anniversary Archicad multidisciplinarygoes Building Information Modelling (BIM) technology for Architecture, Engineering and Construction Q3 2022 >> WorkingVol.121 with IFCs Removing the ‘A’ from AI Major new workstation advances AUTODESKFRUSTRATIONGROWS MajorinstitutionsnowvoiceconcernsaboutAutodeskarchitecturaldevelopment,thefutureofRevit,andsubscriptionmodels p34 DDSCADNORWAYSTØREN,INHEADQUARTERSCORPORATEHUGAAS’NORWAY.FELLESBYGG,MOOYACREDIT:
Graphisoft defines future roadmap on 40th
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A tale of two letters 42
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With the release of a second open letter to Autodesk, we explore what this means for Autodesk and the AEC software industry
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Graphisoft continues to lay the groundwork for multi-disciplinary capabilities with structural tools and DDScad for MEP
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Embodied carbon: the importance of data 60
Hybrid working at Gaunt Francis Architects 65
From games engines to GIS, USD to IFC, workstations to reality capture, this summer delivered a whole host of exciting new AEC technology
Low-carbon energy centre, The Tower of Light, features an innovative ‘Shell Lace Structure’ based on design-led research by Arup and Tonkin Liu Architects
A new open letter from several Nordic Architectural Associations demands better value from Autodesk in AEC software
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If we’re serious about sustainability, we must ‘look to digital’, writes Lee Jones, head of manufacturing solutions at NBS
Open letter to Autodesk: two years on 38
All the presentations from NXT BLD for your viewing pleasure. You’re welcome!
Removing the ‘A’ from Artificial Intelligence 58
A look at the constituent parts of the data model specification that enables interoperability in the AECO industry
Belgian start up, Qonic, has ‘open sourced’ one of its key foundation technologies, to enable new ways of working with dynamic, ‘component-level’, BIM data sharing
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■ https://developers.arcgis.com/unreal-engine/
ArcGIS Maps SDK for Unreal Engine offers immersive ways to visualise GIS assets
The SDK is the result of a long-standing collaboration between Esri and Epic Games. One of the key outcomes of that relationship has been Epic Games’ development of the GeoReferencing plugin for Unreal Engine which led to full support in Unreal Engine 5 for double-precision coordinates and the ability to accurately place geographic data on a global scale.
Urban planning and design firm
According to Euan Cameron CTO, developer technology at Esri, the SDK will allow developers to use the Unreal Engine 5 game engine to create new classes of applications around their data, creating immersive ways to visualise and interact with real-world GIS assets that complement their current workflows.
The app allows members of the community to see if a proposal fits into the existing context of their downtown by placing themselves directly into the 3D environment and experiencing potential change first hand. The app uses the ArcGIS Maps SDK for Unreal Engine to create an immersive environment based on 3D scene layers.
Version 1.0 of the ArcGIS Maps SDK for Unreal Engine includes support for basemaps, which depict relatively static features like streets, buildings, facilities, and landscape details, elevation data for terrains, and geospatial layers such as 3D objects and integrated meshes.
The SDK simplifies application updates by using ArcGIS data sources directly. It
“At Epic, we’re committed to building the most open and advanced real-time 3D creation tool, freeing up digital creators to leverage Unreal Engine’s capabilities as part of their existing content creation pipeline,” said Sébastien Lozé, Unreal Engine simulations business director at Epic Games. “The work done by the Esri team in this collaboration will allow the entire GeoInt community to leverage the rich diversity of created content existing in the ArcGIS ecosystem, and we’re excited to see how the release of the ArcGIS Maps SDK plugin for Unreal Engine will create virtually unlimited immersive, interactive, synthetic environments in Unreal Engine 5.”
To help maintain the character of the cherished downtown main street in Glen Ellyn, Houseal Lavigne built an immersive video game-like application with Unreal Engine (pictured above)
The ArcGIS Maps SDK for Unreal Engine is free to download.
San Francisco textured buildings with demographic data, global imagery, and elevation
E
sri has released version 1.0 of the ArcGIS Maps SDK (Software Development Kit) for Unreal Engine, which is designed to enable developers to build ‘world-scale’ AR, tabletop AR, and VR experiences for a range of sectors including AEC, utilities, and transportation.
dynamically streams in the built environment from ArcGIS Online. Then, when the area changes, the client can publish a new scene layer and the application will update itself.
“It used to be that when we would talk to clients and client communities about change, we would show it on a map. But expectations have changed. Like everyone else, our clients and their constituents have been immersed in video games like Fortnite, and they watch movies shot on sound stages in front of green screens with beautiful 3D worlds drawn in behind the actors. They not only want to see a potential change, but they also want to experience it,” said Devin Lavigne principal and founder, Houseal Lavigne.
According to Esri, Version 1.0 is just the beginning. The company explains that there’s a ‘rich vein of functionality’ waiting to be tapped into, such as vector tile layers, point cloud layers, feature support, geocoding, routing, and other analysis tools.
Houseal Lavigne is an early adopter of the SDK. The company was recently hired by the Village of Glen Ellyn, Illinois, a Chicago suburban community, to build an application to assist the community in evaluating development proposals.
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■ www.theorem.com/extended-reality
■ www.graphisoft.com/archicad
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According to Theorem, being able to offer remote rendering across all devices is especially beneficial to construction and factory layout, as it removes the barriers associated to working and interacting with huge quantities of design data.
rchicad 26, the latest version of Graphisoft’s BIM software, features improvements to automated design, documentation and collaboration workflows, plus ‘out-of-the-box’ visualisation.
9www.AECmag.com Q3 2022
Lebaredian adds that Nvidia has already done the development work internally. “You can take any data that’s represented as IFC, which is just an XML file if I’m not mistaken, and convert it into USD – just translate it directly as a oneto-one representation and without any loss of data, and you can take it back.”
Both platforms support the exchange of BIM Collaboration Format (BCF) issues via interface services such as BIM Track, BIMsync and BIMcollab. According to Bricsys, this allows for the easy communication of issues emerging during the virtual meeting to be resolved within BricsCAD BIM.
N
Bricsys boosts VR workflow
ricsys is collaborating with Virtual Reality platform Vrex so users of BIM software BricsCAD BIM can more easily export models to VR.
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Rev Lebaredian, vice president of Omniverse and simulation technology at Nvidia, told AEC Magazine that the default schemas that Pixar created are the fundamental building blocks for computer graphics and that, over time, there will be more and more schemas showing up for different industries, including AEC.
“That should be the standard since that’s the closest thing we have to a BIM standard for AEC,” he says.
Features include: more intuitive navigation and management of attributes through a structured hierarchy; fast finding of (and navigation to) specific views and layouts in the design project; smart parametric object creation with graphical editing methods; and faster modelling and documentation of surfaceArchicadopenings.26also introduces improved structural analytical model workflows and usability enhancements for ‘faster, smoother’ interoperability between architects and structural engineers.
Theorem-XR adds support for AEC
News
HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Magic Leap, Oculus Quest and Android and iOS devices. To support large datasets across multiple devices, Theorem-XR uses Azure Remote Rendering (ARR).
and translating them into USD, encoding them in USD,” he said, adding that IFC is the most likely path forward.
He admits that the challenge isn’t so much about modifying USD as a technology, but about getting enough buy in from industry. “What we want to look towards is having consensus, with enough people in the community that just agree this is actually what everyone should be using. Once you have that, you have the snowball kind of effect,” he says. ■ www.nvidia.com/omniverse
Archicad 26 launches
A
heorem-XR, an eXtended Reality (XR) solution that enables design, engineering and manufacturing firms to optimise, visualise, and collaborate around 3D design data regardless of location, now supports Revit, Navisworks and IFC formats.
Other new features of Theorem-XR Q2 2022 include support for the new location features in HoloLens 2, where users can define where 3D models appear in relation to a QR code. According to Theorem, being able to render data in this way brings ‘greater accuracy and flexibility to the review process for tracking digital content against physical objects.”
The research is part of Nvidia’s multiyear plan to expand the capabilities of USD beyond visual effects, to better support ‘industrial metaverse’ applications in architecture, engineering, manufacturing, and other sectors.
The enhanced workflow is designed to enable AECO firms to streamline collaboration between multiple stakeholders working together in VR. Users can virtually meet inside the model, perform visual inspections and exchange buildings and project data from ‘any location’.
■ www.vrex.no ■ www.bricsys.com
Nvidia looking to encode the IFC schema in USD
Another new feature for the HoloLens 2 is the ability to markup digital design data in a live session using a ‘holographic pen’. Users can add annotations to highlight required changes, potential clash issues or to leave notes for users unable to attend collaborative sessions.
“We’ve done work towards bringing existing BIM schemas from other formats
Theorem-XR works across a range of Augmented, Mixed and Virtual Reality devices, including Microsoft HoloLens 2,
With the new Q2 2022 release users can also load data from multiple sources into a single session. In addition to BIM, this includes 3D CAD (3DExperience, Catia, Alias, Creo, FBX, Inventor, NX, Solidworks, STEP and VRED), Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) data (JT) and scanned data.
vidia is exploring how BIM schemas, especially Industry Foundation Classes (IFC), can be layered on top of USD, the 3D scene description and file format developed by Pixar which forms the foundation for Nvidia Omniverse, the 3D design collaboration platform.
According to Theorem Solutions, preparing data for Theorem-XR is a ‘seamless, fully automated process’. Users can ‘save as’ from their CAD session, drag and drop from the file system or drive it directly from their PLM workflow. Data can also be used for the creation of Unity or Unreal assets for internally developed XR solutions.
Norconsult uses Revit for design, but typically goes from Navisworks or BIM 360 to Unity Reflect Review.
■ www.unity.com/products/unity-reflect
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■ www.spacesapp.io
“Combining Meta Quest 2 and Unity Reflect Review is a true game changer,” says Marius Jablonskis, digital transformation leader at Norconsult.“XR was great before, but it was not for everyone. Hardware-heavy processes, cables, tracking stations, remembering to charge multiple devices, logging in and out to multiple accounts, pre-processing the data, exporting, packing and updating
“The application was used for design review and practical safety evaluations with our safety and design experts, customers, and their operation personnel to evaluate safety aspects of the design and placement of equipment in emergency scenarios.”
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“We use Unity Reflect Review for visual reviews – including stakeholder, design and safety evaluations – on desktop and in VR and AR,” explains Jablonskis.
iPad design tool gets space planning
iConstructwww.tekla.comacquired
■
Prior to the new integration Norconsult used a custom-developed application on the Unity Editor that compiled .apk files which were loaded to untethered Meta Quest 2 devices, as Jablonskis explains.
Many of the new features are included in a new subscription offering, Spaces Pro, which is available for $75 per month. Space Starter (free) and Spaces ($29 per month) are also available.
■ www.intelligent-city.com
Trimble (UK), in partnership with Lindapter, has launched a new Tekla plug-in to help facilitate the ‘efficient and accurate’ detailing of the HolloBolt system. Bolt models and their associated product-specific information and data can now be easily brought into Tekla Structures
■
Intelligentwww.iconstruct.comCity
■
■
erulean Labs has launched Spaces Version 2, a major update to its sketch-based conceptual design tool for the iPad. Space planning allows users to create and manage their own design briefs, put
Cloud-based digital construction management platform PlanRadar has introduced a new ‘Gantt View’ scheduling tool, designed to ease construction and maintenance challenges, provide clearer task oversight and help meet deadlines
together project concepts and then create reports to ensure designs meets requirements. Sun studies, a digital sketchbook, and key workflow integration features, including IFC and OBJ export, are among the other new features.
New scheduling tool
Expansionwww.planradar.combolts
■ www.asite.com
it – all these operations made the XR world an exclusive club.
Defencewww.bluesky-world.comsupport
Skanska UK, one of the UK’s leading contractors, has chosen the Asite data management platform to help it provide ‘modern, sustainable, and effective’ storage and maintenance solutions for the British Army’s land equipment fleet. It is part of a £259m Ministry of Defence (MoD) contract
Map data for Britain
Hexagon AB, which owns several AEC-focused technology firms including Bricsys, Leica Geosystems, and Multivista, has acquired iConstruct Pty Ltd, an Australian firm that develops the construction automation tool iConstruct Pro that runs on top of Autodesk Navisworks
10 www.AECmag.comQ3 2022
Aerial mapping company and consortium lead Bluesky International, in partnership with Getmapping plc, has been granted a contract extension from the Geospatial Commission to continue to supply aerial photography, 3D height models and colour infrared imagery, to public sector organisations across Great Britain
Canadian firm Intelligent City has raised $30m to help it advance sustainable urban housing using mass timber, automation, and robotics. The company says it is on track to deliver over 2,300 apartments
nity Reflect Review, the immersive design review solution for architects and designers, is now available for the Meta Quest 2, the all-in-one VR headset previously known as Oculus Quest 2. Norconsult, a leading Norwegian multidisciplinary engineering and design consultancy, has been using the new hardware/software combination to cover all phases of a project lifecycle –from the earliest pre-investment and feasibility studies, through planning and design, tendering and construction supervision, to project implementation, operations and maintenance.
“Unity and Meta’s fusion eliminated all the irritating moments and bottlenecks from the process. Now you just have to pop on the glasses and you’re good to go!”
Unity Reflect Review now available on Meta Quest 2ROUND UP
V-Ray 6 features new worldbuilding and workflow tools to quickly distribute 3D objects, generate detailed 3D surfaces and add procedural clouds to create beautiful custom skies. V-Ray 6 for 3ds Max also introduces a cloud collaboration tool to speed up reviews and approvals.
Users will also experience ‘better, faster and more accurate’ BIM collaboration when using BCF files. Now, as a web palette, the BCF Manager will have the ability to be kept open to ‘seamlessly and efficiently’ manage and model changes with cloud-based collaboration tools.
haos has released V-Ray 6 for 3ds Max, a major upgrade to its all-in-one photorealistic rendering software that reduces its reliance on thirdparty plug-ins.
eal-time rendering software Enscape is now available for the Mac platform, compatible with SketchUp 2021 and 2022.
News
■ www.chaos.com/vray
11www.AECmag.com Q3 2022
The initial version of Enscape for Mac offers real-time visualisation via the Enscape rendering window; real-time walkthrough to navigate rendered
For Revit file import, Vectorworks will now support the translation of more Revit object types and provide better organisation of the imported file data.
As a direct plug-in to the push/pull modelling tool, architects and designers now have access to Enscape’s integrated real-time viz and design workflow.
A new Graphic Legends tool is designed to help make the creation of object type and drawing key legends less labourintensive and prone to errors. According to Vectorworks, it completely removes the manual process of creating graphic legends, automatically coordinating resources used and providing an easy
projects in walk, fly, and perspective modes; export options for still renders, 360-degree panoramas, and web standalone; visual settings, and a material editor that uses height maps to adjust textures and increase the level of realism. VR is not currently supported.
■ www.vectorworks.net VR
ectorworks 2023, the next release of the CAD / BIM software, is due to launch soon with a major focus on process automation. The Windows and Mac tool will also include several updates for BIM workflows and enhanced interoperability, thanks in part to new Revit import options.
Core architectural objects have been re-engineered and modernised to be more intuitive through all phases of a project. According to Vectorworks, this helps reduce the amount of manual work needed to create and edit documentation.
Users also get access to the Enscape Asset Library, which includes more than 3,000 ‘high-quality, low-poly’ 3D models, including people, furniture and vehicles.
ISO 19650 BIM
coursestrainingrefined
ChaosB releases V-Ray 6 for 3ds Max
■ www.bre.ac
Elsewhere, there’s a new offset edge tool for ‘streamlined and smooth’ 3D modelling for more efficient design exploration, plus the ability to generate section viewports up to six times faster.
RE Academy, a specialist in practical training for construction, has re-shaped its BIM training courses based on ISO 19650, the international standard for managing information over the life cycle of a built asset.
Elsewhere, door and window objects can now be created and interactively edited by simply drawing a rectangle on the face of the wall in 3D or a line spanning the opening in 2D.
‘BIM Essentials’ is designed to provide an overview of information management using BIM, following ISO 19650 parts 1 and 2. ‘Delivering Information Management’ is for professionals who undertake an Information Management function in accordance with ISO 19650-2.
■ www.enscape3d.com
Enscape for Mac now shipping for SketchUp
Automation focus for Vectorworks 2023
editing and customisation process.
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In the subsequent six years, Leica has gone on to develop a whole BLK range, including SLAM scanner (BLK2GO), Drone scanner (BLK2FLY) and a robot mounted variant (BLK ARC), all glued together with its HxDR cloud platform. With all the innovation and advances that have been included in the latter BLK devices, Leica has finally now got around to updating the core technology and design of the original BLK device.
It should also make Faro much better equipped to support emerging digital twin applications, where accuracy is not always as critical as it is for constructionfocused workflows such as construction verification.Farowillalso be able to compete on more fronts with Leica Geosystems, which launched its first handheld SLAM scanner, the BLK2GO in 2020, followed in 2021 by two autonomous variants: the Leica BLK ARC, a module for robots including Boston Dynamics quadruped Spot, and the Leica BLK2FLY, a fully integratedLiDARdrone.
generation product sees a modest price bump to around £17,300. It certainly looks to offer a lot more capability for upgraders who have been waiting a long time to see this update.
F
While time of flight laser scanning has always been the most accurate way of getting a point cloud, the encroachment of photogrammetry on the low-end scanning market means there is increased competition from even lower cost optical devices. With the built in cameras and laser, a future update could be to combine both methodologies within the one device.
■ www.leica-geosystems.com
Leica finally launches update to ground-breaking BLK360 laser scanner
The new scanner can capture 680,000 points per second (previous generation did just 360,000 points) and supports the Visual Inertial System, allowing scans to be combined automatically. The device uses USB-C for faster data transfer times, as well as Wi-Fi. It can be operated from a mobile phone using the BLK Live app or the Leica Cyclone Field app.
12 www.AECmag.comQ3 2022
aro has acquired UK-based GeoSLAM, a provider of mobile scanning solutions with proprietary simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM) software.
■ www.geoslam.com
ack in November 2016, Leica (with Autodesk) launched the smallest and lowest cost professional laser scanner. Working in conjunction with Autodesk’s Recap scanning solution, the 60 metre ranged device was perfect for architectural interiors and some exterior work.
While the BLK360 was a huge success, Leica could not make enough of them. The scanner weighed 1kg and could fit in a handbag, however it was less rugged than one of would have hoped. The mirror enabling the laser scan was very exposed and unprotected and dropping it would mean recalibration back in Switzerland.
Faro acquires GeoSLAM to boost mobile mapping capabilities
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Faro already had a mobile scanning solution – the Faro Swift – which combines its Faro Focus laser scanner with its Faro ScanPlan 2D mapper. However, this tripod mounted system, which was once described by a Faro spokesperson as being SLAM(ish), has to be wheeled around to capture the reality
At time of launch, the original BLK360 cost around £15,000. The second
There is an updated processor which is five times faster than the original. Within the body there are four 13-megapixel cameras with an HDR imaging capability.
Acquiring GeoSLAM gives Faro one of the widest portfolios of reality capture solutions, which includes 360-degree camera-based images, mobile scanning and stationary high-accuracy laser scanning.
Under terms of the agreement, GeoSLAM shareholders received a cash payment of £22 million and 495,562 shares of Faro stock.
The refresh design integrates a cover to protect the scanning mirror in the body, which is 20% smaller than the previous BLK360 and weighs just 850 grams.
SLAM is the process of mapping an area whilst keeping track of the location of the device within that area. It allows for the mapping of large areas in much shorter spaces of time than tripod mounted laser scanners, although accuracy isn’t as high.
Matterport increases focus on AEC with Pro3 Camera
The scanner boasts a range of 0.3 up to 365 metres and a scan speed of up to 2.2 million points per second.
The viDoc is a handheld device with an RTK antenna that connects to mobile devices. It was originally designed by German company viGram and is distributed by Pix4D worldwide.
13www.AECmag.com Q3 2022
The Trimble X12 can be operated using Trimble Perspective field software installed on a Trimble T10x tablet to enable registration and refinement of scans on site and help ensure project accuracy and completion before returning to the office.
atterport has introduced a new reality capture device, the Matterport Pro3 Camera, which has the ability to capture indoor and outdoor spaces, even in full sunlight. Matterport’s previous generation camera, the Pro2, was better suited to indoor spaces alone.
Reality capture news
Accuracy of viDoc RTK rover certified
The Matterport Pro3 features a custom 20-megapixel sensor and 12-element lens, covering an ultra-wide angle to produce what Matterport describes as ‘accurate, detailed digital twins in brilliant, life-like colour.’ The camera’s ‘high-precision’ LiDAR sensor is said to enable the capture of millions of measurements in various conditions, from dim light to direct sunlight, up to a range of 100 metres at less than 20 seconds per sweep.
However, it points out that the Pro3 costs considerably less ($5,995 compared to $22-42k) and the accuracy is ‘good enough for most use cases’.
The company appears to have an increased focus on AEC, quoting several construction-centric use cases, including an architect or sub-contracted surveyor capturing as-built surveys, a main contractor documenting and reporting construction progress, a site manager carrying out quality control or work package sign off, or an architect or main contractor producing ‘accurate’ handover documentation for use in design, BIM and FM applications.
When paired with Pix4D’s app Pix4Dcatch, it enables users to gather geotagged LiDAR and photogrammetry data for use in creating 3D models or single point measurements.
oint cloud software specialist Veesus has a new subscription service that allows its customers to store scan data in the Zappcha Cloud and stream point cloud files to end devices.
■ www.trimble.com
The subscription service also gives users access to multiple applications: Arena4D, Veesus’ flagship point cloud visualisation, editing and animation software, as well as dedicated plug-ins for Revit, Rhino, and Solidworks, that enable users to work with point cloud data natively in their CAD/ BIM tool of choice
■ www.veesus.com P
■ www.matterport.com
Trimble’s customised on-board software menu can also be used to configure and operate the scanner. Data can be exported from site and processed in the office with Trimble RealWorks software or third-party software. Final deliverables can be shared online with clients and stakeholders using browserbased data tool Trimble Clarity.
VeesusB moves to subscriptioncloud-based
rimble has launched the Trimble X12, a new scanning system that integrates Trimble software for ‘precise data capture’ and on-site registration with 3D laser scanning and imaging hardware technology from Zoller+Fröhlich (Z+F).
Trimble introduces new scanning systemMT
Accuracy has been improved, with Matterport quoting ±20mm at 10m, compared to ±44~58mm at 4.5m for the
Pro2. The company acknowledges that it is not as accurate as higher-end laser scanners, quoting ±6mm for the Leica BLK360, ±2.4mm for the Trimble X7 and ±1mm for the Faro Focus S at 10m
ureau Veritas has certified the viDoc RTK rover for use in industry. The company, which specialises in testing, inspecting, and certification (TIC) across multiple industries, found the real-time kinematic GNSS device to have a margin of error of less than 5cm, which is half the required accuracy for Class A measurements. The viDoc was tested for volume calculations, as well as measurements for digitising as-builts in a trench.
■ www.pix4d.com
On mobile, Intel arguably faces a bigger challenge in an increasingly competitive entrylevelWhilesegment.thenew Intel Arc Pro A30M GPU should slot into existing pro laptops, it will also go up against a new generation of mobile workstations with AMD Ryzen Pro 6000 H-series processors, which come with integrated AMD RDNA 2 graphics and AMD Radeon Pro graphics drivers.
For pro workstations, driver optimisation and certification is important. Intel has stated it is targeting certifications with leading professional software applications within the AEC and design and manufacturing industries but has not specified which ones. In the past, when Intel only offered graphics built into its CPUs, it focused on certification for only the most popular CAD and BIM tools. With Arc Pro we expect Intel to up its game.
At Siggraph on 8 August, the company showed Intel Arc Pro Graphics Workstation GPUs running Trimble SketchUp with D5 Render to show off the hardware accelerated ray tracing and hardware assisted AI (XeSS) capabilities of the new cards when rendering architectural scenes.
D5 Render’s real time rendering software is based on Unreal Engine 4 and Nvidia RTX rendering technology but the rendering pipeline is based on Microsoft DX12 and DXR, which is supported directly by Intel Arc Pro GPUs. Applications that take advantage of ray tracing using the Vulkan API should also beIncompatible.termsofspecifications, the Intel Arc Pro A40 and A50 are very similar. They both feature 6 GB of GDDR6 memory, four mini DisplayPort outputs and offer the same memory bandwidth, plus the
I
This includes the new Lenovo ThinkPad P14s Gen3 and ThinkPad P16s Gen3 (see page 18)
The A40 is a single slot card with 50W peak power and 3.50 TFLOPs peak performance, while the A50 is dual slot with 75W peak power and 4.8 TFLOPs peak performance. The A30M is virtually identical to the A40, but the number of outputs will be specific to the mobile workstation.
W6400, is that it has hardware ray tracing built in. The Nvidia T600 and T1000 do not. Plus, it has an additional 2 GB of memory, which may prove important for viz centric workflows, especially when next generation graphics engines for CAD come online with support for ray tracing in theHowever,viewport.Intel will have to compete with decades of pro driver development from both AMD and Nvidia in an industry where both performance and stability are valued very highly.
same number of Execution Units, Xe-cores, Render Slices, and Ray Tracing Units. The only notable differences are form factor, Thermal Design Power (TDP) and peak performance.
■ www.intel.com/arc
Prior to the launch, Intel’s workstation GPU presence was solely through integrated graphics, where the GPU is built into the CPU, but such processors are only really suited to true entry-level workflows.Withitsfirst-generation Arc
14 www.AECmag.comQ3 2022
Intel makes long awaited entry into discrete workstation graphics with focus on CAD
Intel has not yet released pricing, but we expect the Arc Pro A40 and A50 will be priced competitively with other low-profile professional GPUs. Intel’s trump card, like that of the AMD Radeon Pro
ntel has made its muchanticipated entry to the world of discrete workstation graphics with the launch of the Intel Arc Pro A-series professional range of GPUs for CAD, AEC and ‘creators’.
The first products are the Intel Arc Pro A30M GPU for mobile workstations and the Intel Arc Pro A40 and Intel Arc Pro A50 GPUs for ultra-compact and small form factor (SFF) desktop workstations. All three GPUs appear to be ‘entry-level’ but include advanced features such as ray tracing and machine learning.
What AEC Magazine thinks
This is a significant move from Intel as it looks to boost its graphics capabilities and compete more strongly against AMD and Nvidia, who offer a wide range of discrete workstation GPUs via the AMD Radeon Pro and Nvidia RTX brands.
Pro products, Intel is clearly targeting users of CAD and BIM software, for which the 3D graphics requirements are relatively low. Such tools are generally ‘CPU limited’ and, in many cases, you’ll see no discernible performance difference between a budget pro GPU and one that costs ten or even twenty times more.
HP’s new 32-inch IPS display boasts
Beyond image quality, the HP Z32k G3 4K USB-C display also offers several practical features including single power
blacks
According to AMD, the Ryzen 7000 Series will outperform 12th Gen Intel Core processors in both single threaded workflows (which is important for CAD and BIM) and multi-threaded workflows, such as ray trace rendering.
■ www.hp.com richer and deeper
The 31.5-inch 4K display is said to offer ‘ultimate colour accuracy’ with support for 100 percent of the sRGB colour gamut and 98 percent of DCI-P3. According to HP, it allows users to experience anything from CAD drawings to product renders in tangible, lifelike detail.
rendering in V-Ray and Cinebench R23 nT.
The Ryzen 7000 Series also marks the
There are currently four models in the AMD Ryzen 7000 Series – the 16-core Ryzen 9 7950X, 12-core Ryzen 9 7900X, 8-core Ryzen 7 7700X and 6-core Ryzen 5 7600X. The lower-core count CPUs, which are perhaps best suited to entrylevel CAD and BIM workflows, also have slightly lower boost frequencies than the higher core count models.
on, KVM switch, and support for Thunderbolt 4.
MD has launched the Ryzen 7000 Series, a new family of desktop processors based on its 5nm ‘Zen 4’ architecture. This includes the flagship 16-core Ryzen 9 7950X, which AMD claims is the fastest desktop CPU in the world, featuring a 5.7 GHz boost frequency and a significant Instructions Per Clock (IPC) increase, compared to its previous generation ‘Zen 3’ architecture.
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In V-Ray Render, for example, AMD claims the Ryzen 9 7950X offers 62% more performance than the Intel Core i9-12900K, Intel’s current flagship mainstream CPU which has 8 Performance cores and 8 Efficient Cores. Performance gains in other rendering benchmarks are smaller, with Cinebench R23 NT quoted at 41% and Blender Render at 36%. However, with 13th Gen Intel Core ‘Raptor Lake’ CPUs rumoured to launch in Q4 2022, AMD will soon face increased competition.
‘Single power on’ allows users to turn on their workstation by simply pressing the power button on the bottom right of the display. “You no longer need to open the laptop and hunt for the power button,” says HP’s Aaron Slessinger.
AMD Ryzen 7000 Series desktop processors launch with boost for CAD and rendering
www.AECmag.com Workstation news
the Ryzen 9 7950X is more power-hungry than the 105W Ryzen 9 5950X it replaces. However, the 7950X wins out in performance per watt. It delivers the same performance as the 5950X while using up to 62% less power, says AMD.
launch of the new Socket AM5 platform, which features dual-channel DDR5 memory and support for PCIe 5.0, including next generation SSDs.
AMD’s Ryzen 7000 Series also marks a significant improvement over AMD’s previous generation ‘Zen 3’ Ryzen 5000 Series. Compared to the Ryzen 9 5950X, the Ryzen 9 7950X boasts a single-core performance improvement of up to 29% and up to 48% more performance when
The Ryzen 7000 Series also offers ‘leadership energy efficiency’, claims AMD. The company states that the Ryzen 9 7950X is up to 47% more energy efficient than the Intel Core i9-12900K when ray trace rendering in the Chaos V-RayWithBenchmark.aTDPof170W
P has introduced the HP Z32k G3 4K USB-C display with IPS Black Panel, a technology that offers double the contrast ratio of a traditional IPS panel for blacks that are ‘deeper and richer’.
KVM switch allows easy switching between two workstations – a laptop and
a desktop, for example. Simply plug in both machines and a single set of peripherals to the back of the HP Z32k G3 4K USB-C display then press the joypad twice to switch.
Users can also save space by attaching a HP Z2 atWorkstationMinitherear.
The AMD Ryzen 7000 Series is expected to be available September 27. ■ www.amd.com/ryzen
Through a single Thunderbolt 4 connection, the display drives 4K resolution at 60Hz, supports daisy chaining for a second 4K monitor without a dock, as well as high-speed data and internet — all while charging a device up to 100W.
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Other features include two PCIe Gen 4 slots for expandability (one PCIe x16 and one x8), up to 8TB of M.2 storage, and support for up to eight displays across two GPUs. The machine comes equipped with dual onboard ethernet, which could
be useful for remote management, and dual Thunderbolt 4 ports on the front, which are typically found in mobile workstations. A VESA mount accessory is coming later this year.
What AEC Magazine thinks
enovo has launched the ThinkStation P360 Ultra, a new desktop workstation that delivers ‘tower-like’ performance in a compact chassis with a volume of 4 litres. It is half the size of a traditional small form factor (SFF) workstation and will replace the 8.2litre ThinkStation P350 SFF.
Notably, the P360 Ultra also supports up to Nvidia RTX A5000 mobile pro graphics with 16 GB of VRAM. This is a big jump up from the Nvidia RTX ‘2000’ or ‘3000’ class GPUs often found in compact workstations and makes the P360 Ultra suitable for a much wider range of GPU-accelerated AEC workflows. This includes VR, GPU rendering, real time viz, and reality modelling, as well as 3D CAD and BIM, which are more typical for a machine of this size.
According to global product manager Cris Jara, the P360 Ultra is a redefinition of the compact chassis. “It’s a clean sheet design, where our engineering team was given the challenge of how to make a small chassis without compromises in performance.”TheP360Ultra features 12th Gen Intel Core processors up to 125W. The ThinkStation P350 SFF was limited to 65W processors, so this is a significant advancement. 35W and 65W 12th Gen Intel Core processors are also supported.
Elsewhere, the system supports up to 128 GB of DDR5 SoDIMM memory, which is double that of the slightly smaller HP Z2 Mini G9 and Precision 3460 Compact. This ‘industry first’ is enabled by having four SoDIMM slots so there are dual DIMMs per channel. According to Lenovo, it is the result of working very closely with Intel.
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two distinct airflow channels either side of the motherboard, and maximum space efficiency when configuring the workstation. With a single external shell that slides off, Lenovo also says servicing is easy, and users can get quick access to internal components without having to deal with screws and panels.
important in the future.
This feels like a very important release from Lenovo. The P360 Ultra not only promises to rival the performance of traditional SFF workstations but in GPUcentric workflows, it should even outpace them. This includes the Dell Precision 3460 SFF and the HP Z2 SFF G9, which can take a desktop Nvidia RTX A4000 GPU.
The P360 Ultra also stands out for its memory capacity which, at 128 GB, is double that of many similarly sized workstations. While most core AEC workflows will fit comfortably into 64 GB, as the industry continues to embrace more demanding workflows like reality modelling, having access to large amounts of memory will become more
The P360 Ultra measures 87 x 223 x 202mm and features a unique design where the motherboard runs down the middle of the chassis. According to Lenovo, this allows for superior cooling thanks to
16 www.AECmag.comQ3 2022
The IT industry has long been obsessed with shrinking down technology, but this advancement feels particularly relevant at this moment in time. As environmentsworkingcontinue to evolve, with more people working from home, a highperformance space-saving chassis will be extremely
Lenovo re-defines small form factor workstation with ThinkStation P360 Ultra
attractive to many firms.
Finally, the P360 Ultra also seems very well suited to remote graphics applications. With dual GPU support and 128 GB memory, it should comfortably support two users. And with expected good density in racks, it will be interesting to see where Lenovo takes the ThinkStation P360 beyond the desktop.
■ www.lenovo.com/workstations
In order to support the Nvidia RTX A5000, Lenovo developed a custom board for the mobile GPU, which Jara explains is MXM protocol driven through a PCIe standard riser. With a base Thermal Design Power (TDP) target of 110W the GPU will not deliver as much performance as a desktop RTX A5000 (which has a total board power of 230 W). However, Jara points out that even though you’ll find the same GPU in a mobile workstation, users should get better performance since the P360 Ultra has superior cooling. Users can expect slightly better performance than a desktop Nvidia RTX A4000, he says.
For servicing and upgrading, the chassis features front and side access. Tool-less
amsung has announced the SSD 990 Pro, a new high-performance PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD designed for desktop and mobile workstations.
www.AECmag.com
The processor offers a substantial performance lead in ray trace rendering, video editing and other workflows that can take full advantage of its many cores. Meanwhile, the 8-channel memory architecture can offer a significant boost in bandwidth hungry applications such as Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Finite Element Analysis (FEA).
For security, the chassis can be locked, complete with intrusion detection alerts, while TPM 2.0 and self-encrypting drives also help protect sensitive data.
What AEC Magazine thinks
The newly designed chassis is 14% smaller than the dual Intel Xeon-based Dell Precision 7820 Tower. It features a hexagonal venting pattern that supports dedicated air channels for critical components. According to Dell, this enhances both thermal efficiency and acoustic performance.
Workstation news
P Anyware, the remote softwaregraphicsforhybrid work environments where users can work from ‘anywhere’, has launched.
■ www.samsung.com/ssd
D HP Anyware out of beta
990H Pro launchesSSD
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The workstation can support up to 1 TB of DDR4 ECC memory with Dell Reliable Memory Technology (RMT) Pro. Other features include up to 56 TB of storage (comprising up to 8 TB HDDs, 4 TB NVMe SSDs or an Ultra-speed storage card up to 16 TB), optional Thunderbolt 3, and a range of professional graphics options, including up to two 32 GB AMD Radeon Pro W6800 GPUs or two 48 GB Nvidia RTX A6000 GPUs.
interiors and colour-coded components are designed to make it more intuitive to upgrade memory, storage or graphics cards.
The Dell Precision 7865 Tower can be configured with five different Threadripper Pro models spanning 12, 16, 24, 32 or 64 cores. The high-end desktop CPU combines high frequencies with high core counts to accelerate a range of workflows including CAD, simulation, rendering and reality modelling.
Lenovo certainly benefited from being the first major manufacturer to have a Threadripper Pro workstation. It helped it secure some significant deals, including DreamWorks Animation, which was a poster child for HP for many years.
ell has become the second major manufacturer to release a workstation with the AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5000 WX-Series processor.
USB Type-C and A ports are located on the front of the tower, and carrying handles make the tower more portable.
Dell Precision 7865 launches with Threadripper Pro
While it has taken Dell 18 months to catch up, it can now finally give Lenovo stronger competition in enterprise accounts. It remains to be seen if HP will follow suit. www.dell.com/workstations
The Dell Precision 7865 Tower follows on from the Lenovo ThinkStation P620, which launched in 2020 with 1st Gen Threadripper Pro and had a refresh in April 2022 with 2nd Gen Threadripper Pro (the 5000 WX-Series).
This is a very important win for AMD. Threadripper Pro has outperformed equivalent Intel processors in multithreaded workflows for close to two years.
■ www.hp.com/anyware
Featuring Samsung’s latest V-NAND memory and a new controller, Samsung claims the 990 Pro series offers the highest speed currently available from the PCIe 4.0 Comparedinterface.tothe980 Pro it replaces, the 990 Pro is said to deliver faster sequential read and write speeds even bigger gains in random read / write performance.
The 22.07 release delivers two headline features: support for Apple M1 silicon and HP Anyware collaboration which allows GPU accelerated screen sharing. Users can send invite links to others to easily join a live PCoIP
Until now, the high-end desktop CPU was only available from Lenovo and from specialist workstation manufacturers like Scan, BOXX and Workstation Specialists.
reviewormakeanduserEditsupportcollaboration’,However,screenlimitedCollaborationsession.iscurrentlytothehostsharingtheirwithonesecondaryuser.fortrue‘teamthereareplanstomultipleusers.HPisalsoworkingon‘TrueMode’,whichwillallowanytotakecontrolofthemousekeyboard–forexample,toeditsinaCAD/BIMtoolmarkupamodelindesign/software.
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The Nemetschek Group, which owns multiple AEC software brands including Allplan, Vectorworks, Solibri, Graphisoft, has invested in start-up SymTerra. The UK firm’s construction site communications platform is designed to allow ‘easy, instant, and intuitive’ communication across multiple contractors
Smartwww.symterra.co.ukconstruction
OpenTreewww.tinyurl.com/reality-paperenhanced
Other features of the ThinkStation P358 include up to 128 GB DDR4 of memory.
the same feature functionality as the ThinkPad P14s, but in a 16-inch chassis which starts at 1.68kg.
The Digital Twin Consortium (DTC) has published a new white paper that introduces the fundamentals of reality capture, which can play a key role in the lifecycle of a digital twin. The paper covers reality-capture devices, their applications and more
With its new Construction Intelligence Cloud Service, Oracle is using AI and data analytics to help give owners and contractors a comprehensive understanding of project performance in order to continuously improve outcomes across planning, construction, and asset operation
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Hardwww.graitec.com/opentreehatmonitor
Procorewww.amcbridge.commeetsAWS
The ThinkPad P14s follows on from the ThinkPad P14s (Intel edition) and ThinkPad P16s (AMD and Intel editions), which launched earlier this year. The AMD edition of the ThinkPad P16s offers
enovo has launched three new workstations powered by AMD Ryzen Pro processors: the mobile ThinkPad P14s Gen 3 and ThinkPad P15v Gen 3, and the desktop ThinkStation P358. It takes the total number of AMD-based Lenovo workstations to five and makes the global IT firm stand out further from the competition (HP, Dell and Fujitsu) where workstation portfolios continue to be dominated by Intel.
The ThinkStation P358 is Lenovo’s first desktop workstation to feature the AMD Ryzen Pro desktop processor with up to 12 cores and up to 4.7 GHz. It complements Lenovo’s other AMD-based desktop workstation, the ThinkStation P620, which features AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro CPUs with up to 64 cores and 4.5GHz.
Graitec Opentree 2023, the latest release of the AEC-focused drawing and document management system, has added several new features, enhanced the interface, simplified common operations and improved overall usability
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With the ThinkStation P620 best suited to more demanding multi-threaded workflows, this leaves the ThinkStation P358 to handle workflows where frequency is the priority, such as CAD, BIM. It will rival 12th Gen Intel Corebased workstations, such as the ThinkStation P360.
The ThinkPad P15v Gen 3 features the same choice of AMD Ryzen Pro 6000 H-series processors, but comes with higher performance graphics. The discrete Nvidia RTX A2000 GPU should make the 15.6inch laptop suitable for entry-level viz workflows as well as CAD and BIM. It also has more storage and memory than the ThinkPad P14s (64 GB DDR5 4800MHz memory and 4TB M.2 PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD) and starts at 2.26kg.
Construction management software provider Procore is working with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to bring ‘digital twins’ to the construction sector. AWS IoT TwinMaker will enable Procore data to be integrated from design and construction into operations www.procore.com
Realitywww.oracle.comcapture guide
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Lenovo expands portfolio of AMD-based workstationsROUND UP
With integrated graphics, up to 32GB of 6,400MHz LPDDR5 memory and up to 2TB of PCIe Gen4 NVMe storage, the ThinkPad P14s looks best suited to mainstream users of CAD and BIM software. It starts at 1.28kg.
SymTerra investment
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AMC Bridge is working on a technology that identifies construction workers not wearing hard hats. The web-based software uses machine learning and image recognition techniques to analyse frames extracted from an uploaded video
The ThinkPad P14s Gen 3 is billed as Lenovo’s most mobile workstation and is built around a thin and light 14-inch chassis. It is powered by AMD Ryzen Pro 6000 H-series processors (up to 8 cores and up to 4.7GHz), which also come with integrated AMD RDNA 2 graphics and AMD Radeon Pro graphics drivers. This contrasts with most other mobile workstations which have discrete GPUs with their own power and cooling requirements. As the Thermal Design Power (TDP) of the top-end AMD Ryzen Pro 6000 processors only goes up to 45W, we expect the ThinkPad P14s will benefit from reduced energy consumption in some workflows.
In terms of pro graphics, Lenovo has seemingly limited options to the lowprofile Nvidia RTX A2000. Perhaps this is to differentiate it from the Intel-based ThinkStation P360, which supports up to the Nvidia RTX A5000 in what appears to be the same tower chassis as the P358.
BIMT
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urner & Townsend has developed a bespoke carbon accounting tool which is designed to enable clients to evaluate the carbon footprint of projects from an early design stage, covering cradle to practical completion of the product and construction process.
According to Arloid, savings of up to 30% can be seen in just 60 days.
lice Technologies, whose construction optioneering platform uses AI to help contractors plan, bid and build infrastructure and commercial projects, has announced two major partnerships.
he latest release of BIMcollab Zoom, the BIM validation tool, now allows users to re-organise and structure BIM data from different sources, so they don’t have to rely on authors changing their own models.
Takenaka Corporation, one of the five largest general contractors in Japan, and Bouygues Travaux Publics, one of the largest companies in the civil works
Arloid builds a ‘Digital Twin’ that takes into account construction materials, occupancy rates, pollution levels, past, present and predicted weather data, and thermal zones.
AutodeskintegratesSyncSharewith
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loud-based distributed document management system BIM SyncShare has a new integration with Autodesk Construction Cloud.
Now, project teams can import construction files from Autodesk Docs, Autodesk Build, or BIM 360 directly into BIM SyncShare.
Once the digital model is complete the
■ www.turnerandtownsend.com
Major contractors adopt AI optioneering
19www.AECmag.com Q3 2022
Arloid’s service has no upfront costs. A fee is agreed from the resultant savings and, if there are no savings, there is no fee.
sector, will use Alice’s platform on several major projects around the world.
Alice first worked with Takenaka on One Bangkok, a major multi-use project in Thailand. With the Alice platform Takenaka generated more than 300 ways to build one of the project’s large mixeduser towers as it explored solutions that would reduce risk and drive efficiency.
AI can begin to learn. Arloid.ai gathers live data on the correct responses to an array of changing conditions and occupancy levels. It runs 300,000 iterations to calibrate the model and learn about the building’s thermal behaviour. Optimum settings can then be found for each microzone to reduce energy, coolant and carbon emissions.
■ www.arloid.com/technology
Arloid using AI to optimise HVAC performance
The proprietary software fully integrates with the global consultancy’s benchmarkingexistingandcost planning applications, incorporating the management of carbon as a currency seamlessly with its capital equivalent. Both currencies are managed in parallel via the same custom application.
BIM SyncShare enables project stakeholders to create shared working folders to deliver files between internal servers and multiple external cloud hosting solutions such as Google Drive, Dropbox and OneDrive.
■ www.bimsyncshare.com
‘Smart Properties’ allows users to create their own properties and classifications based on existing object attributes, or map values from different properties to a single new, user-defined property.
BIMcollab Zoom takes control of data
With its ‘Embodied Carbon Calculator’ Turner & Townsend is also calling for a fundamental re-evaluation of the role of the cost manager allowing them to benchmark, model and track carbon values for materials across the full cycle of a construction process.
■ www.bimcollab.com
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■ www.alicetechnologies.com
CalculatorCarbonEmbodied
News
rloid Automation is using AI to help reduce consumptionenergyinbuildings. The company’s technology optimises the performance of existing building management and HVAC systems by learning what is required for optimum comfort and efficiency.
Previously, contractors would take a full day to physically measure stockpiles and calculate transport requirements, often working in steep and difficult environments.Otherapplications of the software include helping to show compliance with design tolerances in built structures against BIM and CAD models, speeding-up design cycles, particularly in earthworks and excavations design and monitoring the installation of utilities.
Drone surveys help cut costs on Midlands section of HS2
Site Scan for ArcGIS is Esri’s cloudbased drone flight management and image processing software, offering flight planning, hardware management, scalable image processing and unlimited data storage, plus ‘seamless integration’ with BBV’s Esri enterprise GIS system. ■ www.capturingreality.com/introducing-realityscan
martViz, a digital twin platform designed to help building managers optimise energy efficiency and space usage, is now integrated with the Bentley iTwin platform.
monitoring aggregate stockpiles, using a single drone operator to carry out 3D volumetric measurements in 20 minutes.
When using an iPad / iPhone Pro with the LiDAR scanner a vertical snapping detects the corner even if it is hidden. www.gamma-ar.com
Gamma AR snaps to increase accuracyTB
As well as identifying where energy is being wasted, it allows predictive modelling so building owners or managers can see how different scenarios, such as weather conditions or occupancy rates, would impact energy usage, providing more control over costs.
he latest release of Gamma AR now makes it easier and faster to overlay BIM models on the construction site using Augmented Reality
The SmartViz platform provides real-time access to data and insights about how a building is used. Data can be integrated from diverse systems and sensors into a 3D visual environment.
With the new ‘pin’ feature, BIM models can snap to physical corners and edges of walls and columns on site automatically. According to the developers, identifying
20 www.AECmag.comQ3 2022
News
AkularS unveils new digital twin app
■ www.akular.com
Now powered by iTwin, SmartViz offers users a ‘comprehensive’ digital twin that records, monitors, tracks, instantly alerts and optimises asset performance.
the precise corner and having an exact alignment allows users to more accurately overlay their models, in order to check the progress of projects and identify issues with pinpoint clarity.
alfour Beatty VINCI (BBV) has rolled out Esri’s Site Scan for ArcGIS drone flight management and image processing software, to support its drone deployment strategy on its Midlands section of HS2.
iTwin platformbuildingpowersenergy
kular Twin is a new lightweight app built on the Bentley iTwin platform, that enables users to upload a BIM model during construction or have a BIM model created from the layout of an existing building.
Various 2D and 3D outputs are being generated for sharing with multiple stakeholders, including high-definition imagery and 3D terrain models.
The software is designed to enable a wide range of professionals from construction workers to facility managers to compare updated versions of the same model, detect clashes, or create and track issues. All this can be done in a real-world overlay through Augmented Reality or simply pinch/zooming in 3D on a phone or tablet.
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■ www.smart-viz.com
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Faster and more efficient drone surveys are already saving around £20,000 a year on monthly construction progress surveys on a single site, instead of using physical surveys and the subsequent updating of CAD models. BBV estimates this could save around £1.6m if the same workflow was applied across 80 sites in the first Anotheryear.benefit has been the removal of 800 ‘working at risk’ days and a cost saving of £30,000 per year from
SCAN ME ©2022 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. All rights reserved. AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, Radeon and combinations thereof are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. PID#: 211135450 THE GPU FOR ALL-DAY PERFORMANCE. BORN TO BE A KING. The new AMD Radeon™ PRO W6400 GPU brings a blend of vital performance and ultra-affordability to help ensure you feel confident in keeping to every challenging deadline. Using all of our processor expertise we set out to create a GPU that offers: • Essential performance for today’s modern professional worker. • 4 GB of high-performance memory to help tackle more content. • 2x Ultra-high resolution, ultra-wide monitors supported for workflow efficiencies. • And hardware raytracing, (Basically, we didn’t cut any corners with this affordable GPU.) Mainstream Performance. Upgraded, and Always by Your amd.com/RadeonPROW6400Side.
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viding well-connected BIM workflows. This will include addressing issues with OpenBIM and easy information exchange.
The change probably has a lot to do with CEO, Huw Roberts, who has been steadily making changes to the way Graphisoft communicates and goes to market. There is also the fact that there is industry concern about the development futures of Archicad’s biggest competi tor, Revit, and the fact that Archicad is undergoing signif icant software architecture changes to better prepare it for tomorrow’s hybrid computing requirements, as well as broader, more multi-disciplinary vertical developments. This is the start of a metamorphosis.
Other than for beta testers, the focus of Archicad development is usually a sur prise. This year we had something very different. We were treated to not just a whole new release, but also four roadmaps of focus areas spanning 2022 to 2025.
The key areas focus are:
Design Team Collaboration: including BIMcloud, BIMx, OpenBIM & BCF, and CDE connections.
Feature
Architecture: which covers design, docu ment, visualise and collaborate.
Productive Ecosystem: which is the sup port services - Graphisoft Forward, Graphisoft Learn and Graphisoft GraphisoftCommunity.gave
The upcoming capability highlights for architecture include dynamic design edit ing tools, design options and variants sys tem, an attribute management system, reflected ceiling plans, design stage level of
Multi-Disciplinary Design: featuring OpenBIM, integrated design and DDScad (Graphisoft’s MEP solution).
hen it comes to telling the world about new capabil ities developed for Archicad, Graphisoft has traditionally done this once a year, at the launch event of the latest release.
In 2023, the key topic area for Architecture, will be integrated BIM data systems, expanding shared models, inte grated design and data reservation. In 2024, development of integrated user experiences will look to create shared capabilities, align interfaces and offer sim plified training. The final road map date is 2025 in which Graphisoft will address integrated enterprise management, look ing at shared resources, multitiered man agement and orchestrated administration.
detail, and an analytic integration system.
Design Team Collaboration in 2022 will focus on OpenBIM and easy information exchange. 2023 will bring Team to Team col laboration, with cross disci pline integration, dynamic hyper model publishing and additional CDE connectivity. 2024’s theme is Dynamic Teams Management with enhancements to shared capabilities, aligned interfaces and dynamic CDE inte gration. 2025’s focus is Managed Enterprises and will further support mul ti-tiered management and orchestrated administration.Inmoredepth, users will see multiple CDE integrations, including BIM 360, BIM+, Aconex, and Projectwise etc.
Finally, under the Productive Ecosystems banner in 2022 this will enhance the Graphisoft Forward commu nity and Graphisoft Learn (for support and learning). In 2023, under Administrative Simplicity, there will be licensing enhancements, upgrade enhancements and third party expan sions. . In 2024 the company will deliver ‘instant upgrades’, enterprise licensing and resource management systems. 2025’s
The future architecture of Graphisoft
Multilane roadmap
Graphisoft believes the cloud should be used for what it’s best for and customers should not be forced to make compromises ’’
us a roadmap for each area of focus. Starting with Architecture in 2022, the company will focus on pro
If we have ever seen an Archicad road map before, it would have been for one product. Now that core Archicad is going to be the host to multiple verticals, and the offerings will be expanded through additional products and services, this means multiple roadmaps.
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At Graphisoft’s 40th anniversary event, held at its Budapest headquarters, the company set out a roadmap for its technology development for the first time. CEO Huw Roberts also took on the press in a Q&A
Zsolt Kerecsen, vice president of prod uct development and Shesh Gorur, vice president of product success took us through the various roadmaps.
24 www.AECmag.comQ3 2022
For the building systems category, 2022 brings us easier information exchange, BIMcloud integration and the DDScad viewer. 2023 will focus on inte grated data and workflows facilitating common data models, integrated work flows and broader geographic reach. 2024 addresses integrated user experi ences, interface consistency, shared capa bilities as well as simplifying training. 2025 delivers on integrated enterprise management, which will support the multi-tier management system, orches trated administration and global reach.
Users will be able to decide if they want to run some processing locally or in cloud services. Archicad will be eminently ‘inte gratable’ and will be able to take advan tage of cloud services, desktop plug-ins, as well as add-on libraries and customisa tions. Being able to choose to process online or offline will be unique in the industry and aims to offer the most flexi
release will offer multi-tiered management and orchestrated administration.
While some vendors think that everything will be centralised on the cloud, Graphisoft has a different prediction. It believes that customers will use a mix of devices throughout the day. It also believes that sometimes it could make more sense to work on the desktop, sometimes in the cloud, and even using both. To better pre pare Archicad for this hybrid way of work ing, Graphisoft has started rearchitecting Archicad’s technology stack.
MISSION STRATEGY ROADMAP BIMConnectedWellWorkflows • Open ExchangeEasyWorksBIMalongsideInformation SystemsBIMIntegratedData • Shared DataIntegratedModelsDatareservation ExperiencesUserIntegrated • Shared Capabilities Aligned Interfaces Simplified Training ManagementEnterpriseIntegrated • Shared Resources Multi Tiered Management • AdministrationOrchestrated 2022 2023 2024 Strategic2025 Milestones Multi - disciplinary Design VISION MISSION STRATEGY ROADMAP CollaborationTeam Open BIM • Works alongside • Easy ExchangeInformation Team to CollaborationTeam Cross IntegrationDiscipline • CDEPublishingHypermodelDynamicConnectivity ManagementTeamsDynamic Shared capabilities • Aligned Interfaces • Dynamic IntegrationCDE EnterprisesManaged Shared resources 2022 2023 2024 Strategic2025 Milestones Design Team Collaboration VISION MISSION STRATEGY ROADMAP ProgramsEcosystem Graphisoft Forward • GraphisoftCommunityGraphisoftLearn SimplicityAdministrative EnhancementsLicensing • EnhancementsUpgrade • 3rd ExpansionParty ContinuityFlexible Instant Upgrades • SystemsManagementResourceLicensingEnterprise EnterprisesManaged Shared Resources • Multi administrationOrchestratedmanagementtiered 2022 2023 2024 Strategic2025 Milestones Productive Ecosystems VISION MISSION STRATEGY ROADMAP PartnerDDScadOpen Easy ExchangeInformation • IntegrationBIMcloud • DDScad viewer WorkflowsDataIntegrated& Common Data Models • workflowsIntegrated • GeographicBroader reach ExperiencesUserIntegrated ConsistencyInterface • Shared SimplifiedcapabilitiesTraining ManagementEnterpriseIntegrated Multi managementtier 2022 2023 2024 Strategic2025 Milestones Building Systems multilanenewGraphisoft’sfouryearroadmaps
A new licence system will deliver better file format persistence, automated migra tion, an expanded third party programme, resource deployment and access manage ment capabilities, plus an additional courseware community and consulting to add value.
The foundation layer, which Graphisoft calls the microkernel, fulfils basic tasks such as log in, loading, licence management and security. On top of this is the general BIM authoring layer, into which the indi vidual vertical discipline applications will plug-in. Graphisoft envisages the following verticals: Architectural, Mechanical, Plumbing, Structural, Electrical and oth ers. In addition to this, Archicad will define internal services, external services, as well as plug-ins, which can be called on by the general BIM authoring layer or the vertical discipline layers.
Adaptive Frameworks
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TurboMesh™ Surface Mode RGB Mode
Mesh-based viewing experience with full 3D navigation and scan-to-scan navigation.
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Feature
That, combined with the new possibili ties that DDScad would bring the multidisciplinary go to market, meant it felt like a different, emboldened Graphisoft.
■ www.graphisoft.com
Graphisoft is happy to play it cool and architect its product to be as flexible and extensible as possible. We really look for ward to seeing a demonstration of this when implemented, opting for local or cloud processing on the same data.
and original founder of Solidworks).
While having dinner on the final night of our stay in Budapest, the conversation turned to cloud and if the future is ulti mately all online. We were fortunate to have Zsolt Kerecsen on our table, who explained why a pure cloud play was not on the cards at Graphisoft. The first issue
After the Second World War , the Soviet Union incorporated Hungary into the communist bloc, which placed it behind the iron curtain. This limited trade opportunities and access to IT equipment. Despite this handicap, Gábor Bojár set up a private company when it was first made legal, and officially launched Graphisoft in 1982. It had started developing a CAD system which would eventually become Archicad, while assisting in the installation of a new nuclear power plant.
In 2007, German design software company Nemetschek Group (www.nemetscheck.com) acquired 54% of shares of Graphisoft for around $68 million. As is the way with Nemetschek, Graphisoft operates independently as a business unit, alongside other firms such as Solibri, Bluebeam and Vectorworks.
The next key issue was one of perfor mance, just getting acceptable lag times was difficult enough and software devel opers with high graphics loads were building thick clients because the cost of using cloud GPU was punitive and nobody would pay that premium. The cloud should be used for what it’s best for and customers should not be forced to make compromises. This view flies in the face of developers like Jon Hirschtick (general manager of Onshape ( www.onshape.com ), one of the leading mechanical CAD SaaS cloud applications
Since Bojár, the company has
The mainstage presentation from the founder, past CEO and current, looked through historic photographs and moments in the company’s history and they were there to, of course, cut the birthday cake. The night finished with an amazing drone display over the park.
Graphisoft at 40
It was perhaps predictable that Graphisoft would come up with a differ ent solution to tomorrow’s complexities. The truth is, while some computer scien tists in software companies feel the cloud is the destination for all software and ser vices, customers aren’t clamouring to move lock, stock and barrel to the cloud.
To celebrate the company’s 40th anniversary, Bojár, Várkonyi and Roberts were on hand to host a garden party at Graphisoft Park, mixing press and employees in the warm Budapest summer sun.
In 1996, Bojár decided to build Graphisoft’s own HQ and bought an area of land on the banks of the Danube. The company moved there in 1998 and even built housing accommodation for visiting programmers, as the company was recruiting all over eastern Europe.
There have been a number of new hires at Graphisoft, notably Ron Close VP mar keting (ex Solidworks and Shapr3D). This has given Graphisoft some industry experience from more competitive and corporate markets. From conversations at the event, these appointments appear to have brought more purpose and focus into taking on the competition that I have been used to.
ble architecture for all users needs. This work will also mean that when dis ruptive technologies come along, Graphisoft has multiple entry points to add in new capabilities - in-house, third party, or acquired, such as augmented real ity, AI, blockchain, algorithmic design, gen erative design, robotic process automation, through API, desktop or cloud services.
Conclusion
Since then, Graphisoft Park has seen Microsoft, Apple, SAP, Canon and
But it is true, when it comes to true cloud-based graphics-intensive applica tions like CAD - exceptional examples are few and far between. None of the cloudbased CAD applications lead on market share from desktop apps.
Adaptive Frameworks: To better prepare Archicad for a hybrid way of working, Graphisoft has started rearchitecting Archicad’s technology stack
been run by Ray Small from 20022003 (Gartner), Dominic Gallello from 2003-2009 (ex-Autodesk), Viktor Várkonyi from 2009-2019 (a Graphisoft employee from 1992) and is currently run by Huw Roberts (formerly of Bentley Systems).
While Graphisoft did not invent 3D modelling for architecture, or what has since become known as BIM (see BDS, RUCAPS, Sonata, Reflex), it is undoubtedly the longest running, commercially available BIM application on the market. It precedes the introduction of Revit by 13 years (Revit was acquired by Autodesk in 2002 for $130 million).
Recruiting the best programming talent from local universities, Graphisoft set about creating modelling software with access to limited processing power and memory, a constraint which made the team get the most out of low
power machines. With the launch of the Apple Lisa, the company managed to port its code and Bojár went to a trade show in Germany in 1984 and met Steve Jobs. Impressed with the work they had done, Jobs gave computers and financial help to Graphisoft and agreed to distribute their software globally. The first official version of Archicad came out in 1987.
Kerecsen raised was the security issues that arose from using modern browsers. He felt they were too much of a security risk and a weak entry point.
many other firms take up residency.
27www.AECmag.com Q3 2022
Cloud BIM?
Question: There seems to be a kind of a differential, starting to be seen with the cloud in BIM. Autodesk is going to move its applications and the data to a cloud. Users will store their data in the cloud and access their apps through thin or thick cli ents. Graphisoft seems to be pursuing a data centric approach where you are put ting DDScad models and Archicad models in BIMcloud, but you’re still keeping the desktop application idea where you are still using the software locally.
Huw Roberts: We’re saying that there are arguments for almost any combination you can think of - separating the application from the data, from the work flow and from the connec tions, between workflows, between data sources. It’s a very complex puzzle. Our approach generally is we want to have the data and the
An extended version of this interview can be seen at www.tinyurl.com/ Graphisoft-future-AEC.
Question: Archicad is going to become a multi-disciplinary platform. How does that contrast with the name Archicad?
28 www.AECmag.comQ3 2022
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‘‘
DDScad is not in Archicad. It’s in Graphisoft and will increasingly share a technology platform with Archicad. However, it’s a separate thing. In fact, DDScad is actually a modular collection of things you can buy, depending on what your company does, and what your role is. I think the technology answer doesn’t have to match up with the ‘productising’ answer. The interesting part for us is that there’s full flexibility for both.
Huw Roberts: Our approach is that we recognise that what our customers have always done for all of our 40 years, is work in teams, alongside other profes sionals doing related work. Architects working with structural, mechanical, elec trical, interiors, all sorts of disciplines. We have, through our OpenBIM approach, had great workflows and connectivity to all of them. And we’re still committed to that. We also recognise that there are aspects where that integration can really benefit from a short-cycle integration in theWhenworkflow.weintroduced integrated design two years ago, we showed how that can affect the structural discipline. There are elements in a building that are part of the design process of more than one disci pline. So, a column is of interest to an archi tect because it’s there, in the space, and the architect needs to know where it is. It’s also of interest to a structural engineer, because it’s holding up the floor upstairs. Both disciplines need to interact with that model element. But they care about differ ent aspects of it. The architect doesn’t real ly care about the forces inside; he does, but he doesn’t deal with them. The struc tural engineer doesn’t really care about what colour is painted. Rather than have two separate columns that are in two dif ferent workflows in two different systems, why not share that model element and deal with the aspects of it in real time as you do your own work in a shared integrated experi ence? That’s the essence of our integrated design technology andWithapproach.DDScad, MEP and beyond into other disciplines, our ambition, goal and plan - as you’ll see on the roadmap - is to have that same approach across all disciplines.
Topics include AI and machine learn ing, digital twins, Mac silicon, CDEs and software licensing.
Graphisoft has no plans for Archicad as a SaaS, but definitely plans on leveraging the power of SaaS to extend and enhance Archicad. But we have no plans to lock up the data or the experience in a proprietary way in that ecosystem. We’re still fully committed to OpenBIM, which was implied in the first part of your question.
Because a light has electrical power, that also generates heat that affects air condi tioning. That also has an architectural component about it and is the right kind of light in the room, etc. We want to sup port that multidisciplinary workflow, team and technology approach and we have some technology architecture that will help us do that.
You’ll see in the product approach. If you’re designing an architectural build ing, you’re not doing that on a phone, or an iPad. If you’re doing anything real, you’ve probably got two giant monitors in front of you and you’re immersing yourself where you’ve got an Oculus headset on. You’re going to need heavy local comput ing power to deal with that. But you’re probably integrating data from all over the place. Yes, you’re going to want to talk to the cloud and you may want to process something in that workflow that could use massive computing in the cloud, to run that process, but you’re experiencing it here on your desktop. So why not have your desktop talk to the cloud to do that thing? That doesn’t mean you need to take eve rything to the cloud, just the one thing that you’re dealing with. Our approach is a very hybrid approach, to leverage the cloud, to extend your experience, and lev erage a mobile device to provide another interface point into the experience and leverage the technologies to be present in the right place at the right time.
Q&A with Huw Roberts CEO of Graphisoft
computing and the interface, be where it needs to be for what you’re doing, and we designed it in a way that we can actually present it to you on your desktop, or in the cloud, or have things on the desktop that are actually doing some things by talking to and leveraging services in the cloud.
Graphisoft has no plans for Archicad as a SaaS, but definitely plans on leveraging the power of SaaS to extend and enhance Archicad. But we have no plans to lock up the data or the experience in a proprietary way ’’
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This month’s release of another ‘Open Letter’ from customers and Architectural Associations in the Nordics ( see page 35 ) only further highlights the difference in product development velocity between Archicad and Revit.
emetschek, which is the parent company of Graphisoft, owns many construction-related brands – Solibri, Allplan and Bluebeam to name but a few. Unlike other AEC software firms, it has always tended to keep its brands as separate units, each with their own CEO, promoting each solu tion. In the industry this went against the standard flow, with others integrating into suites or single solutions.
A new phrase that comes with this release is the ‘Graphisoft Ecosystem’, which is a definition of how the company’s product offerings are changing. For dec ades, Graphisoft has sold one product, Archicad, but as the range of services and products expand, Archicad becomes more of a platform technology for cloud apps, training, enhanced support (Graphisoft Forward) and its own vertical applications, such as the new DDScad for MEP which is being ported to be native to Archicad.
Architecture is the foundation design-todetail phase, upon which all other tasks rely. Maybe it’s new name should be ‘Not justTalkingArchicad’!ofproduct development veloci ty, despite Archicad’s apparent age (Graphisoft started in 1982), the code base has been constantly evolving and, in more recent years, the company has taken to completely rewriting core tools and carrying out large ports to new oper ating systems. While available on Apple MacOS and Windows (the first Windows version was released in 1993), this latest version will be the first version reworked to make the most out of Apple’s new CPU design and flavour of operating system, apparently giving significant speed boosts. This is all part of a major rejuve nation effort by the development team.
Graphisoft Archicad 26
Nemetschek had seemed to be holding out - until this year that is, when it decid ed to take its DDScad MEP product and fold it into the Graphisoft company. This means Archicad will become multi-disci pline and more of a feature-for-feature competitor to Autodesk Revit.
The only issue that belies all this work is probably the name of Graphisoft’s soft ware, as ‘Archi’ is ever more a misleading pigeonhole. One could argue that
The new release
N
This is a significant moment for Graphisoft. From now on, Archicad com
This summer, Graphisoft released the 26th version of its flagship BIM tool, Archicad. Offering a stack of user-requested updates, the platform continues to lay the groundwork for multi-disciplinary capabilities with structural tools and DDScad for MEP, writes Martyn Day
The tag line of this year’s release is ‘Stay focused, design more’. This means the focus of development has been on tools that help architects stay in their creative flow. Doing boring and repetitive tasks breaks the creative process of design, so the development team looked at work flows that could benefit from automation
30 www.AECmag.comQ3 2022
Software 1
petes as a single building model tool, which can handle all core AEC design activities – Architecture and MEP – under its own brand, then through Nemetschek’s other brands for structural (Scia, Risa, Frilo). The pace of this development and convergence seems to be accelerating. All the while, its main competitor - Autodesk Revit - despite some renewed develop ment work, looks moribund.
31www.AECmag.com Q3 2022
3 Custom parametric object libraries can be created without scripting
In some situations, documenting open ings in complex geometry required work arounds. Openings now have surface override options, so they can be properly documented.
It’s now possible to import selected pages from a multi-page PDF document into Archicad sessions. The Autotext feature in master layouts automatically updates title blocks, such as master layout name,
Design intent improvements
1 Archicad 26 includes accurate building lifecycle analysis and sustainability tools (Microsoft Office Complex in Graphisoft Park, Budapest Lukacs and Vikar Architects, Hungary www.lukacsesvikar.hu)
Documentation
4 BIMx, Graphisoft’s model sharing technology for iOS, Android and desktop, gets ‘levelled-up’, bringing the feature sets of each platform to the same standard
One of the most impressive additions is the ability to create custom parametric object libraries without scripting. This makes the creation of smart objects (doors, windows) as simple as modelling. No GDL knowledge is required. In Archicad 25, a detailed, highly-parametric kitchen cabinet library was added. Based on user feedback, this has been further improved, making them more customisa ble and compliant with local design standards. I think both these features are built on top of the PARAM-O engine added in Archicad 24.
Manageability
243 DDSCADNORWAYSTØREN,INHEADQUARTERSCORPORATEHUGAAS’NORWAY.FELLESBYGG,MOOYACREDIT:
2 Archicad is set to become a true multidisciplinary product
As projects get larger and more complex, managing and producing attribute data with better structure and hierarchy with in Archicad’s folder structure can smooth the workflow. Navigation search has been added so if you are looking for an item in any of your ‘project map’, ‘view map’, ‘lay out book’ or ‘publisher sets’, Navigator will help find them without manually searching through folders.
and fine tuning. There are a number of key design areas addressed in this release:
Now Everest technology has been updated to allow multi-segmented ana lytical elements, such as beams or col umns, to be more precisely represented in the analytical model. These can be exported to SAF - the Structural Analysis Format files. SAF files are also smoother and faster to produce. There is also a new capability to automatically ‘live load’ models for structural engineers.
Conclusion
Graphisoft’s highly popular model sharing technology, available on iOS and Android and desktop viewer, gets ‘levelled-up’, bringing the feature sets of each platform to the same standard.
In the last three releases, visualisation has seen some huge improvements and Graphisoft has been negotiating some great deals - first with Epic Games (Twinmotion) and then Enscape, giving years of free access.
Cloud
Archicad and Nemetschek’s structural analysis tools. Customers who used the technology, reported seeing 30% time savings when working with structural analytical workflows.
■ www.graphisoft.com/archicad
RUSLIDEMAS©PHOTO|AUSTRALIAFJMTSTUDIO.COM,–FJMTSYDNEYCENTRE,PERKINSCHARLES
Graphisoft’s BIMcloud capability, available as a service, has been enhanced to support greater capacity (+100K files), with no file size limit per project. File version history has also been improved.
C02 and energy
Everest technology, added in Archicad 22, provided a new data pipeline technol ogy allowing architects and structural engineers to seamlessly work together, passing data on demand between
32 www.AECmag.comQ3 2022
The launch of version 26 coincided with the company celebrating its 40th birthday. The opportunity allowed for a party in Budapest, and a chance for the Graphisoft team to provide some future gazing and some rare insight into the software’s future software architecture.
‘‘ The changefundamental[withversion26]istothinkofArchicadasaplatformtechnologyforservicesandverticalapplications’’
MEP
This is a multi-year project as Graphisoft and DDScad continue the integration pro cess. It’s going to be a phased approach, ending in tight integra tion. The first task was to establish the same look and feel, then fine tune their IFC exchange. This release sees Graphisoft connect DDScad to BIMx and BIMcloud. Over time the products will be become seamlessly integrated. There is
In version 26, Graphisoft has updated its surface catalogue with new surface content to visualise designs better with two other renderers, Cinerender and Redshift.BIMx,
height, drawing number and level dimen sions. It’s possible to set the dimension origin by default in favourites. Graphic overrides for non-visible data (using col ours and fills) support multiple userdefined rules.
Turn to page 24 for more.
With support for Twinmotion, Enscape, Cinerender and Redshift, Archicad now offers a wide range of visualisation options
There has been a trend in recent years of Archicad development of addressing existing functionality in the most used features – design, collaboration, visuali sation and documentation. Version 26 continues in the same vein, addressing customer requests across all of its capa bilities. However, the fundamental change is to think of Archicad as a plat form technology for services and vertical applications.Theaddition of a completely new MEP development team, with an established mature product is really going to be a major leap forward in capability. The question will be how much of this capa bility is included in the core Archicad, and how much will need to be purchased separately? It seems that DDScad’s fea tures are not going to be poured into Archicad and given away for free, but will be sold as maybe a flavour or Archicad. It’s still too early to tell and Graphisoft is both integrating and reach ing out to MEP users to help it figure out its go to market strategy.
Software
Sustainability isn’t just a hot topic; it’s become a legal and essential building design constraint. Archicad 26 includes accurate building lifecycle analysis and sustainability tools, derived from a new library of material data, to produce valu able design insight reports.
also a huge amount of work to build in local MEP standards from around the world. Again, a process that will take a while to do.
Visualisation
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Feature
The first ‘open letter’ came from cus tomers, mainly in the UK. This new ‘open letter’ comes from associations repre senting entire countries. The support from the Architects Council of Europe esca lates the issue to the size of tectonic Autodeskplates.needs to address the future of Revit beyond a shortterm roadmap. As Autodesk has been clear, its future applica tions are in the cloud with Autodesk Forge. Will Revit be rewritten or replaced? Mature Revit cus tomers who have invested decades of time and money have the right to clear answers. Autodesk needs to quickly learn how to properly engage with and listen to its high-end architectural customers.
Firms can sign here: ■ www.the-nordic-letter.com
In 2020 several leading UK and international AEC firms wrote an open letter to Autodesk CEO, Andrew Anagnost, highlighting a range of deep concerns with Revit, Suites, costs, licensing & business practices. A new open letter from Nordic Architectural Associations says nothing has changed writes Martyn Day
Cost stability, license predictability and tools for better license management are also key asks of the Nordic Open Letter writers. Many firms are having to deal with multiple licences on different licence models and design IT managers are spending far too much time allocating licences, while fearing accidental noncompliance and fines.
Two years ago, 25 firms based in the UK and Australia, released an Open Letter to Autodesk (www.tinyurl.com/adesk-letter) highlighting their frustrations with years of lacklustre development of Revit, Autodesk’s changing license models, increased costs, punitive non-compliance busi ness practices and a lack of interoperability between Autodesk’s own applications and poor support for IFC. The Letter was put online and any firm that agreed with the contents could sign. In the end over 200 firms got board-level approval to sign, as well as one huge construction association which covered Brazil.
here has been a new Open Letter to Autodesk, this time from the Danish, Norwegian, Finnish and Icelandic Architectural Associations, which repre sent 14,000 architects. The letter comes with a supporting message from the Architects Council of Europe — a body composed of 43 representative organisa tions based in the EU, Switzerland and Norway, representing over 600,000 architects. The letter is reproduced in full on the following pages.
35www.AECmag.com Q3 2022
From talking to many IT design direc tors involved in the last two years of talks, they feel their investment in Revit could now be a dead end. This feeling has now been taken up by the Nordic Architectural Associations. What is the future of Revit?
The first ‘open letter’ came from customers, mainly in the UK. This new ‘open letter’ comes from associations representing entire countries. The support from the Architects Council of Europe escalates the issue to the size of tectonic plates ’’
‘‘
addressing issues which had been out standing for years. However, the firms complaining were mature customers who wanted fundamental core improvements like multi-core CPU support and improved reliability. The enhancements delivered were the low-hanging fruit. Some complaints were ignored complete ly (see page 38 Simultaneously,).
T
The Nordic Associations want to see
Read the Nordic letter in full
The Open Letter resulted in some changes. The Revit team started hiring programmers and, in the last release a load of features were enhanced or added,
Nordic architectural associations demand better value from Autodesk
another group of 10+ globally renowned ‘signature’ architects approached Autodesk without an open letter but with a similar list of gripes and were also engaged in talks with the Revit team. They went through the exact same process as the ‘Open Letter’ group and were demanding core-level changes or a complete re-write of the twenty year old Revit code.
real action on core BIM development. An insight into the long-term roadmap of Autodesk’s BIM products, performance improvements and a prioritisation for the ground-up replacement of Revit to bring it into the modern software era.
The Open Letter generated a lot of global coverage and Autodesk agreed to engage with the letter writers to have a listening session with the executive team and then, over the subsequent two years on going, occasional engagement with the Revit development team.
Over the page
Having seen Autodesk spend billions on acquiring PDF document distribu tion services for Autodesk Construction Cloud, the lack of development of Revit, given the huge income from Autodesk’s AEC Suites, deeply concerned them.
In the last couple of years there have been several initiatives raising concerns on the state of the software market in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry:
In February 2020 the European Construction Industry Federation (FIEC) released a position paper on the lack of competition in the software industry, with customers facing rising costs, limited licensing options from a small number of competing developers.
Unfortunately, we are not able to reach our potential in provid ing digital services supporting an entire building’s life cycle, much due to the lack of sufficient development and support of our digital tools. We also see practice revenues increasingly eaten up by rising software costs, for little serious development or regeneration.
We face and struggle with the very same issues as described in the British open letter:
In September 2021, RIF, The Association of Consulting Engineers in Norway, sent an open letter to all design software developers, governmental entities and trade organisations, sup porting all of the above positions and letters.
The design and construction industry in the Nordic region is amongst the most digitised in the world and most architects and engineers use many different digital design tools in a typical workday. We observe that our ability to implement the latest tools brings the digitalisation of the whole construction indus try forward. It is therefore essential that the design teams and software developers cooperate to achieve faster and more effi cient digital production capabilities.
In June 2021 Architects’ Council of Europe (ACE) and the European Federation of Engineering Consultancy Associations (EFCA) released a position paper fully endorsing the FIEC ini tiative and proposals.
The four professional bodies behind this Open Letter are:
The voices of the combined architectural industry bodies now join this momentum. Together we voice our concerns, on behalf of all architectural practices in our Nordic countries. We repre sent more than 14,000 architects, with a turnover of several bil lions of dollars, with many large and internationally active architectural practices. The majority of architects in these coun tries use Autodesk AEC products.
To: Andrew Anagnost, Chief Executive Officer, Autodesk
Background
Open letter
• Danish Association of Architectural firms, Denmark
Almost two years on from the first Open Letter, we see no sub stantial progress or development of Autodesk’s core products. The updates that have been delivered have not been deep or consequential. Even decades old requests for simple fixes remain unsolved. Autodesk’s policy seems to be providing basic tools and let third party developers supplement needed func tionality through add-ins. This creates a highly fragmented software landscape with a lot of overlapping functionality and multiple approaches to licensing, making software administra tion unnecessarily complex.
36 www.AECmag.comQ3 2022
• ATL – The Association of Finnish Architects’ Offices, Finland
Every day digital design leaders around the world wrestle with soft ware, which at its core is twenty years old and incapable of the poten tial of multi-core computing and graphics power designed to process within today’s real and virtual workstations. Project productivity in architectural and engineering practices is hit daily because of the lack of scalability and product performance, which then requires sophisti cated and practice specific ‘work arounds’.
• SAMARK - The Association of Architectural Firms in Iceland
The interoperability and compatibility of programs within the Autodesk family should be a prerequisite and is of utmost importance to ensure a rational, efficient, and dynamic work flow within multidisciplinary projects and practices. This is especially the case where, for example, the architect uses Revit, and the landscape architect uses Civil 3D. The experi ence, however, is that interoperability and subsequent work flow between these two Autodesk owned programs is poor to say the least, requiring several work arounds just to be able to exchange vital project data. Autodesk Docs does not resolve this issue sufficiently.
Due to Revit’s and Civil 3D’s ongoing inability to support multi-core processors for most of their functions, users are forced to invest in high-end, expensive workstations with high
Computing context
In July 2020 a community of British and international design practices sent an ‘Open Letter to Autodesk’, raising concerns about lack of development of core design software, year-on-year escalating costs, lack of protection of intellectu al property, aggressive non-compliance policies against cus tomers and a lack of transparency on the future of their soft ware products.
Today four professional bodies representing professional architects in Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Norway are add ing their combined voices to write an open letter to Autodesk. Having seen Autodesk’s limited response, we realize that its top management has spent the more than two years after the first open letters doing nothing substantial about the issues raised. They have failed to recognize and address the frustra tion behind years of widespread, public, industry concerns. Through its slow software development and the business models forced on customers, it’s clear that the actions to date have not been anywhere near enough.
• AiN, The Association of Practising Architects in Norway
License policies have been constantly changing to the advantage of Autodesk, not its customers. Floating multi-user licenses to single and named users has contributed to both increasing license costs and administrative costs. Many Design IT direc tors are wasting their work hours managing licences, with the fear of non-compliance audits and fines, instead of getting on with their day-to-day work of improving productivity, enabling collaborate working. Many Design IT Managers are also still expected to work on building projects.
• Research and development commitment that is, focused on the needs of the global design community.
• Collections mean we pay for the majority of tools we don’t want or use. Make application bundles more flexible.
• Improved support for open data standards, allowing for free collaboration and data referencing, also across non-Autodesk platforms and services for all industry stakeholders.
12 September 2022 uilding nforma delling (BIM) technology for Architecture Engineering and
37www.AECmag.com Q3 2022
Essential software is increasingly sold as bundles/packages containing many different applications not relevant for all users. Companies are forced to buy ever larger packages of soft ware they don’t necessarily need. Autodesk’s bundles and pack ages don’t share the same UI or even easily work together. The UK Open Letter identified only 10% of the Autodesk Collection as ever being installed.
We welcome additional input from all AEC industry stakehold ers. We also very much look forward to Autodesk’s response. We know you have spent a lot of time listening the last few years, now is the time to take action and show some real progress!
CPU clock speed, in order to compensate for this inadequacy, thereby incurring a significant indirect cost to already highpriced products.
Software costs are rising annually at a vastly higher rate than general industry price indexes. We have examples of Autodesk hiking up prices by 30% annually with only a few months warning. This makes financial predictability very hard, which is key to the construction industry, where fees often are fixed for long periods and only minor adjustments are possible.
Licensing context
• A heightened commitment for continuously improving application, and industry interoperability as well as expanding geometry support and alignment to internation al data standards. We see immediate need for improvement in both IFC and BCF support and functionality, but what would really make a difference is an AEC industry version of Pixar’s open USD-format. Any progress on this can only be judged by functionality implemented in Autodesk future products and version upgrades.
ment and handling to comply with diverse international requirements, as well as better design tools.
• We propose an agreement for cost stability and harmonised licensing costs between EU and US Autodesk applications. We want more flexible user licenses and more efficient license management and support.
• More payment models related to use, not tied to users.
Where Revit software development has been sluggish and focused on adding minuscule improvements in each release, licensing costs have soared. These costs are not backed by real innovation or productivity gains.
• A vision – a roadmap and investment strategy that targets adding value and performance for design-based organisa tions that prioritises the replacement of Revit from the ground up to reflect the functionality needed for a 21st cen tury digital industry.
We would like to repeat the needs described in previous open letters to the software developers, in addition to specific action:
• A platform built on modern code, capable of smooth model performance regardless of project complexity.
• Advanced computer learning capabilities to improve modelling tools and automation of repetitive tasks.
• Integrated real-time, high-quality visualization fully utilizing modern hardware resources.
• Engagement to build a cultural partnership with all cus tomers based on trust, empathy and respect.
The way forward
There is widespread frustration over Autodesk’s lacking development of their core BIM design software and pursuing of user requests. We need to see real action and progress in the immediate future from Autodesk. We need tools that much more efficiently adapt to the industry’s constantly evolving digital workflows.
• We propose a series of in-person development workshops with a small task force of industry experts appointed by the Nordic architectural associations together with Autodesk product managers and developers. The workshop must have mandate to map out and solve easily obtained product improvements and bug fixes, for immediate release as product updates for Autodesk core products.
• We need to secure a common understanding for the needs that our design software can efficiently utilise modern hardware resources, dramatically improve data manage
In the period between 2015 and 2019 most practices who participated in the survey have had at least 5 different licence models in play, moving from individual product licences, to suites, through to collections and now, in 2020 to individual user licences. Overall, those surveyed have seen costs increase up to 70% and beyond to the end of 2019.
Therelationship.protection
From A community of national and international design practices including: AHMM | Allies and Morrison | Aukett Swanke | BVN Architectural Services | Corstorphine + Wright | Fletcher Priest Architects | Glenn Howells Architects | Grimshaw | PRP | Rogers, Stirk, Harbour and Partners | Scott Brownrigg Sheppard Robson | Simpson Haugh | Stephen George + Partners | TTSP | Wilkinson Eyre Architects | Zaha Hadid Architects If you feel you would like to add your practice to this letter and be included in the response from Autodesk. Please Contact - enquiries@godwinconsulting.net July 2020 uilding elling(BIM)technology Engineering
• A proposal for cost stability.
The practices involved raised serious concerns over a number of wide-ranging issues: the lack of development of Revit, increasing cost, lack of control for man agers over licences with punitive noncompliance fines, too many licence mod els, the cessation of network licences, the jumble of applications that were suites / collections, of which only 10% are typi cally installed, poor interoperability and no insight into the road ahead.
Computing Context
It is important to note that not all practices felt comfortable adding their name to the list of signatories to this letter for the fear of commercial reprisals but have added their revenues and user count as support for this initiative. Fear, real or perceived in what should be a positive relationship with a key software provider illustrates that there are issues that need to be addressed in Autodesk’s powerful relationship with the industry and the industry’s relationship with Autodesk’s sales structure and processes.
Every day digital design leaders around the world wrestle with software which at its core is twenty years old and incapable of the potential of multi core computing and graphics power designed to process within today’s real and virtual workstations. Project productivity in architectural and engineering practices is hit daily because of the lack of scalability and product performance, which then require sophisticated and practice specific ‘work arounds’.
To: Andrew Anagnost, President and Chief Executive Officer, Autodesk
This
(Question 8)
Feature 21www.AECmag.com July / August 2020
The RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) Chartered Practice Benchmarking Report highlights the increasing cost of ownership of design-based software as part of the overall growth in costs that the design industry is facing. Even before the Covid-19 pandemic costs were under significant scrutiny and the value added by software vendors is now being questioned as never before.
Industry Context
This approach would be hugely appreciated by the design community. However, there does appear to be a lack of trust and empathy from practices regarding the use of Autodesk’s cloud services.
The practices involved in this initiative seek from Autodesk a transparent action plan that is customer centric, non-adversarial, innovative, progressive, and deliverable that includes:
The fundamental part of this was Revit and its future. Autodesk seemed to have pivoted to fund development and acquisi tions of what became the Autodesk Construction Cloud. Revit development velocity for years had failed to meet the expectations of mature users whose busi nesses have come to rely on the tool.
Autodesksubscription.reactedwith several public responses from Amy Bunzsel (senior vice president of Design & Creation products
“First we needed to obsess about our customers. At the core of our business must be the curiosity and desire to meet a customers unarticulated and unmet needs with great technology. There is no way to do that unless we absorb with deeper insight and empathy what they need.”
(Question 3)
It is in this context that a number of practices, who represent a revenue stream for Autodesk of over $22m over the last 5 years and thousands of users have come together to express their concerns in a survey which was carried out in June 2020. Their concerns relate to the increasing cost of ownership and the operation of Autodesk’s Revit software and fundamentally its lack of development.
Organisational Context
(Question 9).
Cloud services must be an area of potential future expansion for design businesses as well as for Autodesk as a provider. However, trust, empathy and respect need to be at the core of any such future business
38 www.AECmag.comQ3 2022
Autodesk has tabled a variety of initiatives for the next generation of tool(s) to replace Revit but failed to prioritise investment and failed to communicate the roadmap for the delivery of a viable platform to users.
Project design outcomes thrive on ever-increasing collaboration between different design disciplines requiring many forms of data interoperability between software platforms as well as compliance to international data standards.
Most practices think that the platform is not meeting current industry requirements.
(Question 2).
The Future
• Engagement to build a cultural partnership with all customers based on trust, empathy and respect.
Two years on from the original Open Letter to Autodesk from International architectural practices, AEC Magazine was keen to hear from the signatories, as to how well they felt Autodesk had done in meeting their requests
Designers are in a continuous mode of innovation and improvement as they recycle and evolve data between an ever-expanding portfolio of applications. It is essential to effect better interoperability between Autodesk products as well as with the rest of the industry.
(Question 5)
• Research and development commitment that is, focused on the needs of the global design community.
Open letter
Practices would be less worried by these cost increases if they were mirrored by productivity improvements and a progressive software development program.
As design IT directors, responsible for whole software spend, the Group was also exacerbated by Autodesk’s business practices, and was reeling from the loss of network licences, the ending of perpet ual licences, and a wholesale move to Autodesk
Cost increases on existing software portfolios continue but little value is added to create improved productivity in the core product for design practices in the industry.
(Satya Nadella - Hit Refresh - The quest to rediscover Microsoft’s soul and imagine a better future for everyone. page 101).
It should be noted that most organisations record a positive relationship with the technical and product support teams in Autodesk.
With a software architecture that did not much benefit from multi-core CPUs or powerful GPUs, and an insatiable drive to model bigger and in more detail, design IT managers were frustrated at the loss of productivity. With Revit’s code base being 20 years old, the more funda mental question was - is Revit ever going to be redeveloped from the ground up or is this it?
• A commitment to continuously improving application, and industry interoperability (including IFC) as well as expanding geometry support and alignment to international data standards.
of intellectual property will be at the centre of the debate for cloud based common data environments. Users want to know what any data that resides in the Autodesk cloud is going to be used for beyond individual project collaboration. Further the robustness and performance of the Autodesk cloud platform remain a cause for concern.
Microsoft’s reinvigoration under Satya Nadella and his focus on a growth mindset and cultural change is exemplified by this quotation:
A vision, roadmap and investment strategy that targets adding value and performance for design based organisations that prioritises the replacement of Revit from the ground up to reflect the functionality needed for a 21st century digital industry.
summer at NXT BLD (www. nxtbld.com) we were reminded that it was almost two years since the original Open Letter to Autodesk came out and rocked the archi tectural world (www.tinyurl.com/adesk-letter).
Where once Autodesk Revit was the industry enabler to smarter working, it increasingly finds itself a constraint and bottleneck. Practices find that they are paying more but using Revit less because of its constraints.
Greater collaboration on interoperability between software platforms and providers could lead to a larger market for all, given the industry is on the cusp of a ‘design for manufacturing’ revolution. (see McKinsey & Company “The next normal in construction - How disruption is reshaping the world’s largest ecosystem”).
The Open Letter: two years on
Subject: An open letter that reflects customer perspectives on Autodesk in 2020.
It is clear that there are other improvements in Revit 2023, but they are not overall a strategic re-plumbing of the application. The need remains for a strategic re-boot in order to create a platform that is fit for purpose for the interoperable design and delivery of the next generation of global projects. Clearly this is a difficult thing to do whilst tied to the RVT file format.
allow custom ers to self-audit and maintain live com pliancy.Further, the pandemic has expanded and accelerated how design software is being used in a remote, hybrid, virtual or flexible office environment. Software delivery and licensing have to keep up with the pragmatism of the age and the multiplicity of infrastructures that have beenThedeployed.feelingremains that Autodesk has deliberately avoided investment in appropriate tools, instead expanding its compliance staffing and revenues. This
What right-minded and ethical organi sation instructs its sales and support channel not to help clients with their licenceWhilstcompliance?practices have been moving over to named user licensing since the letter was published, the premium sub scription has added little value but a significant ill feeling.
‘‘
On licence compliance, several Open Letter signatories have been audited, with no compliance issues found but requiring administrationmodelprovideAutodeskbrokencomplianceprovefromnon-productivesubstantialefforteachpracticetotheircase.Themodelisbecausestillfailstoalicenceandeffectivetoolsthat
What right-minded and ethical organisation instructs its sales and support channel not to help clients with their licence compliance? ’’
After the Open Letter was posted over 200 architectural and engineering practices from around the world also signed the letter.
Revit 2023 is common knowledge because of the natural project cycle in practice and the hard-drop nature of the Revit release cycle.
The Open Letter Group - September 2022
issue is at the core of the customer-tovendor trust relationship and funda mentally undermines the progress that may be made in other areas.
build-up of momentum for alternative software solutions.
■ www.letters-to-autodesk.com
The Open Letter Group would ask the industry to come together to develop a common set of specifications for the development of the future software plat forms for interoperable digital design and delivery in AEC.
at the time, but made VP of AEC soon after) ( www.tinyurl.com/Bunzsel-reply ) and Autodesk CEO, Andrew Anagnost (www.tinyurl.com/anagnost-reply).
sion to the number of versions back a company was allowed to run. But these may have coincided with changes already in the pipeline. However, we did notice Autodesk placed some job adverts around Revit and there did seem to be more budget allocated to Revit develop ment for the subsequent releases with a considerable uptick in enhancements. Autodesk was already negotiating to join the ODA to get access to the IFC library but in answering the OLG, Autodesk highlighted this as a case in point that showed it was listening. Autodesk’s Revit team also published its roadmap on Trello ( www.tinyurl.com/revit-roadmap ).
The end of the potential price cap on subscription costs in 2026 is seeing a
Who is the OLG?
The historically poor IFC implementa tion in Revit has continued to drive the industry to an over-dependence on RVT, to the detriment of the industry.
There were some immediate benefits, seemingly in response to the Open Letter, such as Autodesk delaying the end of Network licences and an exten
The original signatories of the Open Letter included: AHMM | Allies and Morrison | Aukett Swanke | BVN Architectural Services | Corstorphine + Wright | Fletcher Priest Architects | Glenn Howells Architects | Grimshaw | PRP | Rogers, Stirk, Harbour and Partners | Scott Brownrigg | Sheppard Robson | Simpson Haugh | Stephen George + Partners | TTSP | Wilkinson Eyre Architects | Zaha Hadid Architects.
We hope to be able to say more about this in the coming months.
New statement from the Open Letter Group
The Open Letter Group (OLG) recently sent AEC Magazine this update on Autodesk’s actions to the points they raised in their 2020 open letter:
The success of the USD file format in the visual effects design pipeline has highlighted the potential of new interop erability workflows. Where an industry has the power to define its own standard.
In the period since the Autodesk Open Letter, Autodesk has reached out to a wide variety of architectural customer groups. The feeling to date is that whilst Autodesk has listened, it has not heard what the architectural customer base is saying on several fronts.
The Open Letter Group are awaiting a road map update for Revit and many of the original signatories of the letter will be in attendance at Autodesk University later in the month. We will continue to moni tor Autodesk’s pro gress and report in more detail our understanding of the gap analysis that we perceive exists between current offer ings and the customer requirements for a next generation interoperable design and documentation software infrastructure.
39www.AECmag.com Q3 2022
Autodesk also agreed to meet the Open Letter Group (OLG) for a ‘listening ses sion’, to hear the complaints to the C-level team at Autodesk. After this, there was ongoing engagement between the Revit development team and the OLG, with much time spent on feature requests and product roadmaps.
In Revit 2023, we see some improve ment in interoperability implementa tion, but it will take 12 months in most practices before production feedback on
OLG that Autodesk doesn’t have a medi um to long term solution for the Revit conundrum. Every dollar Autodesk spends on Revit, as it is today, is not going to be a great investment long term. It’s also possibly another reason why Autodesk is engaging with the new generation of BIM start-ups, possibly looking to buy or invest. It’s trying to cover all bases - the existing customer gripes and the longterm vision. Would any software firm fun damentally want to keep performing open heart surgery on its ageing flagship prod uct, or is there a time to start anew?
The OLG on Revit development
A number in the group thought that, as a subscription-based business, Autodesk has to do both short and medium devel opment with Revit, as well as long-term planning. But the OLG explained that the long-term vision will be pointless if cus tomers got fed up and jumped ship. One member commented, “If they keep abus ing us like they have, and they’re not sig nificantly investing in these short-term
Now, having been through two years of engagement with the Autodesk Revit team, it was a good time to catch up with the Open Letters Group to discuss and expand on their published update.
In general, the OLG has been under whelmed by the new features delivered for Revit over the last two years.
While the OLG was happy to see that work on Revit had certainly increased, the types of functionality the OLG had requested had not shown up in the releas es so far and were perhaps in roadmaps still spanning many years out. The OLG infers from this that Revit is still under funded in terms of development and there is reticence from Autodesk to do anything deep to the core of the product.
The OLG told us that the features they requested are absolute necessities, but Autodesk consistently tries to rationalise them, stretching development over many years, if at all.
“If someone has even a slightly weaker offering, but looks as though they’re a bit more customer centric, and aren’t trying to screw me on a daily basis, I’d rather take
One member commented, “As an industry we spend hun dreds of millions on prod ucts every year, we should not be continuing to pour money into a company which is taping together a brokenMeanwhile,platform.”the OLG’s
little deeper into the feelings of the OLG, AEC Magazine caught up with some of its members to discuss their current thoughts on the future of Revit, licence compliance and what a next generation BIM tool might look like
The OLG feels Autodesk is trying to improve a very broken system. While the OLG will keep on engaging with Autodesk, the lack of speed in delivery of significant improvements could mean the OLG’s time would be better spent writing open letters to the industry in general, to find firms that want to start from scratch, and help the OLG spec out the core prin ciples of a design and delivery platform for the AEC industry or the AE industry.
Autodesk has over 1 million Revit cus tomers and, in the long-term, it would obviously like to keep them all in any transition, but they have to cater for cus tomers that want to walk and those that want to run. The ones that are running tend to be the most advanced BIM firms.
The OLG on next generation BIM
There is a general concern among the
“That’sthat. why they need to invest now. So, Autodesk needs to spend, it needs to spend on Revit and for the future, other wise they’re not going to have a reputa tion left for that long-term play.”
make Revit into the future and there’s a perception of what the future needs to be and how the present needs to improve are the same thing, when those are two totally different conversations,” said one member.
Even though that is a pretty scary pros pect, it’s possible that Autodesk would migrate customers into something that is unpalatable for the way they want to work. AEC Magazine senses there are an increasing number of firms within the OLG bracing themselves for the prospect.
40 www.AECmag.comQ3 2022
Autodesk still won’t admit that the core desktop Revit code needs a complete rewrite. The OLG believes that it could be assumed that, for every dol lar Autodesk invests in Revit now, it will be worth about half of that in the future, as opposed to investing that into a new solution.Looking at the roadmap of Revit and pondering the cost of all this work (in terms of the resources, developers and money) even if you put a random figure on it at, say $20 million, that amount could probably go further in a fresh codebase.
This is the kind of challenge which software SVPs have to consider when spending money and possibly a reason why development of Revit, as a mature product, seemingly dried up.
fixes and just keep presenting roadmaps of the future, I for one will be nervous about moving to any new product with them, knowing how they’ve treated us on the last series of products.
The OLG members discussed how long-term and short-term development should probably be done separately. There is the distinct impression that Autodesk has been doggedly following an evolutionary approach, as opposed to one that is “Autodeskrevolutionary.thinksthatthey are trying to
ToFeaturedelvea
While the OLG thinks the Revit prod uct team has been try ing to move in the right direction, it feels like Autodesk isn’t actually pumping in the money to make things happen in a sensible period of time. How much Revit development would the cash spent on Spacemaker have paidMeanwhile,for?
design IT directors know moving to a new product would be a punch, and accept that there is an inherent fear that there will be a siz able overhead expense on all of their practices to retool their teams.
‘‘
There are a number of new BIM startups, and several established software companies have also been encouraged by AEC firms expressing their dissatisfac tion with the incumbent market leader. While most of these are embryonic and have yet to even ship a beta version, the OLG is going to change tack to engage with these firms and the industry as a whole to start the conversation about
As an industry we spend hundreds of millions on products every year, we should not be continuing to pour money into a company which is taping together a broken platform ’’
Talking with the OLG, these audits have tended to come near the end of established Autodesk contracts and could take over five or six weeks to com plete. Typically, Autodesk looks for overinstallation of software, student versions, incorrect licence numbers and the like.
...continued from page 46
There is a cultural difference in how US companies deal with politics, especially in the boardroom. I find that they’re just much less likely to rock the boat. If they have what they deem a good agreement with their software vendor, they are much less likely to want to jeopardise that.
what a next generation software platform would look like.
The additional technical aspect to this, is that Europe has stronger regulation for BIM standards and open data, so is more reliant on Revit to play nicely with the output from other BIM tools. In the US, IFC files are almost an alien concept. In a conversation with Revizto, I asked UK and US technical managers about cus tomer attitudes to IFC. In Europe it was heavily requested; in the US ‘there was no IFC problem’, because nobody was asking for it, as the common file format of exchange was RVT.
When looking at the business practice issues, Autodesk did not even address any of those the first time around and I can’t see it changing its spots as long as it has a dominant market position and little true competition
41www.AECmag.com Q3 2022
It seems certain that a complete re-wite of Revit is not on the cards, so no Revit 2.0. Long-term, we all know Autodesk plans to be cloud-centric but how AutoCAD, Revit, Civil 3D, Navisworks are to be eventually absorbed into that is obviously going to take many years of work. This may give competitors time to build next-generation BIM tools and we know some are already on the scene. The OLG recognises that there needs to be a change but maybe the answers will come from elsewhere and not from their cur rent technology supplier.
Two years of engagement and the firms involved feel that there has been little progress to meet their needs. The Nordic Open Letter escalates this beyond a col lection of customers, to architectural associations of countries, which have EU body links, such as the Architects Council of Europe.
While talking with the group, licensing came up many times. Autodesk’s noncompliance efforts create stressful situa tions for design IT managers and IT lead ers. While piracy is obviously illegal and should not be tolerated, there is a unani mous feeling within the OLG that the Autodesk’s non-compliance ‘sales’ team has become an industry-wide concern.
In the initial Open Letter, the OLG highlighted ‘unempathetic and aggres sive business practices’. In Autodesk CEO Andrew Anagnost’s open reply he correctly assumed that this related to Autodesk’s licence-compliance enforce ment. He acquiesced that, “If some of these efforts have become overzealous or unsympathetic to specific customer situ ations, then we need to address that. However, we will remain vigilant in our efforts to ensure that customers pay for software that they use, which is both rea sonable and fair to vendors and other paying customers alike. But we commit to do so in a respectful and reasonable way goingSinceforward.”theOLG published the letter,
In the US, Revit deliverables are much more likely to be stipulated in any con struction contract. We also must be aware that while Autodesk is a global software firm, I’d suggest it still has a very US-centric view of the world. Many products are trialed first in the US mar ket with US firms and, from my experi ence, the focus on Construction Cloud, and Autodesk’s fight with Procore in that space, made this US-market focus feel even more so.
As far as Revit goes, the bottom line seems to be, if it is not being redeveloped, exactly what is going to come next and what’s the timeline? If the Spacemaker team really are involved in specifying the next generation tool, then surely speaking to signature architects will define the high er-end capabilities required.
The work is underway already and will take a month to compile an initial conver sation document. The OLG will then start its outreach and the industry at large can help all the software firms, including Autodesk, to crowd source and document the issues the industry faces and will face in the medium to long term.
Shouldn’t Autodesk’s software pretty much ensure that non-compliance never happens by monitoring and denying over-use? As it stands, the software has hardly any controls and that is a daily pain for companies. While ‘Premium’ comes with some metrics, the OLG didn’t rate them over other third-party usage trackers.
The OLG seemed to be facing the same issues they complained about two years ago. The engagement with the Revit team started a dialogue, but the future of Revit still seems a mystery with many possible outcomes. On one hand the Autodesk development team is mapping out how to add value for yearly sub scribers with enhancements, but these appear not to be game changing and are coming too slowly.
For Autodesk, the pressure is building. It transpires that along with the original 25 firms in the Open Letter Group, it was simultaneously dealing with the same issues from others including BIG, Grimshaw, Herzog & de Meuron, Heatherwick Studio, ZHA and at least three other global signature architects.
The consequences of irregularities come with big fines. The OLG says these are typically ‘paid’ for in buying soft ware which firms don’t want, all without ever going to court. It may have been a coincidence, and we may be adding two and two together and getting eight, but holding a pending fine for non-compli ance while negotiating the next year’s contract would be a disadvantage to the customer. We have not seen this replicat ed outside the UK but it’s something we will be watching.
The OLG on licence-compliance
Conclusion
Autodesk to ask firms to spend weeks at a time, trying to push something across net works and across all of their offices.
Conclusion
roughly 20-25% of the firms within the OLG have undergone Autodesk audits, which means sniffing their networks for licences and files – and, now with Covid throwing users to the wind, tracking down machines that are geographically all over the place.
As the software has moved from net work licences to granular – named user licences which undoubtedly connects to Autodesk’s licence servers, surely Autodesk’s licence compliance efforts should be slowing down? After a certain point in time, the majority of customers are in on the named-user cloud-based model. There shouldn’t be any need for design IT managers to have to install Autodesk’s sniffing software on their com puters. There shouldn’t be any need for
Autodesk pushed through business model changes at pace too. First there were ‘Suites’, then new perpetual licences were phased out for subscription licences. ‘Collections’ replaced Suites, and custom ers were price-coerced into exchanging existing perpetual licences for subscrip tion licences (in a 2-for-1 deal). Network licences were stopped and replaced with named user licences, with mandates of a licence per user. Even the Autodesk CEO, Andrew Anagnost, told wall street ana lysts that customers were in ‘licence hell’, managing so many different licence types within a single organisation. This, in turn, made every design IT manager’s job a nightmare, because Autodesk ramped up a voracious non-compliance unit that pursues minor and accidental infringe
In any normal competitive market, there would be a number of alternative applica tions. And indeed there are a number of other BIM tools - Graphisoft Archicad, Nemetschek Allplan and Vectorworks to name but three. But the cost of moving to a different system goes beyond the software. There’s retraining, the challenge of finding skilled users of more esoteric applications, and the fundamental problem of moving
Feature
er than architects – despite the hype at Autodesk University claiming it to be a great acquisition for architects. One frus trated design IT director commented, “Think of how many years of Revit devel opment could be done with that amount [ofInmoney]!”2020, European Construction Industry Federation (FIEC) (www.fiec.eu) published a paper that talked about the rising costs of software, limiting licensing practices and a lack of competition in the market. The federation was so concerned by what it was hearing from its members that it started raising the issue with the European Union. This was followed up in 2021 by The Association of Consulting Engineers in Norway (RIF), which restat ed the exact same concerns to software developers. While these calls were made to the generic market, as Autodesk is one of the leading global vendors, it doesn’t take a genius to work out which company was one of the key targets for this message. Now a combination of Architectural Associations from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Iceland have joined forces to raise the issues to Autodesk in a new open letter, on behalf of their 14,000 members. Some of the firms that are being represented were part of the Revit team’s two-year engagement process, after the first open letter. This is not a repeat letter but a statement that little has changed. The firms involved in the first open letter, the firms that took the private approach and now the Architectural Associations, seem broadly in agreement that Autodesk needs to do more in every area.
While Autodesk framed this as reach ing out to all Revit users, the ones who were actually complaining and engaged with the Revit team, felt slighted as their feature requests have not been imple mented. Other decisions, such as Autodesk’s acquisition of Spacemaker for $240 million, brought on more frustra tion. Architecture firms that we have spo ken to that went to see the product, felt its feature set was aimed at developers rath
Open letters
The latest open letter concerning Autodesk is from Architectural Associations in the Nordics ( see page 34 ). It is yet another sign that many architec tural customers are fed up with the lack of depth in Revit’s development, pricing, poor interoperability and a failure of Autodesk to meaningfully engage with customers to explicitly define Revit’s future.
With the release of a second ‘open letter’ to Autodesk, this time from Nordic architectural associations, Martyn Day explores what this means for Autodesk, AEC firms, and the AEC software industry as a whole
Two years on and the feedback from both groups is that ‘Autodesk didn’t listen’. While there has been rejuvenated develop ment on Revit, the kinds of features being enhanced are not the deeper, more struc tural underlying parts that these custom ers say the product needs. The Open Letter Group pointed out that despite two years of engagement, collating feature requests, Autodesk decided to put the established Revit roadmap on project management portal Trello for the public to vote on.
User conundrum
n the world of CAD, cus tomer revolts are few and far between. Typically, the worst thing that can hap pen, from a software developer’s perspective, is customers vote with their money and migrate to a prod uct which usurps a market leader because of cost, capability, or a technolo gy paradigm shift. In the case of Autodesk, its customers are expressing their feelings with open letters.
The first open letter was originally going to come from a much bigger group of BIM managers and design IT Directors. For several reasons, there was a split in approach between groups. While one set of firms went the public letter route, the other chose to seek engagement directly with Autodesk contacts. This second group included BIG, Grimshaw, Herzog & de Meuron, Heatherwick Studio, Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) and at least three other global signature architects. From what I can tell, other than the Open Letter Group getting an additional initial ‘listen ing’ session where Anagnost was present, the two groups were engaged with exactly the same rounds of meetings with the Revit development team.
Despite Autodesk’s AEC Suites and design / documentation tools generating the lion’s share of Autodesk’s AEC divi sion’s revenue, customers saw Revit development languish in the years run ning up to the first open letter (2020) ( www.tinyurl.com/adesk-letter ). During the same period Autodesk spent billions of dollars on construction applications and rapidly developing cloud services.
These customers were all heavy Revit users. One would even call them fanboys. They entered into the process in the hope that Revit re-development would be possi ble – and if not possible, would offer to help Autodesk develop the next generation.
ments, which especially irks longstand ing Autodesk customers.
43www.AECmag.com Q3 2022
There will be firms who eventually bite the bullet. After the Open Letter, Graphisoft offered a six-month trial of Archicad seats to any architectural prac tice in the UK. This bold move, pretty much killed sales for six months, but led to the busiest year ever for Archicad. Firms like London-based David Chipperfield Architects are now on board with Archicad. The threat from Graphisoft is set to grow even further with its forthcoming integration of a full MEP capability (see page 30). By going multi-dis ciplinary it offers more of a level playing field in terms of functionality.
Revit has been so successful that really the only other BIM tools that have sur vived were ones that were developed earli er or around the same time. In the last 20 years Revit’s growth has dissuaded many contenders. Amar Hanspal, ex joint CEO of Autodesk once told me that to compete against Revit you’d need $200 million to
out of Revit’s native RVT file ecosystems where it’s often a contractual deliverable.
Licensing
I have a £300 music application for my Mac which won’t open if it knows I have another version open. Adobe Creative Cloud does something similar. This is how modern software licensing works, and these are low-cost subscription prod ucts. It really is head scratching why Autodesk’s software offers scant tools to auto-manage licence allocation.
Again, their first hope was that Autodesk would listen to them about a new tool, but Revit is still successful and a volume product. Who is going to devel op an authoring tool for tens of highly demanding signature architects? There are a number of start-ups but it will take them years to go beyond basic functional ity. There is a hope that by telling the industry there is a gap and showing a willingness to work with start-ups that they will find what they are looking for.
To have customers complain publicly once is possibly fixable with the correct level of engagement. But to have it hap pen twice in two years and to realise that firms which took part in that initial engagement are now feeling substantially more negative about the future of your core product and your brand is a failure which will inevitably lead to more conta gion. I do wonder how endemic Autodesk thinks this feeling is.
From my conversations with archi tects, especially with signature archi tects, many are thinking what two years ago would have been unthinkable - that it is inevitable that they will end up moving to something else. But they don’t want to move to a system that copies the workflow of model-to-drawings - a Revit ‘clone’, as it were. If they are going to endure the pain of moving authoring tools, they want it to be next generation, able to handle huge files, have collabora tion built in, truly automated drawings, be capable of digital fabrication, and powered by AI – the list goes on.
‘The future of Revit is Revit’, explained Anagnost around the time of the first open letter. While this may sound odd, it’s a per fectly decent explanation that the brand is important to Autodesk. If the future of Revit is a rewrite, then they would not lose the name. If the plan is to keep the applica tion alive but change the database to a cloud one, it would still keep the name, but it doesn’t answer the question for these
The skill would be to keep application development bubbling along enough to please all users, but allocate more resources and money to the next big thing. The problem comes when you defund development of mature products too far, people start to notice, especially fan boys.
The problem comes when the cost of ownership goes up, but the development drops - when the application is already long in the tooth and there is obviously a reticence to go into the guts of it to make fundamental changes. Yet customers are deeply invested in skills to use it, hard ware and the legacy file format. They want to understand the long-term future of their tool, their investment.
Revit
With the future vision being on the cloud, it doesn’t make a huge amount of sense to invest a lot of in old-technology desktop applications which will eventually be modularised and modernised in the process. And if Autodesk were to invest more heavily, should that be to meet the needs of those complaining or those who are not?
Firms would prefer to stay with the tool they have heavily invested in and see it improve. This lock-in has always been an advantage in the CAD world. It’s like choosing Nikon or Canon. Once you buy all the lenses for your chosen ecosystem, it’s hard to change horses.
develop the software and $50 million in marketing. This has ensured that Revit has had very few threats in its lifetime. However, another upshot of the original Open Letter was to signal start-ups that creating a Revit competitor with a fresh code-base, utilising modern CPU, GPU and cloud resources, wasn’t perhaps such a crazy thing to do, and leading architec ture firms would be willing to help guide development. Venture Capitalists (VCs) have even funded competitive products with tens of millions of dollars.
The truth about architecture and design in AEC is that the seam of gold converting 2D AutoCAD users to Revit modellers is a fortune already made and spent. Allocating tens of millions of dol lars to create a new tool will not return as much as mining the relatively untapped seam of construction – which is worth way more than the design phase of the process. And here Autodesk is not alone.
In the last five years it has been much easier to get venture capital for construc tion development than architecture. Architects take a long time to buy versus construction firms, and the opportunity to digitise construction is simply vast.
Autodesk’s conundrum
44 www.AECmag.comQ3 2022
Autodesk is undoubtedly the leader in the volume AEC market. It dominates Building Information Modelling (BIM) with Revit, and documentation produc tion with AutoCAD. As a company, its stated intent is to move applications to leverage the cloud and it plans to transi tion its desktop products into Forgebased services with thin or thick desktop applications. However, what it has today is a transition to manage, moving from established and popular traditional desk top applications to more cloud integrated solutions. The compa ny’s mechanical divi sion led the way with Autodesk Fusion. In the AEC division, Autodesk Construction Cloud offers a growing array of services from document distribution to digital twins.
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Design IT directors should not be doing the level of licence management they currently have to do. Some firms have hired people specifically to look after this and it’s based on the fact that if they don’t, and they get picked up by Autodesk non-compliance, there can be big fines. Open Letter writers explained that network licensing was dynamic and self-managing, but felt nothing similar was available today even with ‘Premium’ licences. It’s led to the general feeling amongst the original Open Letter writers that the lack of effective licence manage ment tools is a conscious decision.
From‘‘ conversationsmy with architects, many are thinking that it is inevitable that they will end up moving to something else ’’
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The second, and most common, is to maintain the interface and rewrite core components underneath over time, as seen with Bentley MicroStation and Graphisoft Archicad.
eral understanding that Revit will not be redeveloped. Firms now have deep concerns that in the medium to long term, Revit will not be fit for purpose. (see page 38). Many of the issues raised were not addressed at all.
In software development there seem to be two traditional ways to go about this. The first is to trash the old generation and start from scratch with a clean sheet with none of the historic legacy data overhead. This is risky, as if your previ ous version has, let’s say over a million users, there’s a considerable risk of losing your market position.
Snaptrude (www.tinyurl.com/SnaptrudeAEC), two BIM start-ups, would have found funding harder to find. There are at least three other start-ups in stealth mode looking to enter the BIM author ing tool market and a number of inves tors looking for developers to invest in. More competition is good for any mar ket. Competition means vendors strive for higher achievements, not leave their products to languish.
Open Letters help VCs and start-ups identify industry pain points and high light products which are no longer meeting customers’ requirements.
If you are a software company and you know your software will be rewritten or absorbed into the cloud, the incentive to add deep layers of new capability just isn’t there. This means that product managers are left flighting a rear-guard action of seemingly updating applications to keep paying subscribers happy, while all the cloud engineering work is happening behind the scenes. However, this process is taking years.
By developing Forge it has componen tised core design functionality in the cloud as web service APIs. New applications can be quickly created by ‘wiring up’ a Forge viewing component, with a Forge data exchange component (or many others like BIM 360 Docs). We have seen Autodesk Fusion as being the best example of a sin gular application developed this way, and the whole Construction Cloud is Forgebased. The outstanding issue is what is going to happen to the old desktop prod ucts - AutoCAD, Civil 3D, Revit, Navisworks, 3ds Max? It seems these will be ‘Forgified’ at some point, maybe slowly over time, but the destination is ultimately going to be a combination of thin or thick client with a cloud back end.
Outside of complaining about the business practices and licencing, a fundamental issue that comes up now is where are the next generation BIM tools? BIM, as we know it, replaced the old 2D drawing workflow with the concept of creating a single 3D model to generate co-ordinated drawings. This utopian vision has not quite worked out the way it was planned. As nobody trusts anyone in this industry, there are multiple BIM models at multiple stages. Firms are drowning in drawings, which they might have edited in AutoCAD, and so break the BIM sync. BIM software has deepened the silos in which data sits in proprietary formats and designing any thing big or detailed, or big and detailed, will seriously challenge your hardware.
Mature BIM users, many large and respected Revit customers, are looking ahead and thinking about modern multicore computers, the cloud, digital fabrica tion, collaborative working and open ways of working. Modelling buildings in the end just to produce a bunch of PDFs is nonsen sical. Many firms are now all about the models. The drawings are contractual obli gation or for on-site checking. What would a next generation BIM tool look like?
Up until the first Open Letter, it was clear that Autodesk was in no hurry to spend development money on making many changes to Revit. Post engagement with the Open Letter Group there was budget allocated to limited renewed Revit development. At the time Anagnost did warn customers that changes to the code would not be too far reaching. Both Revit 2022 and 2023 certainly offered a broad er array of updates than versions prior, but these were defined as ‘low hanging fruit’ by the letter writers.
With the advent of the cloud, Autodesk has taken a third way, and it’s bold.
...continued on page 41
It’s hard to connect thousands of firms to address a range of issues with one vendor. Open Letters are not like a class action lawsuit - there’s no financial prize. When it comes to business and the politics of board room decisions, much of this discus sion is typically carried on behind closed doors, if at all. This self-com partmentalisation of customers aids vendors and suppresses contagion.
Open Letters stimulate competition, in both hopefully a positive and construc tive reaction from the firm being com plained about, as well as encouraging the new kids on the block.
Without the first Open Letter, Arcol (www.tinyurl.com/arcol-aec) and
Of course, startups can also be acquired and if it’s Autodesk buying there is the risk a widely hated busi ness model could come back at you. But if a product has development velocity, then it could still be worth it.
It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to work out that the majority of the voiced unhap piness is coming from outside the US. Both open letters originated in Europe and in the case of the first open letter, attracted a majority of signatories from outside the US. In my experience, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the same feelings are not felt by our American cous ins. There were many words of encourage ment from large architectural practices in the US to the vocal architects in Europe and some US firms were active members but preferred to not be named.
Next generation BIM
46 www.AECmag.comQ3 2022
Europe v USA
Some will ask: why write an Open Letter? Isn’t it all a bit pointless?
Why write open letters?
Open Letters demand action in a public forum from an addressee. The actual target is the public. This will hopefully mobilise the audience, which the author thinks will feel the same way about the issue or issues being raised. As an example, the first Open Letter connected hundreds of firms around the globe who all agreed with the complaints set out against Autodesk. It even unearthed the fact that there had been other customer collective movements complaining of the lack of Revit development in South Africa and Hong Kong, years before.
There are some signs that Autodesk has come around to thinking to what a Revit replacement would be. It’s widely reported that a team from Spacemaker is involved in defining what that could be, with its interface being an example of the future. I understand there has been a lot of work put into the unified database on Autodesk’s cloud to enable multi-disci plinary models to share the same model space, even if at different levels of detail. This would allow Revit models to co-exist with Fusion fabrication models of facades at 1:1 scale. This harks back to Autodesk projects Quantum (www.tinyurl. com/quantum-aec ) and Plasma ( www. tinyurl.com/plasma-aec ) that seemingly came to However,nothing.Autodesk execs have also spent some time romancing the new BIM start-ups looking to possibly get involved. This could be just to get them to open-up and show them what’s coming - or per haps, more worryingly, Autodesk hasn’t been developing anything and it is still working out if it should develop in-house or acquire in the future.
There is the hope that a collective approach will persuade the addressee in power to listen and react. Autodesk did set up meetings and engage with the users, but the outcome seems to have been corrosive, leading to a gen
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users, of what is the future of Revit?
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NXT BLD on-demand
Our keynote speaker was Michael Marks, co-founder of the off-site construction unicorn, Katerra. We had never had an active venture capitalist come and talk at the event before and he was exceptionally
We also like to bring in speakers from other industries and this year’s line-up included Oscar Stålberg, an independent games developer from Sweden who has produced a fantastic architectural game call Townscaper (PC, mobile and Quest).
S
48 www.AECmag.comQ3 2022
The brand new desktop workstation seemingly defies the laws of thermody namics, as it has a tiny form factor but still manages to pack in high-end work station class graphics (Nvidia RTX A5000) for pro viz and VR workflows, 128 GB of DDR5 memory, and top-end 125W 12th Generation Intel core proces sors (see news page 16 for more info)
omewhat miraculously we managed to slot in a NXT BLD show in November 2021, inbe tween Covid waves. This year we managed to get back to our traditional June timeslot, although instead of fighting viruses, we had to con tend with a National Rail strike and simultaneous industrial action on London Underground.
Digital architecture,generativefabrication,designcollaboration,VRconstruction,AI,real-time,pluslotsmore VIEW FREE ON-DEMAND nxtbld.com Over hours10ofcontent View @ nxtbld.com/web-stream-2022
The editorial team would like to thank everyone who managed to make it to the Queen Elizabeth II Centre. We were over whelmed at the doggedness of Londoners who bussed, cycled, drove and delegates who came in the night before and stayed over to ensure they were there! A special shout goes out to Bruce Bell from Facit Homes, who managed to turn up despite having recently broken his collar bone!
Lenovo surprised us by choosing NXT BLD 2022 to launch its new ThinkStation P360 Ultra at the event.
While we try and ensure the topics cover a broad range of innovation, some threads can usually be identified within a number of talks. This year we had a good handful of presentations on the future of construction, whether that be off site, by robot or through deploying AI to head off on-site problems. Check out the excellent talks from Joel Hutchines, Mollie Claypool, Hedwig Heinsman, Sam Leder and Maria Yablonina. We also had Reda Masarwa from Intel on pre-fabrication of its semiconductor plants but, unfortunately, we cannot post that for security reasons.
NXT BLD will be back at the Queen Elzabeth II Centre in June 2023, where we can all compare our energy bills and laugh (cry) over a beer.
■ www.nxtbld.com/web-stream-2022
In the meantime, all of the presentations from NXT BLD 2022 are available to view ondemand, completely free. So grab a coffee and dive in. You’re welcome.
From digital fabrication and generative design to collaborative visions for the future, AEC Magazine’s NXT BLD 2022 had something for eveyone. And now it’s available to view completely free on-demand
generous with his time - and with every one pitching him constantly as he walked around the building!
The player builds a city by simply click ing on a grid, the buildings change proce durally depending on how tall they are or their proximity to other buildings. We have literally had hours of fun with Townscaper and now, understanding the philosophy behind the design, has made us like it even more.
NXT BLD 2022 - on-demand
Emma Hooper // Bond Bryan Digital
Mollie Claypool // Automated Architecture
Joel Hutchines // Slate.ai
Oskar Stålberg // Townscaper
49www.AECmag.com Q3 2022
Michael Marks // Celesta Capital
Samuel Leder // University of Stuttgart
View @ www.nxtbld.com/web-stream-2022
On a Road to Nowhere? Greg Schleusner // HOK
Real time decision making in construction Felipe Manzatucci // Skanska
Schleusner is doing some great research work at HOK. He is looking at how, using IFC and modern databases, it’s possible to maintain a transactional (by entity) external data lake to proprietary BIM tools. His aim is to build a working prototype which could match the huge interoperability benefit which Pixar’s USD format has given the media and entertainment sector. If only the AEC industry can break free of these BIM silos, we can liberate the data.
Michael Marks // Celesta Capital
Having made his money in the electronics market heading up Flextronics, then run Tesla and started up off-site construction firm Katerra (which raised $3 billion) Marks is a walking wealth of information. He likes nothing more than disrupting industries and investing in things he has a passion for. In his talk he shared his experiences as an entrepreneur and an investor in construction technology, and why he firmly believes that industrial methods, coupled with innovative software, might deliver buildings in months, as opposed to years.
ThinkStation P360 Ultra launch Chris Ruffo & Jeff Wood // Lenovo
Manzatucci oversees the digitalisation journey of Skanska UK. To do this he engages with forward thinking developers to develop new technology to improve real-time decision making in construction projects. In his talk, Manzatucci looks at the role that Artificial Intelligence (AI) can play in predicting trouble ahead on projects and aid in avoiding costly delays. For those of you who like project dashboards, Manzatucci has some very bad news for you!
Heinsman is world-renowned as an architect who has mastered and deployed 3D printing in biodegradable and recycled materials at her practice DUS Architects. She’s also co-founder of Aectual, a 3D printing service for made-to-measure interior designs. Heinsman believes that digital design tools, combined with digital manufacturing techniques such as 3D printing and recyclable materials, can break this age-old paradigm and give people worldwide direct access to sustainable spatial solutions.
NXT BLD 2022 saw Lenovo’s Jeff Wood and Chris Ruffo unveil the ThinkStation P360 Ultra, a new desktop workstation with more processing power than a typical Small Form Factor (SFF) workstation and around half the size. For us, the thing that really stands out about this machine is the Nvidia RTX A5000 GPU with 16 GB of VRAM. It’s a big jump up from the Nvidia RTX ‘2000’ or ‘3000’ class GPUs often found in compact workstations and makes the P360 Ultra suitable for a much wider range of GPU-accelerated AEC workflows. See page 16 for more details
Circular Architecture-as-a-Service Hedwig Heinsman // Aectual & DUS Architects
Transforming building production
50 www.AECmag.comQ3 2022
Oskar Stålberg // Independent Video Game Developer
From Laser scanning to Magic Jonathan Stephens // Everypoint
Designing (with) Machines
Architecture-specific distributed robotic systems Samuel Leder // University of Stuttgart
Convergence: the intersection of reality with the virtual Ken Pimentel // Epic Games
I know we talk a lot about the ‘gamification’ of CAD but this is the architecturisation of games. Swedish independent games developer, Stålberg created a wonderful digital ‘toy’ called Townscaper. The procedural game enables anyone to design a towering city by pointing and clicking. Stålberg opens the hood on games development and explores the logic behind the morphing buildings.
NXT BLD 2022 - on-demand
Yablonina is an architect, researcher, artist and assistant professor working in the field of computational design and digital fabrication at the University of Toronto’s John H. Daniels Faculty. Her fascination with machinery and automation has driven her many architectural research projects. Her current work focuses on the development of task-specific robotic devices and systems that are inherently suitable for in-situ fabrication as architectural intervention within the context of existing building stock. Her feature-packed talk has plenty of thought provoking demonstrations of Yablonina’s machines.
51www.AECmag.com Q3 2022
We all had big hopes for low-cost laser scanning, but the prices never went below £15k. The LiDAR scanner on the iPhone Pro is disappointingly low resolution. However, if you combine it with modern photogrammetry and the sensor data from Apple’s AR toolkit, an iPhone can be used to scan at equivalent accuracy to a Leica BLK. Stephens from Everypoint gives an explanation of how iPhones can be useful for on-site verification and data capture. This is a revelation!
If you love robots you will love Leder’s work. Based at the Institute for Computational Design in Stuttgart, he explores autonomous construction using a robotic system which can move about the worksite as it builds. His work envisages a swarm of small, agile construction robots that can produce complex, functionally adapted assemblies from individual parts in highly parallel processes. Each of his robots can fit into a small suitcase and has grabbing arms to hold onto timber struts. When used as a swarm, the robots use the timber struts to move about the structure.
A tour of Townscaper
Maria Yablonina // University of Toronto
Pimentel is AEC Industry Manager at Epic Games, one of the leading software developers creating real time experiences based on Unreal Engine. While most in the industry are still working out what digital twins actually means, Unreal’s capability to display massive sets of geometry and attributes already has customers using it for city and country digital twins. This talk also covered some of the adventures in real-time that are taking place, along with revealing a new report on how architectural firms are benefiting from adoption of the technology.
Mollie has put her knowledge into practice and AUAR has become a business, utilising robots in the building automation and production of timber block Home-Offices. The high-quality, sustainable, and affordable housing can be reconfigured should needs change.
At AEC Magazine we have long held the belief that VR and AR will be important design environments for architecture. Dr Fang, Xu, an associate at Foster + Partners explains how today’s design tools need VR and AR to better understand the buildings they design, by being immersed. He demonstrated Project Fission and Downtown Explorer, built on top of Unreal Engine. Fang sees a tremendous potential in building immersive, real-time 3D tools that foreground humans’ dynamic visual relations with the built environment in the design process.
Following on from organising a mammoth BuildingSmart IFC special report in AEC magazine (www.tinyurl.com/IFC-AECMAG), we asked Hooper to give a talk on data models, the IFC foundation layer and where IFC developments will be heading in the future. Coupled with Greg Schlesuner’s talk on IFC as a common data layer for the dynamic exchange between disparate users, NXT BLD 2022 was a proper IFC-fest.
In 2020 when Covid drove NXT BLD online, Claypool gave a remote presentation on her work at AUAR (Automated Architecture) at UCL. This year we managed to get her back in person, in spite of the train strike.
Information models and the future of IFC Emma Hooper // Bond Bryan Digital
Black is an architect and design computation specialist within Arup. He gives a fascinating explanation of modelling tools and techniques and their evolution, looking at generative design through multiple examples and methods, together with how Arup is consolidating its company knowledge in the cloud and providing customers with tools to do their own analysis.
Conor Black // Arup
Technology Revolution vs. Evolution
52 www.AECmag.comQ3 2022
Automated Architecture Mollie Claypool // Automated Architecture
November / December 2021 View @ www.nxtbld.com/web-stream-2022
Post-Parametric Design
In his presentation on the evolution of workstation technology, Leach (with tongue firmly in cheek) apologised to customers who bought a ThinkStation P350. After all, its successor, the ThinkStation P360, is up to 65% faster when rendering thanks to its 12th Gen Intel Core processors. Leach also delved into CPU cores, CPU frequency, memory, storage, GPUs, GPU memory and more explaining their importance to various AEC workflows.
Mike Leach // Lenovo
Designing through the Magic Lens of Real-Time Tools Dr. Fang Xu // Foster + Partners
2023JuneSEE YOU IN LONDON NEXT YEAR
Joel Hutchines // Slate.ai
Harness the power of Omniverse Enterprise to enhance your existing workflows
Mcleod gave a whistlestop tour of Omniverse Enterprise, Nvidia’s USD-centric collaboration and simulation platform, from its basic building blocks to some of the more advanced features. Often when talking about simulation in Omniverse, one thinks of simulating light, but Mcleod shared some interesting examples of how wind studies for urban developments derived from computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software can be combined with real-time visualisation to help designers make informed decisions much earlier on in the design process.
Hutchines is the founder of Splash Modular and now works at Slate.ai. His talk covers what is necessary for success in design for manufacture and assembly (DfMA). He thinks it’s important for architects to understand how they’re going to build what they design. To benefit from modern pre-construction methods architectural designs must be easy to construct. To do this Hutchines says it’s important to get the right information into the right people’s hands as early as possible. He shares his experiences and gives pointers in how to succeed in adopting IC/MMC solutions.
On a road to nowhere?
Chris Mcleod // Nvidia
Moving beyond DfMA to Design for Constructability
53www.AECmag.com Q3 2022 NXT BLD 2022 - on-demand
Greg Schleusner // HOK
54 www.AECmag.comQ3 2022
Tim Davies, buildingSMART UK & Ireland committee member and UK Construction Room lead, takes a look at the constituent parts of the data model specification that enables interoperability in the AECO industry
PresentationDefinitionResource PresentationOrganisationResource ResourceentationRepres- ConstraintResource ApprovalResourcePresentationAppearanceResource StructuralLoadResource ResourceCost ResourceProfile ResourceProperty ResourceQuantity TopologyResource ResourceUtilityResourceActor ResourceMeasure ResourceMaterial ReferenceExternalResource GeometricConstraintResource GeometricModelResourceDateTimeResource GeometryResource ExtensionProductKernel ExtensionProcessExtensionControl BuildingSharedServiceElements ElementsFacilitiesSharedComponentSharedElements InfrastructureSharedElementsElementsBuildingShared ManagementSharedElements StructuralAnalysisDomain ArchitectureDomain BuildingControlsDomain ConstructionManagementDomain ElectricalDomain DomainHVAC StructuralElementsDomain FirePlumbingProtectionDomain Ports WaterwaysAndDomain DomainRail DomainRoad DomainTunnel LayerSharedLayerDomainCoreLayerResourceLayer Breaking down the IFC 4.3 schema
• Units definitions
• Domain Layer
• Money and currencies
Again, a lot of the things here are still very generic. Here we have basic objects, property sets, and different types of rela tionships, all of which could apply to any industry.Inthis layer you have lots of lovely aca demic language like:
Between them, it’s possible to describe most things you’d ever want to describe in the AEC industry in a digital way.
• Shared Layer
• Construction management
Core Layer
IFC has layers, and once you start to peel those layers back, it might make you cry if you don’t know what you’re doing.
hat a lovely combination of circles, rectangles, squares, octagons, and an inverted triangle there is in the diagram left. It sort of reminds me of a kid’s shapes exercise from school.
• Date and time descriptions
The most basic things in AEC
Finally, the Domain Layer is where the discipline specific things live.
• Architecture
What we’ve learned here is that the IFC schema is made up of a number of layers, ranging from highly generic to discipline specific. These layers are called the Resource, Core, Shared, and Domain.
• Core Layer
Domain Layer
• Electrical
W
Each layer builds upon the layer below, so I’m going to talk about each layer in the opposite order than shown in the diagram. The list below is ordered from most gener ic layer to the most specific layer:
• Ports and waterways
Resource Layer
• Building controls
Things specific to one discipline
• Property data types
• Plumbing
• Rail
I’m sure everyone can agree this is a pretty extensive list. This would cover most AEC projects, and for those that it doesn’t cover there are probably groups in buildingSMART working to cover more.
As of version 4.3, IFC covers a lot of disciplines. These disciplines are:
This is where things get more down to earth and contains the most common objects in AEC. It’s in this layer you’ll find physical things such as walls, stairs, windows, fasteners, earthworks, and MEPThere’sfittings.also some broad things such as definitions for management and facili ties, such as permits, cost schedules, fur niture and occupants.
The Shared and Domain layer are the layers that AEC professionals would rec ognise. In fact, if one was to teach IFC, it may actually make sense to start off at these layers and work backwards. Otherwise, there’s a good chance people will get lost and turned off by the highly abstract nature.
But of course it’s much more than that; it’s actually a diagram showing how to represent what we do in the AEC indus try in a digital way. In this article I’m going dig a bit more into what each part of the diagram means.
IFC is like an onion
For example:
Let’s go through each layer.
Generic things not specific to AEC
This article first appeared on Tim Davies’s blog ■ https://constructingdata.wordpress.com
That’s not to understate its importance. Like everyone in AEC knows, every building starts, literally, with a good foundation to build upon. The Resource and Core layers are the digital founda tions for the AEC industry.
AEC Magazine’s IFC special report To learn more about IFC, read AEC’s Magazine’s IFC Special Report, produced in collaboration with buildingSMART United Kingdom & Ireland ■ https://tinyurl.com/IFC-report The future of IFC NXT BLD 2022: Watch Emma Hooper of Bond Bryan Digital present on Information Models and the future of IFC. ■ https://nxtbld.com/web-stream-2022/
• Tunnel (work in progress)
Things common to many disciplines
• Resource Layer
This is where the basic building blocks live, and I mean the absolute basics.
• Shape / geometry
Shared Layer
• HVAC
• Structural
It captures general constructs, that are basically founded by their different semantic meaning in common understanding of an object model.
Almost none of these things are specific to AEC. A lot of these things could apply to almost any other industry in the world. There are some hints of our industry though. For example, there’s a bunch of structural loading objects which are only really useful for structural engineering.
• Road
Summary
55www.AECmag.com Q3 2022 Opinion
www.nxtbld.com/web-stream-2022]
The open-source offering Atom IFC is an open-source tool, availa ble on github ( https://github.com/ QonicOpen/AtomIfc). It will ‘atomise’ (split) monolithic BIM data into bi-directional streams of BIM components. It can be used to split or recombine IFC and con tains the ability to track and log changes to each component as a design evolves.
IFC files per building storey.
IFC components can be selected and shared as work packages with other users and sent individually (vs sending the whole model), users who subscribe to IFC components can be notified when they have been updated and, when the data is out, it will be possible to run applications directly off this common data, as opposed to having to write them for individual design tools.
Atom IFC features
Keep track of how many objects have been added, changed, and removed during merge.
nyone who has used a com puter understands that all data is typically stored in files. In the world of CAD and BIM, design data is stored in the proprietary file format of each software developer. These are typically DWG for AutoCAD, RVT for Revit, 3DM for Rhino, PLN for Archicad etc.
• Combine IFC objects from different files, while correctly handling all the corre sponding relationships, attributes, and Mergeproperties.partial
Drawings and models have been intrin sically linked with the files in which they are contained, needing management, pro tection, and archiving - locally or in the cloud. The new think ing around collabora tive design is that we should be working in a centralised database instead, and have access to shared design information, at a more granular level. Qonic Atom IFC is a gift to the industry to accelerate that way of working.Regular readers of AEC magazine, or attendees of our last two NXT BLD conferences in London will hopefully have seen the presenta tions from Greg Schleusner, HOK’s prin cipal / director of design technology, on how BIM workflows don’t fit the way the industry works and how we need to build a data bridge to connect all the key data silos of information that we create in the design tools we use. [see Schleusner’s 2021 talk at www.nxtbld.com/videos/gregschleusner and his 2022 presentation at
The benefits of this ‘data lake’ concept are manifold - the design is no longer only stored in a proprietary file format,
Belgian start up, Qonic, has ‘open sourced’ one of its key foundation technologies, to enable new ways of working with dynamic, ‘component-level’, BIM data sharing, writes Martyn Day
56 www.AECmag.comQ3 2022
Using IFC as a core schema already opens up the potential to wire up the existing ecosystem. However, there is one small problem. How do developers ‘atom ise’ their BIM data? It’s that issue which Belgian BIM software startup Qonic has addressed and is giving away to the industry as Atom IFC.
A
Qonic Atom IFC
To a large extent, this work has already been done in the Media and Entertainment industry with the USD format which connects all users and their tools. USD contains geometry, materials and lighting and means scenes can be easily shared amongst users of different applications. Schleusner envisages that, for now, something similar could be done with IFC which supports more BIMspecific data than USD.To get over the ‘it’s just a bunch of files’ issues, the idea was to break down BIM models into their components and broadcast them to a central repository (this could be local or in the cloud). As each component (wall, door, window, etc.) is added to the design in Revit / Archicad / Vectorworks, Blender BIM (choose your poison), it is broad cast to the repository. This will create an IFC data lake for the BIM design data.
Software
For his NXT BLD 2022 presentation Greg Schleusner used the early beta of the Atom IFC toolkit to write an integra tion for Revit. He demonstrated Revit dynamically sending atomised IFC data to another Revit user in real time. When he edited his model, the elements impacted in the other Revit session almost instantly, enabling new ways of working.WithAtom IFC available as opensource code, all it would take is for ven dors to write an integration to add this
Here, it’s worth pointing out that other tools like Speckle ( www.speckle.systems ) and IFC.JS ( https://ifcjs.github.io/info/ ) are contributing open-based tools which operate in this Common Data Environment (CDE) ecosystem.
• The Atom IFC library is open-source, available under an MIT licence, and will remain so forever. C# library with IFC classes and read/write support.
The next revolution requires a ‘fit for purpose’ core data schema, on top of which both old and new BIM tools can co-exist, protecting investment in current tools, while enabling new, more open ecosystems to grow ’’
Co-founder, Erik de Keyser explained, “Our point of view is that we need this capability anyway. If we were the only one to do this, we would then have to convince the whole market, and that’s very difficult. We also think that if we didn’t do it, in six months to two years someone would push the same idea into the market. So, we preferred to deliver a technology that we know really works well.
them to this open repository too. Basically, anybody who knows C Sharp can contribute to this to this library.”
By making Atom IFC open source, Qonic accepts that its development will be not just down to its team but will be driv en in many new directions by the commu nity. Strobbe explains, “Everybody can contribute changes and can merge these changes into the main code stream, or opt to keep them separate. Sometimes people branch off the code stream for their local use, and that’s fine, they don’t have to send their changes to us, or they can choose to contribute to the open Atom IFC code. These can be merged to the main code stream. If we make changes, if we make optimisations, we will push
‘‘
■ www.magnetar.io
57www.AECmag.com Q3 2022
Qonic is developing a new tool that promises to ‘upscale’ BIM and take it to the next level of accuracy, both in geometry and depth of data
Over the last few years, AEC Magazine has been examining what comes next for BIM. There are growing demands from users for a new generation of tools which are not primarily designed for the pro duction of drawings, which all current BIM tools have been.
Mature BIM customers want tools more capable of meeting their modelling needs, together with built-in collabora tion capabilities for a dis connected industry. While the concentration of this has been on demanding brand-new tools, we are rapidly coming to the con clusion that the next revo lution requires a ‘fit for purpose’ core data schema, on top of which both old and new BIM tools can coexist, protecting investment in current tools, while enabling new, more open eco systems to grow. Qonic’s generosity has potentially kick-started this journey and IFC looks set to be amongst the first BIM data formats to embrace entity-based file transactions.
“We are using the same technology in our own product, but Qonic will bring additional capability to the modelling and the management sides of BIM data. So there’s a lot of functionality that we will deliver on top of Atom IFC, but it is beneficial for us to give away something that everybody can use, because it immediately opens the market.”
will have an enhanced IFC file as an out put. During the process of enhancing the IFC file, things will change in the model. Designers will send you new designs and, if each time you had to re-import the entire thing and send across 100 - 200 MB IFC files, that’s not really a collabora tive“Forworkflow.us,it’s in our benefit to have a system like Atom IFC, where you can send across small chunks of the model, just the objects that change and merge it into the rest of the model. We needed to support this kind of workflow, and we feel it needs to be open.”
Conclusion
■ https://github.com/QonicOpen/AtomIfc ■ www.qonic.com
Greg Schlusener has launched a website where his views and developments in this area can be seen, together with some explanation videos of the concepts he is working on.
AEC Magazine asked Qonic why it decid ed to open source an important part of its forthcoming BIM solution (which we explore in this AEC Magazine article www.aecmag.com/bim/qonic-accurate-bim).
Who does this help?
Head of Product at Qonic, Tiemen Strobbe, added, “The initial idea of Qonic is that you bring in an IFC file, and you add further detail to the model and you
capability. But, as Schleusner demon strated, it’s something that anyone with basic API knowledge could do them selves, so this doesn’t ultimately have to come from the software developers but can be retrofitted by knowledgeable indi viduals using tools already included.
A similar question has been posed with the invention of the camera, which pulled the rug under the feet of realist painters. This camera required artists to stop copy ing reality, as the camera could do a far better job than they could and forced them to give new interpretations to reality which the camera could not. In other words, the camera could only display what was there, but not “invent” reality. The same was deemed true about the computers of our age - “they can calculate, but they can’t think” was the common notion. The new age of AI and machine learning is changing all that. But just like any race car, without a responsible driver it can become a dangerous weapon.
Tal Friedman is an architect and construction-tech entrepreneur active in automated algorithm-based design-to-fabrication (www.foldstruct.com)
Recent developments in AI have created a completely new standard for what we per ceive as “computational” design. Not only can software provide us with a digital design canvas such as Photoshop, CAD sketching or 3D modellers, but, for the
Removing the A from AI
Text to image generators such as Dall-E and Midjourney are spreading like wild fire and demonstrating no less than a rev olution in how we transform our thoughts into visual reality. However, they also reveal some of the weak spots of our abilities and make us rethink the “human advantage”.
Towards a new Zeitgeist in architecture. By Tal Friedman
If we truly grasp the notion of machine learning, we will let algorithms select not only the “what” but also the “how”. What do I mean by that? In today’s perception, it is us that define the questions and tasks and AI that shoots out answers. As an example, a common AI manoeuvre is “style learning” - learning a style and rep licating it in different variations. A Zaha Hadid cupcake, A Frank Gehry wedding dress or, perhaps, a dog resembling a Le Corbusier building (don’t try that at home)? We create the visions and let AI interpret the rest. But if we let AI itself define its goals and only request “amaz ing architecture” on a plot of land? What if we give up complete authorship and just request things that are determined as “awesome”?TeachingAI to recognise what makes us tick and raises emotions in us is, perhaps, the next step in human-machine interac tion. Removing the A from AI means moving to an age of natural intelligence and giving up control of basic notions of what it means to create. It means exposing ourselves to machine learning and letting algorithms ‘learn us’ rather than learn objects or styles. By doing this, we will be able to discover the undiscoverable. We must learn to understand machines so they can understand us.
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Since the public release of such tools, and due to their ease of use, we are being bombarded with image creations in all fields possible - from children’s books to automotive design and architectural visions. What used to require skilled art ists is now just a few letters away. So here is the real question: what is the value of these works?
Where reality stops, art beginsfrom “creation” to “generation”
Architecture has always stood at the pinnacle of human ambitions, literally engraving mankind’s epoch achieve ments in stone. The Greek philosophers sought out for a catharsis - a purification and purgation of emotions through dra matic art and extravagant architecture. In the Middle Ages, the role of architecture was to empower the divine feelings of holiness. The Renaissance put humanism and the beauty of nature in the spotlight and the Futurists of the 20th century sought to worship the machine and the coming of the industrial age.
AI to the rescue
n nineteenth century philosophy, the term Zeitgeist was used by German philosophers to describe “the spirit of the age”. An invisible force dominating the characteristics of a given epoch in world history. Today, AI is promising to bring with it a new Zeitgeist that will change our stream of thought as we enter a new era. However, to unleash its power, we first must first give up some of our core beliefs.
One would expect AI tools to unleash creativity and reveal new and unimagina ble layers of artistic value. However, the thing striking me is that most work being published resembles a mockup of reality which could have been produced manual ly. In fact, they are starting to become remarkably similar to one another, to the point where one can detect them just by their style, especially in the case of Midjourney. It is many times an uncanny and uncomfortable version of reality. This is happening for two reasons:
2. Innovation comes in small chunks. Can we grasp quick changes without get ting used to one innovation at a time? This is especially evident in art, archi tecture, and fashion. We no longer need to wait for styles or trends to “sink in”. We can generate thousands of itera tions at the click of a button and accel erate design evolution. Or can we?
With the rise of computers and algo rithms, we have reached an era which I would describe as “the empiric age”. To define it in short: beautiful, romantic, and sacred-out. Functional, optimised, effi cient-in. It is an age where rational and functional reasoning is the prism through which we view reality and is the justifier of our decision making. But where does this meet architecture or art?
From a bird’s eye history perspective, over the years we have seen a gradual move from subjective streams of thought based on locality and culture into an objective and universal truth. This was ever so evi dent in architecture with the move to mod ernism, which blurred, not to say erased, the boundaries of locality and created a “one-truth-fits-all” approach. The death of the ornament and rise of the function.
1. The machine learning process learns from past examples, and therefore cre ates a mix and match of what has already been defined. It bases its assumptions on things which we have already perceived.
first time in history, it can design for us.
Building a new world with AI Construction is set to become one of the greatest benefiters from the AI revolu tion. Not only will we be able to release ourselves from the technicalities of draft ing and long regulation process, but we will also be able to create better architec ture. How? By simply sitting back and letting AI do the work.
Living in the empiric age
Whether there is another option remains a philosophical question.
Opinion
Where does one draw the line between pure rationalism and desirability?
I
Doggy brutalism
A happy building
The elephant‘s eye
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Fluid gold concert hall
Bauhaus gone wild Glacier futurism
In the mind of Erez the baker
Japanese urbanism
AI
The ideal city aided art created by Tal Friedman
Breaking barriers
That isn’t to say there’s a lack of willing on behalf of construction professionals –NBS found that sustainability was important to 97% of respondents – yet despite the climate emergency, barriers
Lee Jones, head of manufacturing solutions at NBS and acting head of sustainability at Byggfakta Group, on why we must ‘look to digital’ if we’re serious about sustainability
C
Sustainable Futures Report found that just one in three construction profes sionals are hitting low carbon targets on their projects, whereas ten years ago it was around half.
Embodied carbon: the importance of data
planned for 2025, which will look to improve the energy efficiency of build ings through changes to Part L and F of building regulations.
Whilst it’s likely that understanding around sustainability has improved since 2014, impacting this result, it’s still disappointing, particularly against a backdrop of evolving legislation such as the Future Homes Standard,
limate change still remains humanity’s biggest challenge and with construction respon sible for 40% of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions , it has a major role to play in creating a cleaner, greener future. Yet despite the ongoing focus on sustainability and net-zero goal setting, new research has indicated that green achievements may have actually gone backwards in the past decade. NBS’
4. Prescriptive not descriptive –Creating clear specifications that remove the likelihood of deviation will increase the chances of a sustainable outcomes being achieved.
Summary
It’s clear that the sector requires a mind shift in how it perceives sustainability –it needs to be seen as a hygiene factor and no longer a ‘nice to have’ or inconvenient financial burden. As digital specification evolves and specifiers ramp up sustaina bility efforts, it will become increasingly important for manufacturers to provide the right levels of data and in a format that works for specifiers. Those that are already doing this are securing their future and creating USPs over competi tors. Over time, this will only serve to improve their chances of making it into final specifications, ensuring they stay relevant in the years to
According to the Treasury and Green Construction Board, embodied carbon has the most potential to be reduced at the design and planning phases, more so than at any other point. However, if speci fiers are to do this successfully, then it will require access to much more robust levels of product information data.
Top five tips for lower carbon outcomes
2. Consider embodied carbon – It’s important to consider embodied carbon stats with your designs and digital mod els as well as product performance data.
products and systems interact, as this too can impact sustainability performance.
come.Opinion
For those looking to increase levels of sustainability, these top-five tips should help specifiers on their journey to achieving lower carbon outcomes.
3. Working together – Both the model and specification need to be aligned so that the final build is as accurate to the original designs as possible.
Solving the issue
So, how do we move the industry forward and improve levels of sustainability?
Digital construction professionals hold the keys to solving a large part of the UK’s climate problems. Importantly, it’s in the design stages where the biggest impact can be made.
The past few years have shown how important this information has become –and its role is only going to increase. For specifiers, having access to detailed and accurate data allows them to make vital comparisons, so they can opt for the low est carbon materials possible. Using this type of data in the design phase also makes calculations around embodied carbon become much more streamlined, giving a more accurate estimation of a project’s carbon footprint. Importantly, this data can then be used as a bench mark and reference point when looking to improve levels of sustainability in future projects. In short, it’s opening the door for better decision making.
are still at play. A lack of client demand and the perception of a higher financial burden were presented as the main obstacles to sustainability. Further gov ernment policy and direction was anoth er; respondents felt the Government wasn’t giving clear enough guidelines on the matter. The research also showed concern that greener products are more likely to be value engineered out or sub stituted due to material availability, at the contracting stage, preventing progress.
These points highlight the need for manufacturer data sets – entering them as early into the design stages as possible will be vital to producing lower carbon buildings. We must remember that the building structure is responsible for the majority of embodied carbon, and getting that right at the start will be key to reduc ing it overall. The rest of the project though still remains crucial however, particularly when considering operation al carbon. Structural elements for the foreseeable future will still remain car bon intensive until greener alternatives become mainstream, however when tar geting carbon reduction at any point in time and across any area of the specifica tion, it all begins with detailed data sets.
1. Make it number one – Prioritise sus tainability from the off and consider it as early in the design stages as possible.
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‘Nebula’ R&D scheme at Milton Park, a business, science and technology community in Oxfordshire, will use sustainably sourced materials throughout, including laminated timber beams in place of steel, reducing embodied carbon significantly
5. Plan ahead – Contacting your sup ply chains at the earliest possible point will help you avoid issues with material availability and will give you time to source alternatives if problems arise.
Data also plays another role – it helps move the needle in the sector’s goal towards achieving the Golden Thread. With a digital blueprint in place, it cre ates a traceable record of all the materials and products that were used during its specification. Whilst the Golden Thread has been developed with safety in mind, it also means greater transparency around the carbon footprint of building. Working with datasets in this way also delivers a more holistic overview of how
U
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The light fantastic
The Approach
decade, inspired by geometries in the natural world. The Tower of Light is the largest built structure using this method to date.
These structural principles paired with tailoring, led to the creation of a strong 3-dimensional structure, generat ing maximum strength from the mini mum of resources.
The buckling of the thin shell was test ed, again using Oasys GSA and LS-DYNA software, through eigen-buckling analysis of FE models, the load amplification, ‘Dallard method’, and hand calculations. A detailed non-linear material model was used to confirm the buckling capacity in one critical location. The dynamic perfor mance of the tower was also assessed, and several of the details were influenced by the wind-induced fatigue performance requirements.Inaddition, based on analysis of the high number of edges and corners in the tower shell, there was a risk that a paint ed corrosion protection system would not be sufficiently reliable. Therefore, stain less steel was selected for the tower shell to ensure greater durability. While the tower is painted white for architectural reasons, this also allowed a lower grade of stainless steel to be used and avoided expensive surface treatments, reducing the project costs without lowering the level of Additionally,durability.the tower’s performance was further factored into its design, which consists of a series of modules, with bolted L-flange connections at the top and bot tom of each module. These flanges acted as templates during fabrication of the shells, and also during installation on site. This proved invaluable in ensuring that the modules fitted together within tight tolerances. And this connection detail also served to minimise stress concentrations for optimal fatigue performance.
nveiled in February of this year, the Tower of Light structure in Manchester was designed to support the five exhaust flues of a new Combined Heat and Power energy centre. Manchester City Council and main contractor Vital Energi awarded the project to architects Tonkin Liu and built environment con sultancy Arup in Autumn 2017. The cen tral purpose of the project was to design and develop the tower which would house an energy centre supplying sur rounding buildings with low carbon energy. This is part of Manchester’s Civic Quarter Heat Network project, and will serve heating to a district spanning two kilome tres including several iconic buildings such as Manchester Town Hall and The BridgewaterExpandingHall.the client brief to combine the façade and structure, the tower celebrates architecture and design excellence. The 40-metre-tall tower was inspired by the natural world, with the vision of creating a solid structure with minimal material. Making this a reality required the latest advanced digital modelling, analysis and fabrication techniques.
The Tower of Light pushes the boundaries of what is possible in steel design and fabrication, with methods grounded in the latest advanced digital fabricationanalysismodelling,andtechniquestoachievethecurvedrigidsurface’’ study
At the heart of the tower’s design is its unusual perimeter shell, which acts as both the primary structure of the tower and as its façade. This is achieved by employing the unique ‘Shell Lace’ struc tural technique; a method pioneered by Arup and Tonkin Liu together for over a
Arup undertook several forms of analysis and tests to confirm structural integrity and to better assess which process would lead to a better use of resources. For exam ple, the structural performance of the tower needed to be assessed and justified through a combination of detailed finite element models (using Oasys GSA and LS-DYNA software), simplified beam ele ment models, and hand calculations.
62 www.AECmag.comQ3 2022
Achieving the Shell Lace structure
Case
Parametric tools, such as Rhino, Grasshopper and Karamba, were used to quickly generate and analyse several varia tions of the geometry. This allowed the design team to study the individual form’s structure and perfor mance, and select the optimal version, before arriving on Furthermore,site. pro gramming enabled parametric optimisa tion of the façade’s geometry, and detailed buckling dynamic assessments to ensure the nine-storey struc ture was sound. Not only that, but through careful development of the façade’s geometric shell, it could be fab ricated and assembled in a timely and cost efficient manner, on site. The parameters of the geometry were manu ally adjusted, and the resulting struc ture analysed at each iteration.
The Tower of Light, a low-carbon energy centre in Manchester’s city centre, features an innovative ‘Shell Lace Structure’, which is based on more than ten years of design-led research by Arup and Tonkin Liu Architects
This technique helps to create a light weight, elegant structure using thin steel plates. Doing so required a multifaceted approach to the design, with parametric modelling at the centre. For example, the geometry of the shell corrugations and perforations was developed collabora tively between Tonkin Liu and Arup, via the use of digital workflows to identify the best form structure.
www.AECmag.com
The Tower of Light pushes the boundaries of what is possible in steel design and fab rication, with methods grounded in the latest advanced digital modelling, analysis and fabrication techniques to achieve the curved rigid surface. This building is set to inspire engineers paving new ways to minimise material usage and ultimately striving for a more sustainable future.
The construction of the tower needed a high level of skill and workmanship from the steelwork contractor. The shell panels consist of singly-curved surfaces which fit together to form the folded geometry of the structure. This was essential to ensure that works were practical, as doublecurved steel plates would have signifi cantly increased the complexity and, by default, cost. Tight tolerances were required, and the structure was fabricat ed to Execution Class 3 due to fatigue requirements.Thedesignteam issued a Rhino model of the tower to the steelwork contractors, who then used Rhino and Tekla to devise the cutting patterns for each of the 432 shell panels. They were then rolled to the correct curvature, before being welded together to form the nine high shell mod ules that the tower consists of.
Looking ahead
Image courtesy of David Valinksky
The 40-metre tall tower was inspired by the natural world, with the vision of creating a solid structure with minimal material.
Advanced fabrication techniques
The building may look complex, but the fundamental geometric principles of the shell structure are deceptively simple. It was vital that the project was developed in a timely and efficient manner, taking into account building costs and labour.
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Dodd believes it’s important to find some middle ground, “We prefer to come into the office for a few days per week,” he says. “Sometimes, it is better to work in a “positive isolation” environ ment where you can fully focus on tasks that require deep concentration. A hybrid working environment provides people the opportunity to manage them selves, and it also comes with the trust that is placed into people to work from
Microsofteffectively.”Teams proved invaluable in maintaining communication between GFA’s staff members and clients and is still used to communicate internally and externally on a regular basis.
65www.AECmag.com Q3 2022
uring the Covid-19 pandemic, Gaunt Francis Architects (GFA), like most UK practices, had to shift its entire work force away from the office. Now more than two years later and hybrid working has become “the new normal”.
D
When Covid-19 hit, Gaunt Francis Architects (GFA) relied on emergency systems and workflows to support staff remotely. Two years later and these systems have now laid the foundation for a new way of working.
As Simon Dodd, IT manager at GFA believes, those who claimed that work ing from home would never be as effec tive have all been proven wrong. “Two years after the first lockdown, GFA is still using the “emergency” remote working system that we implemented when Covid first started,” he says. “We are now pushing to establish a properly structured hybrid working system from the fundamentals that have been built since the pandemic.”
Audley Fairmile care community project in Cobham, Surrey Image courtesy of Gaunt Francis Architects
Throughout the pandemic, it enabled project teams to organise meetings more quickly, frequently and flexibly. GFA even used Teams to recruit international ly and onboard staff remotely. Despite never having met other team members in person, it enabled them to work on pro jects effectively, while feeling included.
Case study
Hybrid working at GFA
Beyond communication, Teams made it possible for GFA to onboard new sys tems and familiarise staff members with new workflows.
Many architects at GFA currently ben efit from not having to commute for hours each day and enjoy a better work / life balance. However, working remotely can mean workers miss out on social interaction, which can stimulate creative ideas, increase work motivation, and improve engagement between employees.
home
In general, Dodd believes the pandemic
pletely removed depends on the workload of each architect, says Atvero’s Roberts.
A month before lockdown came into effect, GFA implemented Atvero as its primary information and document man agement solution.
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to Dodd, there are two major benefits to SharePoint for architects: the avoidance of information silos and data security guaranteed by Microsoft’s data protectionProvidingpolicies.aglobally synchronised doc ument library, SharePoint marks an end to the siloed approach to file storage, as Roberts explains, “With every user get ting 1 TB of storage space on OneDrive, users’ files will no longer be in danger of being saved to local desktops and becom ing permanently lost if any unexpected negative incidents happen to the hard drives or device storing those files.”
Because Microsoft SharePoint and OneDrive support collaborative editing in place, they are the natural homes of any Microsoft-based documents, he says. Therefore, users can easily store, access and work on Microsoft documents together on the cloud.
Dodd considers cloud-based solutions to be much more cost effective to operate compared to on-premise solutions. “The cost of moving to a cloud-based virtual machine environment is much lower than replacing a physical asset [to] keep it oper ating for another few years,” he says.
However, whether servers can be com
Before the pandemic, GFA already had a Microsoft 365 subscription that always remained running in the background and was not used on a regular basis by the majority of staff. However, when remote working came into effect, SharePoint instantly became one of the most fre quently used tools to store, share and organise project information entirely on theAccordingcloud.
Built on the Microsoft 365 foundation, Atvero is focused on AEC workfows and is designed to manage the full life cycles of documents and drawings from crea tion to issue and transmittal.
Case study
According to Marcus Roberts, technol ogy director of Atvero, a developer of AEC-focused document management software, the answer is yes.
■ www.atvero.com
A cloud future
“There’s also good support for AutoCAD now, and Atvero has customers who run all of their AutoCAD projects off SharePoint,” he says. “With good proto cols, InDesign documents can also be worked on in SharePoint and OneDrive.”
The role of SharePoint
When remote working and SharePoint were first implemented, some of GFA’s staff were resistant to this new way of working and were not convinced that they could execute the same workflows without physical infrastructures.
allowed technologies that support remote working to develop rapidly. In some cases this has led to the disappearance of phys ical IT infrastructures, such as desktop computers or hosted server systems.
A hybrid working environment provides people the opportunity to manage themselves, and it also comes with the trust that is placed into people to work from home effectively Simon Dodd, IT manager at GFA ’’
keep backups for, or whether it is secure enough to store data on the cloud in a Microsoft“Microsoft’ssystem.data retention policies are the lifeline behind every project, helping us achieve immediate compliance in GDPR requirements and cyber security essentials. Having Microsoft’s multiple factor authenitcation and Microsoft Defender looking after our data means we no longer have to constantly worry about data security, saving us great amounts of time in IT management.”
In addition, when project data is hosted in a SharePoint tenancy, data security is guaranteed by Microsoft’s data retention policies, as Dodd explains. “We don’t have to worry about how long we have to
“Many people think Revit can operate effectively over VPN until model corrup tion becomes an issue,” he says. “With Revit being extremely sensitive to latency and requiring good file locking, the only solutions for this issue at the moment are file servers, or Autodesk BIM 360. This means workstations need to be positioned next to the server, and remote workers will need to have their virtual desktops colocated with the server.”
Microsoft 365 is an integral part of business applications for most organisa tions, but it can lack the industry require ments for architectural firms to manage project information.
“Atvero was helpful because it makes SharePoint more user-friendly, especially to people who were previously not com fortable with using Microsoft products on a regular basis. Atvero helps us use SharePoint without any fear of doing anything wrong since all the required standardisations and processes have been included. This makes remote work ing much more feasible for us,” con cludes Dodd.
In a hybrid world, where everybody works from different locations, times, and shifts, one of the most popular ques tions raised in the AEC sector is whether it is possible to eliminate servers and make a complete switch to the cloud.
66 www.AECmag.comQ3 2022
GFA’s Dodd explains that with Azure Active Directory approaches, the infra structure of data storage and access man agement, along with its administrative pro cesses, will naturally become cloud based. This has made hybrid working become a much better prospect, he believes.
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