Mentor Announcement #6

A proper model organization including model control via clash detections are one of the most important topics when it comes to appropriate model management.  We, the BILTAcademy are more than happy to announce its fifth and sixth mentor, Arik and Moty, who is going to hold a workshop table on this topic (Lab3). Coming especially from Israel in order to participate at the BILTEurope and BILTAcademy Summit. Many thanks to you, we are looking much forward.

Arik Shiby

Founder & CEO of WeBIM Ltd.                                                            Ariks@webimit.com

Biography

As the CEO of WeBIM, the leading company regarding BIM in Israel, Arik is a specialist when it comes to model and project management. With his broad knowledge and ambition, he started 2015 to establish and manage BIM Israel Forum. It aims to unite all the companies from the building and infrastructure industry to create a local BIM standard (Israel). Recently, he founded the REAL BIM FORUM which brings together all the BIM manager to enhance dialogue and cooperation in the assimilation of BIM in the industry.

Personal Motivation

Arik is involved in the architectural and building industry in Israel for over 25 years, first as senior design lecturer at the SADNA environmental college in Tel Aviv, and after as the AEC (Architectural, engineering, construction) industry product manager for 17 years. As the leading persona of the BIM scene in Israel and through his experiences in lecturing at colleges and preparing and conducting professional conferences for hundreds of participants, his passion for educating students about BIM technologies is part of his DNA.

 

Mentor Announcement #5

Moty Vaknin

CTO at WeBIM Ltd.                                                                                        motyv@webimit.com

Biography

Moty Vaknin Is a CTO at WeBIM, a Company based in Israel. WeBIM is an innovative company that has a strong passion to improve the construction industry by applying BIM methodology throughout the whole project lifecycle. Moty also is an education manager for ATC (Autodesk Training Centre) and education manager for AAP (Autodesk Academic Centre) in Israel. With over 10 years working and training in BIM Platform, Moty is one of the forerunners of the BIM revolution in Israel,

Personal Motivation

As someone who has been a part of the BIM community for over 10 years and has taught hundreds of students, I am aware of the impact that the BILT Academy will have on the next generation of the construction industry. I am looking forward to sharing my knowledge regarding BIM methodology 3D-7D and hopefully inspire the next generation to take BIM one step further.

WeBIM at the BILT Academy Summit 2018

Arik and Moty are going to give a workshop table within 3x75min. Their aim is it to showcase students the importance of model management.

We show the type of issues and how we manage all the issues between teams. How does an appropriate model exchange look like? How is it possible to conduct accuracy and how to use clash detection tools within this term?

Key learning Objective

  • Understand the clash detection method, how and when the clash detection has to be done within a building execution process.
  • Explore the importance of doing a clash detection while comparing 3Dmodels before and after doing the clash.
  • Understand how we are managing all the issues between team and consultant.

Mentor Announcement #4 Keynote Speaker

It is an honor to announce our second Keynote Speaker and mentor for our very first BILT Academy Summit 2018. We are looking much forward listing to an inspirational talk about the future digital world of the building industry and our responsibilities as architects and engineers.

Andrés García Damjanov

Dipl.-Architect. (M.B.A., P.M.P., M.P.M.)                                                                 Sales Director Central Eastern & South Europe at Newforma     a.g.damjanov@gmail.com

Background and Motivation

Over the course of the last 10 years within the building industry, Andres has seen it all firsthand – the do’s and don’ts, the ups and downs – but it has been a journey he would not want to miss out on even for one split second.

Being an architect by trade, Andres’ passion focuses on Project Management in construction processes, a key generator that encompasses multiple facets and tasks. While working for construction companies, Andres felt the need for improvement – as traditional processes appeared (one might better say: proved) to be inefficient. Andres got more professionally involved in the digitalization of processes within the industry as well as voluntarily assisting to kick off many initiatives such as Think Tanks and participation in BuildingSmart.

Andres describes his motivation to become your mentor with typical eloquence: 

“In the end, I found the answers to my questions when I understood that architectural objects are the flowers in a big rainforest that I call the ecosystem. We cannot produce these flowers if we have not understood the symbiosis between it all. This is something we will never get taught in universities, as universities are traditionally unassisted by private sectors and financially dis-encouraged by municipalities or governments.

That is why I love to interact with young future professionals and discuss the ecosystem, trying to help to open their eyes in deciding where they want to go and how to position themselves in this forest in the future.

This is about EVOLUTION. Architecture is the process of generating inspiring spaces that materialize during their way through their processes. This industry is experimenting (like all other industries) – a game-changing transformation based on the power of digitalization. Those who do not understand this transformation will not be the ones defining our future.”

As for all of you, he was once a student too, and it took one mentor, one honest advice, one well-intended pat on the shoulder to be inspired and to become genuinely curious about what drives not only your career but also the person YOU want to become.

Key Learning Objective

EVOLUTION: what is digitalization really? What are the drivers? How is this impacting our industry and why is nobody telling future experts about the advantages of it?

CHEERS to that!

Mentor Announcement #3

Hey folks,

We got some exciting news, that we would like to share with you all. Our third mentor is confirmed and ready to be announced. We have the great honour to get supported by

*drum roll*

Mostafa El Ayoubi

Biography 

A passionate architect and engineer, interested in everything new in the AEC industry. Mostafa is a true believer in data driven construction and he works on developing/implementing tools and workflows to facilitate design, collaboration and project documentation. He is an active member of the Dynamo community and is the top-rated Dynamo Package developer.

He worked as an engineer in a study office in different fields (Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing, Structure…) for four years. He then started the Data Shapes blog and co-founded the Data Shapes company which provides cutting edge BIM support, training and workflows to AEC firms.

Mostafa misses his days at the architecture school where he could experiment designs and is really excited and humbled to be back in that environment to be part of the BILT Academy Summit!

Letter of motivation

My main motivation for the membership program is to share. Sharing played a huge role in my learning experience. I learnt more from people who were generous enough to share time and knowledge than I did from school. I feel it is time for me to give back.

There were a few key moments in my life when I was struck by words or concepts. Those moments helped me find passion, and that is exactly what I wish to do for people. It often takes hearing the right words at the right time to inspire you for life.

I truly believe that the biggest contribution I can bring to my trade is to share with the community because no matter what you can achieve as an individual, it will never be as big as what you can achieve as a community.

 

Venue Announcement

It is official and we are more than happy to announce that the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Ljubljana will host our first Summit 2018.
We are going to have one big room for all the exciting workshops and an own area for the keynote talks. Also, we are going to have a special hall for the students´ presentations at the end of the day. Looking really much forward experiencing the FA Ljubljana.

>> SAVE THE DATE <<

 

I want to provide you with the concrete location, also with a few websites about the Faculty of Architecture.
FA Ljubljana website
FA Ljubljana maps

See you there!

Mentor Announcement #2 Keynote Speaker

Hey there,

thankful and proud I am presenting our second Mentor for our BILT Academy Summit 2018 in Ljubljana.

…. Daniel Hurtubise!

VDC/BIM Manager at Renzo Piano Building Workshop                                      BIM Vood at Data-Shapes                                                                        daniel.hurtubise@data-shapes.net

Bio and Motivation

What an opportunity I was offered by the BILT Academy team, especially considering this is the inaugural BILT Academy Summit! Before I delve any further, here’s a bit of background about me:

I’m a proud Canadian… very proud, hailing from the French part of Canada actually. I’ve been working in AEC for … let’s not go there will you, but too long to remember! I spent most of the last 12 years as the VDC/BIM Manager for Renzo Piano Building Workshop (aka RPBW) www.rpbw.com. Lately, I got involved with friends in a startup named Data-Shapes (www.data-shapes.net) dedicated to all things BIM… mostly the fun stuff though!

When I first heard about BILT Academy it resonated with those words: “Here’s one more opportunity for me to pass on some knowledge of course but most importantly try to influence the way you look at BIM and technology in the AEC World”. This is one more step in the sharing process since I’m also one of the founders of the Paris Revit User Group and the Dynamo Paris User Group. In my life I’ve had several mentors from which I was able to learn, progress and become a better person; one of them, who sadly passed away years ago, told me that teaching is a luxury, not a job! You get to influence people’s life. After several years of teaching at different levels, I could not agree more. It’s great to see some of your student’s years later and realize how far they’ve made it. So, this time I get to spend quality time with students from Slovenia and Europe. Everything is new for me; new country, new city, new language, new culture but one thing remains… the passion for this industry along with the invaluable time spent with younger AEC Explorer’s.

Come over to the keynote in the morning where we will talk about BIM of course… but real BIM. I will explain and demonstrate what BIM is about with some real-life project experience and a bit of humor I hope.

Key Learning Objective

  • What is BIM all about
  • Is BIM a revolution
  • BIM project ingredients
Se vidimo v Ljubljani

Collaborative Design for Students

The first quarter at my University is over; this means a lot of nice projects and research papers have been finished within the last 2 weeks.

One of these courses is Collaborative Design which I would like to present to you within this blogpost.

The main approach was it to collaborate within one Consortium existing out of three companies, Architects, Urban Planners and Structural Engineers. The task was it to create within only eight weeks a development project in Strijp T, an industrial area in Eindhoven. This should include a Project management plan, a design including 3D model, IFC based, and a communication platform.  The main focus was it to concentrate on how to collaborate and create a multi and interdisciplinary working environment. In fact, we were all somehow familiar with the BIM methodology but everyone within their own profession. This is why I would like to show you how we approached this task and made it happen to collaborate altogether within one working environment.

  1. Setting up a Project Management Plan

We used the online environment Relatics in order to set up our project management. There are several parts included which I am going to show you with this graph below:

#1 Project Requirements:

It includes all of the municipality’s vision goals. What needs to be developed and why, including all requirements such as functionalities and buildings properties, size, area, material etc.

#2 Organization Hierarchy:

Includes all participating companies in there set up and functionality towards the project.

#3 Process Breakdown (Process Mapping)

This is one of the most important parts for organizing a project in first place. Most consultancies are creating process plans and event-logs in order to keep track of the whole building planning, modelling and realization process. This allows comparing the “as-planned” situation with the “as-modeled” and “as-built”.  For the process planning we used the software Visio.

The second big challenge within a project was how to set up an appropriate 3D BIM model, especially how to organize and manage it.

  1. Model Management

Every company in our consortium, Architects, Urban Planners and Engineers, had one file in which every team member had access to and could work in. We decided to export weekly all three files to IFC and upload it to the BIM Server.  This allowed us to present it easily towards the professor to show how our design progress was.

An additional solution for managing and organizing the workflow within each company’s model, we decided to use BIMCollab, the BCFmanager. It’s a very handy tool in order to communicate within a bigger project; you can assign tasks and issues towards specifically chosen persons and can so keep track of your models development.  Additionally due to its BCF file format it can be read as IFC from almost every AEC software. This allowed us also to upload the IFC models including the BCF report on the BIM Server.

In this graph bellow a common workflow is visualized. Three 3D models, explained in all Level of Development, steady IFC and BCF exports of each model plus collecting all models together on the BIM Server.

 

If you wanna know more about it don´t hesitate to contact me or to read the full research paper on issuu.

Mentor Announcement #1

Hey there, 

I am glad, that I have the honour to announce our very first mentor and his key learning objective 

*drum roll* 

Conor Shaw ! 

About him

Conor is a veteran RTC/BILT Europe speaker, Ljubljana to be his third appearance. As part of the panel discussion on standards in Delft 2013, he spoke about BIM implementation for small companies. Last year in Aarhus he presented work on scan-to-BIM applied to historic buildings and was rated a top 10 speaker. Trained as a construction engineer, in 2016 he received his M.Sc in Construction and Real Estate Management from the HTW Berlin. He established Shaw Architectural Solutions in 2014 which offers BIM consultancy services worldwide with clients include Engineers in Berlin, Surveyors in Belfast, Contractors in New York and Architects in Helsinki. Recently Conor has been involved in establishing a network of professionals with a shared vision of promoting ecological building practices and is currently working on a number of straw-bale housing projects. He is currently based on Ljubljana, eagerly awaiting the arrival of the BILT conference! 

His Motivation 

The BiLT Academy mentorship seems a very positive development of what the BiLT conference is about. I have been involved previously with the European Architecture Student’s Assembly, a similar non-profit organisation, and am well aware of the benefits such experiences give to a student in the construction field. The unforeseen outcomes of involvement with an event like this such as; contacts made, experiences gained and personal truths challenged, can be greatly beneficial. In my own experience, it was the ‘extra curriculars’ in which I was involved (and not necessarily university attendance), which, in hind-sight, has had the greatest impact on my professional development. Therefor I see such a program as a very positive undertaking and am delighted to be involved, especially at its inception. 

Content 

The class will be based on a talk I gave last year in Aarhus entitled See My Point (Cloud)? Attendees will gain a practical understanding of reality capture and scan-to-BIM technologies. A number of recent as-built modelling case studies from my work will be described. The challenges of using scan-to-BIM technology for both contemporary and traditional building modelling will be discussed, the limitations identified and practical advice divulged. 

Key Learning Objective 

Attendees will:  

  • Gain a practical understanding of reality capture and scan-to-BIM technologies  
  • See real cases of scan-to-BIM in use  
  • Learn about the limitations of scan-to-BIM software when applied to challenging historical buildings

 

Reality capture methods like 3D Laser Scanning are rapidly gaining acceptance as the industry standard for geometric data capture about structures and places, while the emerging technologies like Scan-to-BIM are actively disrupting the status quo for how BIMs are derived from survey data. A familiarity with these topics is of great importance to any future professional in the built environment and the mentors welcome your participation during BiLT Academy in September and can promise a fun and fascinating session!

Backstage work for the Summit

After three intense weeks of work, it’s time for another blog post to keep you updated.

#1 our poster is ready

I would like to say a really big thanks to a great graphic designer, photographer and a brother Mathias Schalk, for the support in helping me with the layout and the design. Thanks to Mathias Schalk!

 

#2 Networking with students and universities

As any new movement, one of the biggest tasks right now is getting connected with students and universities, which we are doing mostly via social media. We are reaching out to different student organizations and groups on both Facebook and LinkedIn, sharing our message and inviting them to be a part of the movement. At the same time, we are trying to get in touch with local universities in Slovenia, which are in Ljubljana and Maribor. As a next step, we will be sending out our public image packages towards all surrounding universities in Austria, Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria, Croatia and so on. We do so because we aim to have both Slovenian and international participants on board. During the event we will be covering students’ needs including food and beverages, and will gladly inform all international students about the local sleeping possibilities.

…But what do the students learn during the summit?

#3 Program and Mentors

As we were working on our program, we tried to include many interesting fields such as computational design, BIM methodologies and point cloud usage. However, this was only a raw idea of what three of us wanted to include. After many talks with Silvia and the BILT team about potential mentors, we researched and contacted viable leads. In the end, we reached out to relative professionals and shared out ideas and visions of our first BILT Academy Summit. Faster than expected we have received many replies from experienced specialists from all over Europe. This encourages us that we are going on the right path.

Here is our preliminary version of the program:

What are the key learning Objective 1, 2 & 3 you may ask…

#4 Key learning objectives and Structure

We found it very challenging to arrange high-quality content in the span of one day. That is the reason for splitting up the entire workshop environment into 5 or 6 smaller groups. Every group will have a mentor, specialized in a specific field that he/she will work on together with the students. This specific field is divided into three key learning objectives.

When it comes to the structure of the event itself, it will begin with a thorough introduction of the main topics for the summit, assignments and problem formulations. Following is the second and third parts, focused on collaboration and execution of the assignments.

We will keep updating you on the process of organizing and structuring of BILT Academy Summit 2018 in our next blog entries!

Learn to Program

Hey guys,

some of you have no clue where to start learning to program. I don’t know if you are familiar with basics like datatypes and control structures or if you are a very beginner, but let me tell you, where and how I began to program.

I started to program in school and learned all the necessary basics. In my bachelor studies I had only one programming course (which was a Java course) but this semester I have two more advanced courses. One again one with Java and the other one with C++.

Anyway, there is no real obstacle to learn different languages, if you get the ideas behind control structures, data types, data structures and object-oriented programming. In the end, you just change some keywords, and so it doesn’t really matter with which language you start. I think Python is a good language to start because it is an object-oriented language and you can utilize your skills instantly and program some fancy IronPython scripts in Dynamo.

I can provide you some useful links, but it depends what type of learning you like the most. If you want to learn it in a really interactive way, you should sign into codeacademy and start the Python course, but be careful. Codeacademy will reward you really fast and often. Programming is the very opposite of it.

That’s why I suggest to learn it in a more traditional way. Maybe go through some free accessible books like: Dive into Python 3.

If you are a student please check your library. Most of them have eBook contracts and you can download really expensive stuff for free. The same holds for lynda. Lynda is a great online course-platform and many universities have a contract with them. For example my university made an unlimited contract, so that I have access to every course on lynda. That’s really awesome.

So the last thing I recommend you is one specific lynda course. It will introduce you basic ideas of datatypes, control structures and object oriented programming. Additionally all examples are shown with Dynamo/RevitAPI. So you will get the basics of Python and you’ll do some cool stuff with AEC software! Click here: Dynamo for Revit: Python Scripting.

Let me know which way you choose and feel free to contact me anytime. Maybe I have some additional and more helpful resources for you.

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