the future of AEC/BIM based on the topic: “The Dangers of Technology”. Performed live and judged by the audience (voting with the BiLT app) in real time. Finalists Carl Storms and Nathan Love did a brilliant job netting prizes including a ticket to any BiLT 2019 event (Nathan) and gigantic Millennium Falcon Lego set (Carl).

After thanking all the attendees for coming, the Organisers, Sponsors, Speakers, Technicians, and QUT Volunteer Students who helped deliver it BiLT ANZ Chairman Chris Needham summarised the biggest BiLT event to date:

This quote, from Ashraf’s opening keynote, Chris highlighted in his wrap up resonated. BiLT is about people, connecting, learning, sharing and BiLT ANZ 2018 delivered.

With the conference formally wrapped up the BiLT finale was the “Special Event brought to you by CSI & BILT ANZ — an elegant evening with lots of food, cocktails, music, dancing and entertainment”. The venue was spectacular, Brisbane City Hall, and host Ashraf Habibullah certainly delivered! The entertainment was his band, from the US, and with food & drink galore it was a spectacular ending to the conference.

BiLT ANZ 2018 delivered an impressive variety of technology, techniques and tuition but most importantly a brilliant venue for networking and learning. There are regional BiLT events around the world, next up is BiLT North America in St Louis, and you won’t regret attending if you get the opportunity.

You can follow BiLT activity on Twitter @BiLTevent

• BiLT ANZ 2018 Event Website: www.rtcevents.com/bilt/anz18/
• RTC Event Website: www.rtcevents.com

 

BiLT ANZ 2018 tees off!

The BiLT ANZ 2018 opening plenary began with sponsor sessions - from Autodesk & Newforma - then Omar Awny introduced the remarkable Ashraf Habibullah whose keynote lit up the room with his personality, presentation and (literally) with his illuminated foil jacket.

He's a Structural Engineer, President and CEO of Computers and Structures, Inc (products including ETABS) but didn't talk about that other than to illustrate his point. The theme was how to make a difference as a person and a professional by bringing delight to your life, those around you, and your work. In addition to charming the audience, aided by gifting several iPads, Ashraf will be hosting (even bringing his band from the US) what is promised to be a spectacular closing evening event on Saturday.

With the plenary over the sessions which form the bulk of the event kicked off. There are multiple 75-minute streamed sessions ranging from presentations, panels, forums and hands on labs. I can only give an impression of this as there is simply no way for one person to see them all!

The range of content on offer represents the incredible growth of the RTC Events portfolio. What started fourteen years ago as a series of Revit Technology Roadshows, one of which initiated the Auckland Revit User Group I'm involved with, has become a distributed virtually connected international workforce staging nine events per annum around the world.

My day one sessions included Paul Wintour looking at the world of computational design and the various approaches to modelling geometry and analysing objects/spatial relationships. It was high level but offered a good conceptual guide to the benefits and limitations of different approaches and algorithms.

From the world of computational theory, it was into the very real world of interiors. I was attracted to Ceilidh Higgins session on interior design for Revit as it relates to the workflows we face in my day job, retail design. I picked up some useful tips and approaches to 'adapting' Revit to do a job it isn't really optimised for and techniques for interior projects where you may not get a building model. As retail tenant you often just get what you’re given with little control on the model deliverable. Tips include only modelling what you need, using CAD links for detail where the model isn't available, and simple families in groups as an alternative to complex 'try to do it all super families'.

This, as with all sessions, offers a point of view and stimulates some interesting conversation in the room about alternative approaches. It's the incidental conversations, random meetings and follow-up discussions (which overflow into the hallways and exhibit space) which are the difference between attending an event and seeing the same presentation online.

Industry standards are the subject of much debate and I attended a session by the Australasian BIM Advisory Board on their work to create industry wide standards. The concern I have is the world seems to have a lot of organisations setting standards, but the software has crude tools for managing data where client requirements and standards can vary.

The evening welcome event was held in the exhibit hall giving a chance to meet sponsors, exhibitors and fellow attendees. For those who desired this carried on at the nearby Baedeker Bar after-party. It is in an old brick mill building with a neat speakeasy atmosphere, cobbled floor and secret spinning bookcase door!

The Friday morning Plenary recognised the support of HP/Nvidia hardware, Central Innovation (whose offer includes hardware, ArchiCAD and Solibri platforms) and Autodesk. Ian Molloy, of Autodesk, also talked about connected BIM and the ESRI/Autodesk partnership announced at Autodesk University 2017. I was surprised HP/Nvidia didn't have more of a presence in the exhibit hall given the brilliant range of AR/VR hardware they offer but it was covered by reseller partners.

My first session of the day looked at the reality of BIM from the Quantity Surveyors point of view. Keeley Pomeroy had a practical overview of the benefits, pitfalls and costs of BIM at different deliverable stages and some achievable approaches to maximise the benefits, minimise the pain.

The next session was lifecycle data management from the owner’s point of view. Looking after an iconic UN World Heritage Site with a 250-300+ year potential lifespan is as lifecycle as it gets, and the Sydney Opera House was designed long before BIM. Chris Linning & Steve Lianos session covered the journey migrating decades of legacy into a digital model-based facilities management solution. It was a revealing look at the complexity of managing a unique public building from both an operational and refurbishment viewpoint.

Next it was Kevin Thickett’s very realistic view of the maze of potential for misunderstanding that Level of Development, Detail, Completion, Complexity has become. He offered a view that cut through the complexity with "Kev's Gospel of the Good LOD". By the way, the D represents development and forget about the rest.

David Spehar and Robert Manna had a session on using data to fix what BIM broke. They began with a short (one slide) history of BIM and posed the question;
“Are we at the point in the BIM party where everyone is suffering from a hangover? "
They offered a solution which took a proactive approach to analysing and reporting BIM progress, and potential problem tracking, to avoid the catastrophic broken BIM which can result from ignoring issues.

I later saw another session which took the opposite approach, ignoring issues which don't impact the outcome, but that is the benefit of seeing different views in the community. Nobody has all the answers; other’s solutions may not fit your needs but can spark the idea or process which does.

The day finished with an evening function at a nearby golf course. We had the run of the event space, terrace bar, awesome BBQ dinner, a driving range and mini-putt course for the BIM geeks to display their golf skills. It was a nice end to the second day. Tomorrow, is a full schedule of sessions and the much-anticipated evening extravaganza in conclusion.

I’ll be following up with a summary post, but you can also follow BiLT ANZ activity on social media; look for the #BILTANZ tag and follow @BiLTevent on Twitter.

BiLT ANZ 2018 Event Website: www.rtcevents.com/bilt/anz18/

RTC Australasia 2016 - Post-Event Wrap Up

The Twelfth RTC Australasia: A wrap up and why it is not being called the “Revit Technology Conference” anymore.

This year, the RTC Australasia was held at the Crowne Plaza in one of Australia's most sophisticated food and wine regions: the Hunter Valley. About 150km north of Sydney - nearly 400 people attended this year’s RTC Australasia, making it a great conference once again.

Welcome and opening statements: Opening the conference, Chris Needham started the Keynote Address event with an opening remark, announcing that the RTC is no longer the Revit Technology Conference – not confined by name or nature to all things Revit. It is no longer constrained to design, either. He outlined that the goal of the RTC event management would be to build an attendee base of a much broader demographic.

The Freak Factor: This year’s keynote speaker was David Randoll who presented The Freak Factor: Discovering Uniqueness by Flaunting Weakness. As someone who professed to talk for a living, he spoke about how people can get the most out of themselves by allowing them to do what they are best at instead of trying to fix their flaws. In fact their flaws can be important clues to their strengths.

Conference Sessions: Afterwards, the conference continued with individual sessions, including presentations and lab sessions as well as two new streams for construction planning and estimating and the ArchiCAD user community which joined via ARCHICON. As usual the lab sessions offered gallery and class seating and – apart from some technical challenges during some sessions – were very well prepared and presented.

Exhibition: The exhibition took place in the exhibition centre, presenting Sefaira, Autodesk, Codebook, USG Boral, Solibri, Invicara, the RTC gadgets lab, CAD Learning (who also sponsored the competition prizes), Pluralsight, A2K Technologies, SysQue, Newforma, Peer Software, Ideate, Revitzo, CAD Group, CR Kennedy, dRofus, Oasys and Chaos Group as well as Common Elements Ltd.

Social Events: As always, the social events were one of the highlights during the RTC event. At the end of the first day of the conference, the Welcome Function took place in the exhibition hall (sponsored by Ideate), being followed by the Friday Evening Function which took place at the Hope Estate Winery (sponsored by Chaos Group). The last day was highlighted by the Saturday’s Gala Dinner (sponsored by New Forma) in which Chris Needham announced that the RTC Australasia 2017 will be held at the Adelaide Convention Centre, from the 25^th to the 27^th of May, 2017.

Overall the twelfth RTC Australasia 2016 has shown that the AEC industry is not just discussing BIM as a new technology anymore, instead BIM has become an integral part of business strategies and conversations. As Dr. Dominik Holzer mentioned in his session, BIM technology may not always be mandatory yet but there is an increasing number of organisations and states that are already asking for it, changing the AEC industry and the role of those managing it.

RTC Australasia 2016

The Twelfth RTC Australasia: Thursday 12 May – Saturday 14 May 2016

Not being completely over yet, but the twelfth RTC Australasia at the Crowne Plaza can already be described as a great event again. Having attended numerous sessions to meet some of the world's top instructors and industry experts while being able to network and share ideas with an international community - accomplishing the free Revit certification examinations in between - just make this conference unique.

Keynote Speaker: This year’s keynote speaker was David Rendall, presenting The Freak Factor: Discovering Uniqueness by Flaunting Weakness. David Rendall has spoken to audiences around the world and has a doctor of management degree in organizational leadership, as well as a graduate degree in psychology. Believing that amplifying people’s weaknesses is crucial for their success, he encourages them to do the same. In fact, people’s weakness is actually the best clue to their strengths. As a result, people should find out how maximizing their “freak factor” can transform their life, work, and relationships:

“What makes us weird also makes us wonderful. What makes us weak also makes us strong.”

Speakers and the Glorious Gadgets: Usually a project is not only about modelling as documentation is also playing a big role. Katja Gard – Revit Manager at the Buchan Group – was speaking about this in her session: Documentation…Documentation. She outlined a typical workflow by dividing it into four simple steps: Pre-model, model set-up, working model(s) and documentation. While outlining the pro and cons of the strategy itself, she also reminds the audience that the human factor will always be important. Harlan Brumm - Autodesk’s Revit Product Manager for Architecture and Construction – presented the latest advances in Revit and its companion building products. These included i.e. new functions for railings which can now be hosted on shaped edited floors, roofs and on the top of walls, the introduction of depth cueing which allows users to add depth to their elevations and sections as well as a new text editor and layout engine. Also tags have been improved, allowing to calculate values and improvements to leaders to document a model more individually. One of the last speakers today was Dominik Holzer – owner of AEC Connect and author of the book: The BIM Manager’s Handbook. His presentation: You are a BIM Manager – Really? outlined the cornerstones of management activities associated with BIM as most BIM managers seem to be insufficiently trained in management – definitely one of the most interesting presentations today. As always the glorious gadgets session was again one of the highlights during the RTC event. This year, Chris Needham presented new gadgets such as the mushroom death suit, flyboard, aeromobile, metallic glass, a drone defender and much more.

LAB Sessions: Like the years before, the lab sessions have also been part of this year’s RTC again, offering class and gallery seating. Especially Dynamo as the visual programming extension for Autodesk Revit has been discussed quite often during these lab sessions. For example, Jason Howden – CEO and Director at RVT Tools - presented the String Theory – Dynamo for Absolute Beginners and a follow up lab session, getting people started with leveraging the power of Dynamo. Stephen Taskin – Studio Design Technology Manager at Woods Bagot – identified useful applications of Dynamo programming to increase efficiency on projects as part of his lab session: Dozen Practical Uses of Dynamo. Following these lab sessions, Konrad Sobon - the creator of Mantis Shrimp and Bumblebee plug-ins and Project BIM Specialist at Grimshaw – presented: Mantis Shrimp - Interop for Grasshopper and Dynamo and a second session called: Bumblebee - An Interop for Excel and Dynamo. Mantis Shrimp is a Dynamo (Revit) and Grasshopper (Rhino) interoperability project which allows users to read Rhino's native file type while Bumblebee can be used as an Excel and Dynamo interoperability plugin that vastly improves Dynamo’s ability to read and write Excel files.

Looking at all these possibilities and new developments that have been presented throughout the event and during the lab sessions, it is quite obvious that design technology is rapidly transforming how architects and engineers are working today.

RTC Australasia 2016

The Twelfth RTC Australasia
Crowne Plaza, Hunter Valley, Australia: Thursday 12th - Saturday 14th May

In less than two weeks, Architects, Structural, Mechanical, Electrical, Hydraulic and Civil Engineers, BIM, CAD and Design Technology Managers, IT, Design, Construction and Project Managers, Quantity Surveyors, Technologists, Thought Leaders and Academics - as well as other experts within the AEC industry - will gather again at the RTC Conference – the twelfth RTC Australasia at the Crowne Plaza. And it is located in the world famous Hunter Valley, NSW.

Over the years, the RTC has become known as a unique, independent conference, covering all things of Revit and the technology and process of BIM in a "by users, for users" format. But it seems like this time will be quite a different year for the RTC Australasia and it is not just because it is no longer being called the Revit Technology Conference – being just the “RTC” from now on. This year, the RTC is also welcoming less traditional attendee groups, such as the ArchiCAD user community who will be joining via ARCHICON. In addition, two new one-day streams – one for construction planning and the other for estimating – have been added to the program for Construction Planners and Estimators - and the changes will not be limited to this.

The Conference Schedule itself will take a similar format to the former regional conferences, offering an opening plenary session and keynote address followed by multiple sessions over the 3 days. This year’s keynote speaker will be David Rendall, presenting “the Freak Factor: Discovering Uniqueness by Flaunting Weakness”. This year’s program also presents an expanding group of Australian experts, including returning as well as new speakers such as Mark Abrahams, Joe Banks, R. Robert Bell, Anthony Butler, Joachim Clauss, Mark Cronin, David Foley, Nathan Hildebrandt, Aaron Maller, Chris Price, Chris Razzell, Adam Sheather, Konrad Sobon, Paul Wintour and many more.

Another highlight is the free Revit certification examinations which will allow each examinee to attain certified professional status. This exam typically costs more than $100 – so places are limited and will be offered on a first come, first served basis. The exams will be offered in collaboration with CADLearning and can be selected by topic - Architecture, MEP or Structure - during the conference. It also has been announced that the RTC competition is back again as well. The winner will receive an iPad Pro 128GB and the runner up prize will be a choice of a Flight Centre or a Red Balloon voucher, also being sponsored by CADLearning. Between the sessions, food and drinks will be served during all refreshment breaks and lunches and it will be possible to visit the trade exhibition as an integral part of the conference.

For those who need a shuttle transfer to the Crowne Plaza, the RTC has also a number of transfers on offer for delegates to get to and from the conference. These can easily be booked during the registration process: Departing from Sydney Airport, collecting passengers at Sydney Central and North Sydney before arriving at the Crowne Plaza, making the venue more accessible to those travelling from interstate or overseas. Not registered for the RTC conference yet? More information on how to register for the RTC conference or how to modify a registration to select the appropriate session for the Revit certification exams can be found on www.rtcevents.com. What are you waiting for?