Why Less 3D and More Smarts Will Steer You Right!

Slowly (and I mean very slowly), our industry be movin' from plannin' and paper chasin' to data-driven workflows. But ye got a few BIM zealots who think that means everything must be modeled in 3D and in painful detail. I be tellin' ya, this kind o' fundamentalism be holdin' us back!

It all depends on what yer lookin’ to achieve. Let me give ya a few examples:

Conceptual Work: It’s better to avoid clashes with a smart distribution plan, aye? Good concepts be forged in meetings with the right crew. Often, a simple hand sketch be enough, which later can be turned into a rough model. No need for 3D minutiae at this stage!

Visualizin' and Communicatin' Room Information: A 2D plan, drawn from model info, be faster to understand than a 3D model that ye have to zoom, pan, and scroll just to find what yer needin’. Keep it simple, I say!

Modelin' for Decision-Makin': In me experience, we waste precious time in the early phases of projects. Either we work in endless iterations usin' traditional workflows, or we jump straight to over-detailed models. The first route leads to late cost information, which ye need to make decisions. The second? Too many wasted clicks, changin' and modelin' variants.

For instance, instead o' drawin' walls and slabs separately, just model one big black shape for the buildin’s shell and some 3D volumes for the useable spaces. The walls? They be just the empty space in between! Studies show this cuts yer modelin' clicks by four times! Plus, it frees up brainpower so ye don't have to hunt through menus to find walls, slabs, and such. And with that, ye can still calculate quantities for costin', run thermal simulations, or even life cycle assessments.

I’ll go so far as to say this: In the early stages, model as little geometry as possible, but master yer information management in databases. Later on, in the detailed design stages, model as much as ye can – more than ye be used to today! For example, fer drywalls and penetrations, I want to see the studs. No need to be inventin' solutions on the fly out in the field!

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