BIM Design

GRO ARCHITECTS

DENSE AGENDAS

JACKSON GREEN HOUSING

GRO Architects is a New York-based architectural firm that has, since 2006, completed a series of projects using digital design techniques and building information modelling, some of which have been used to illustrate concepts in this book. GRO first adopted BIM for a commissioned housing project that included the adaptive reuse and addition to an existing masonry building in 2006. Revit^® was chosen to coordinate the new construction – which was primarily wood with some structural steel – with the masonry column structure and load-bearing brick exterior walls of the existing building.

The continued use of these technologies has allowed GRO to explore the seemingly disparate notions of design variability with novel but cost-effective construction practices. Led by partners Richard Garber and Nicole Robertson, the partners will at times initiate design projects by developing three-dimensional organisations of curves in a tool such as Rhinoceros^®, based on hand sketches that are then shared and further articulated by a design team, following the idea that the virtual line is further developed through the addition of constraints.

Many of the firm’s projects have significant budgetary constraints and increasingly they rely on digital tools to continuously test design solutions against cost. The notion that BIM tools can be used creatively, while integrating very pragmatic aspects of project development such as budget and schedule, is ...