Im back! A quick update..

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It's been ages since my last blog post, this is for many reasons. Trying to find time to sit down and blog my thoughts and ideas has kind of taken a back seat, but I'm back and intend to post a blog at least once a month. So what have I been doing? Well late last year, I become a proud dad to Brodie Ward, my rather awesome daughter. She is definitely one of the most parametric families I have ever made and has been keeping ;me more than busy.

Below are some of the more interesting things ive been working on in the last 6 months, I thought id give you a quick update before blogging resumes as normal:

_spacehus

I've also been working on a few interesting projects lately also, some of which I can talk about and some which I can't (yet!). One of these projects is the spacehus.  The spacehus, is a product we (spacegroup) have been researching and developing for the last 10 years, but recently with the current economic climate and sustainability at the top of the agenda, it has propelled it from a concept into reality.

The house itself is a modular sweedish timber framed kit, pre-plumbed, pre-wired and pre-finished off site using just 19 standardised modules that is more like assembling an airfix kit than a house but make possible a 20 day construction period. The house is also a code 4/5 (upgradable to code 6) sustainable, meaning it's power usage is less that £10 a month and with the 3 bed version at just £80,000, it's affordable.

You are probably thinking that this blog is starting to sound like a big sales pitch for the www.spacehus.co.uk, and you would be right, but I'm leading onto something that makes it all relevant to this blog.

We are well down the road with BIM at spacegroup, and our CEO Rob, set me the challenge of using the technology and knowledge we have in designing big multi-million pound projects into designing a small sub £80,000 house. His brief was:
      -Code 4 sustainable, minimum.
      -Design to Handover in less than 4 weeks.
      -Full component based fabrication drawings from the model Inc cutting schedules.
      -Paperless delivery I.e no assembly drawings on site - iPads?
      -Flexible design variations from the single model.

Before I go on on how we went about achieving this, it's worth noting that there is a lot more to the spacehus process than just a super parametric BIM model, for example we knew that we couldn't use the normal uk construction methods to construct the house (up to 8 different trades, all on site bashing things together from raw materials) so each house is built by a 5 man _space build team who are trained to do everything, electrics, plumbing, joiner, even operating the crane that lifts each module into position. Anyway back to BIM.

The Aerospace process

The _spacehus process

The first challenge was easy, we used tools such as ecotec, green building studio and a bunch of other cool bits of software to prove it's performance, all based of a Revit BIM model. This process continues and we check every space houses design is optimised for it's and location using autodesks 'green building studio' which pulls local data from the nearest weather station then performs analysis to see what can be improved. We can also run various options from the same model to optimise the design, we call this optioneiring.

The second challenge was quite a bit harder and involved building a Revit model so complex and intelligent that it could produce not only component and assembly drawings but also fabrication drawings and cutting schedules, down to every nut, bolt and screw. Not only did it have to be detailed, the model also needed to be super parametric, to allow changes and multiple variation easily. I.e. - if we stretch the rear wall back by 1m all the associated components will adjust accordingly based of a set of pre-defined rules and formulae. All joists will increase to suit there span, and additional studs are added automatically. All while ensuring the model can't be changed to something that won't work or be impractical (panel that won't fit on the back of a truck etc). Normally over modelling is bad in any BIM model, but because of the repetitive use and nature of this model, we could spend more time on the initial model, meaning any variations pulled from this model are created almost instantly including all fabrication info and because of the small size, we are confident of no performance and file size issues.

Over the next few blog posts I am going to focus on how we built this model and some of the parametric formulae that drive it. Hopefully you will find some of this useful in your own projects.

Planning is the most important part of Building any BIM model, you need to know what you want the model to do, not only now but well into the future.  Before we started modelling the first thing I did was use mind mapping software to break each component down, to it's basic parts (the 'stuff' we needed to record and schedule). Because of the fabrication process this was critical, as we needed to extract as much data as possible, such as every timber stud length, size and end cut angles etc. The tree above shows the first initial attempt at this for one of the 19 standard spacehus panels. Every branch is a parameter that we need to schedule. By using mind mapping software, it let's us visualise easily everything and see there relationships swell as the important assemblies, sub assemblies and component
parts.

We have shown the _spacehus BIM model and the BIGBIM concept at various user groups and events, keep an eye on this blog for future events. I will go into some of the advanced parametric's, rules and formulae in a future blog post, starting with the Intelligent self sizing and self checking joist component.

bimstore

Another project I have been heavily involved with since my last post is bimstore.co.uk. We have created a whole website and distribution portal for manufactures to host there BIM components, giving them a shop window for there products. We like to think of it as iTunes for BIM components and are hoping it becomes the UKs no 1 place for quality BIM objects.

One of bimstores strongest features, is that all content is made to the same high consistent standards, regardless of manufacturer, this is backed up by our family creation standards document, which we are calling the 'Bimstore Bible' which can be downloaded from the site. We are really proud of bimstore, so check out the site push any manufactures our way, and we will set the 'BIM Geek' onto them!

BIM Technologies

We are gearing up to launch 'BIM Technologies' side of the business and are already working on various projects. BIM technologies consists of some of _space groups top BIM minds, joining forces to solve challenging problems. BIM Technologies, can do everything from build  a fully coordanated BIM model using our BIGBIM approach, to full digital design and fabrication processes.

For example, we had a project, where both the architect and cladding manufacturer could not produce fabrication or setting out drawings for a rather 'funky' freeform cladding system, and even if they could the form was too complex and every panel would be unique and costly and it would take weeks using traditional processes.  What we did was take the architects concept and ideas, and in less than a week produce a fully co-ordinated model and optimising the number of panels, cutting the total unique amount of panels in half. We then provided the manufacturer with a set of fabrication drawings for each panel as well as providing inventor part files that could be used by the CNC cutting machines, a process that saved further work.

I will post more on BIM Technologies when the website goes live, in the next few weeks, but if there is anything you would like us to look at drop me an email.

The above is a quick overview of what I have been up to in the last 6 months or so before I went AWOL on my blog. I will fill you in on the rest in future blog posts.

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