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28 Constr. Law. 5 (2008)
Building Information Modeling: A Framework for Collaboration

handle is hein.journals/conlaw28 and id is 125 raw text is: IPROJECT MANAGEMENT Building Information Modeling: A Framework for Collaboration Howard W Ashcraft Building information mod- eling technology has arrived and is being used by designers, contractors, and suppliers to reduce their costs, increase quality, and, in some instances, achieve designs that would be impossible without digital design and fabrication. Public1 and private owners2 now are requiring BIM, and it has been widely adopted for complex Howard W. Ashcraft projects. Studies by Stanford University's Center for Inte- grated Facility Engineering report that BIM use has risen sig- nificantly and will continue to rise in the near future.3 And between 2006 and 2007, the number of licensed seats of Autodesk's flagship BIM product, Revit, doubled from 100,000 to 200,000.4 Moreover, McGraw-Hill estimated that a tipping point was reached in spring of 2008 where more teams are using BIM than exploring it.5 Pilot projects now have been completed where the entire structure was built using CNC6 fabrication driven from the design model.7 As the technical issues of standards8 and interoperability are addressed, the software capabilities will develop further. This explosive growth has been supported by preliminary development of BIM standards9 and of related issues, such as electronic data licensing and file transfer.° BIM is not tomorrow's vision; it is today's reality. The legal and business structures for building information modeling, however, lag far behind. BIM's implications are just being realized, and few solutions have been developed. More- over, liability concerns have led practitioners, and their attor- neys, to contractually wall off the building information model-thus depriving the model of its greatest benefits. Building information modeling is more than a technology. Although it can be used without collaboration, such use only scratches the surface. Because the model (or models) is a cen- tral information resource, it leads naturally to intensive com- munication and interdependence. Building information models are platforms for collaboration. Collaboration, however, is not a construction industry hall- mark. Rather, the industry, its practices, and its contract docu- ments assume definite and distinct roles and liabilities. The insurance products used by the construction industry mirror Howard WAshcraft is a partner with Hanson Bridgett in San Francisco, California. He specializes in construction law,- specifically, project formation, contracts, technology, consultation, and litigation/arbitration. these lines of responsibility and liability. However, collabora- tive processes, and BIM specifically, foster communication, joint decision making, and interdependence that blur the dis- tinctions between parties. Technology and business practices are in collision. BIM also collides with traditional professional responsi- bility principles. Although virtually all professional licensing regulations require that designs be prepared by a person in responsible charge, much in a collaborative design is not supervised or directed by a single person or entity. Change is required and change is coming. 1 This article dis- cusses attributes of BIM that conflict with traditional notions of responsibility and proposes alternative business and legal struc- tures that support using BIM in a collaborative environment. Building Information Modeling: Definition and Charac- teristics Building information modeling broadly encompasses a series of technologies that are transforming design and con- struction. In essence, BIM uses information rich databases to characterize virtually all relevant aspects of a structure or sys- tem. It is qualitatively different from computer-assisted design and drafting (CADD) because it is not just a depiction, it is a simulation of the facility. The National Institute of Building Sciences12 defines build- ing information modeling as follows: A Building Information Model, or BIM, utilizes cut- ting edge digital technology to establish a computable representation of all the physical and functional char- acteristics of a facility and its related project/life-cycle information, and is intended to be a repository of infor- mation for the facility owner/operator to use and main- tain throughout the life-cycle of a facility.13 Several aspects of this definition deserve discussion. Although the definition references a building information model, in current practice the design is built from a set of inter- related models that can exchange information between their differing software platforms. It is this federated set of models that comprise the complete digital information about the facil- ity and, for the purpose of this definition, are the building information model. The definition is also interesting for what it omits. It does not highlight three-dimensional modeling, although this is one of the most visible and immediately understood aspects of BIM. This omission is explained in the phrase a computable representation of all the physical.., characteristics of a facility. The computable representation is a simulation of all physical characteristics such that three-dimensional views become just one logical manifestation of the model. In BIM, three-dimen- sional design is an inherent feature, not an enhancement. More- THE CONSTRUCTION LAWYER Summer 2008

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