BIM Design

CHAPTER 1

INFORMATION MODELLING TODAY

We are in the midst of a virtual re-contextualization or re-embedding that, although it is in no way a return to the premodern contextualization or interlinking of science, religion, art, etc. is nevertheless a stepping beyond the specific autonomies of modernity. As one aspect of this phenomenon one can note that modern technology no longer exists as such – or at least is more and more ceasing to exist. Technology proper has been or is in the process of being supplanted by a post-technology, a hyper-technology, or what I prefer to call a meta-technology. Under such historical conditions the philosophy of technology can be seen as an epoch-specific event that is coming to an end, that is petering out in a kind of exhaustion or displacement. If this is true, then the philosophy of technology may well be in the process of being replaced – not with a philosophy of meta-technology but by philosophy in a general sense that re-incorporates into itself reflection on the meta-technical condition of the postmodern techno-lifeworld.¹

Carl Mitcham, 1995

Building information modelling (BIM) provides the entire design and construction team with the ability to digitally coordinate the often complex process of building prior to actual construction. As a new design methodology rooted in the technological advances afforded to design practice in the 1980s and 1990s, BIM allows the designer to examine ‘many more facets of the project, at the initial sizing stage, ...