The AIA and DMVC Conferences, and a First Look at DProfiler

Launching the AECbytes publication schedule for this month is a Viewpoint article by Stephen C. Wright, Design Principal of the architecture and planning firm, Hanbury Evans Wright Vlattas + Company. Four years ago, the firm created a strategic technology committee to see what leading firms were doing to improve project delivery. This was born from a high degree of frustration with the technology it had at that time, from CAD to communications, which seemed inefficient at a time when clients were demanding more in less time. In this article, Wright, who chaired the firm’s strategic technology committee, reflects on the changes that have restored the firm’s operational excellence.

We then turn to Boston where a series of conferences is being held in conjuction with the AIA National Convention and Expo. In addition to the main convention, there is the AIA TAP conference as well as the DMVC (Design Modeling and Visualization Conference), which this year is featuring a number of presentations related to BIM by leading firms such as Gensler, WATG, and SOM. We will look at the highlights of both the AIA National Convention and the DMVC this month, while a detailed overview of the AIA TAP conference will be presented next month.

The series of product reviews of architectural design applications that was started last month with Allplan BIM 2008 Architecture, AutoCAD Architecture 2009 and Revit Architecture 2009 continues this month with a first look at DProfiler, a "macro model" BIM solution developed by Beck Construction that can be used at the planning and conceptual design phase to get an accurate cost estimate of a proposed design. It does this by integrating RS Means within the application, with over 20,000 assembly cost databases that are pulled immediately to provide an interactive cost estimate on the fly as you are modeling the design. It is also designed to be simple and easy-to-use, since it is targeted towards the conceptual design stage. It should be interesting to see how it compares with the more established BIM solutions that are really targeted for detailed design.

Last but not the least, we have the Tips and Tricks series which includes tutorials on ArchiCAD and 3ds Max this month.

Thank you!

Lachmi Khemlani, Ph.D.
Founder and Editor, AECbytes

May 2008