Data Pubblicazione:
Il BIM e gli “ambienti in comune”
Il BIM e gli “ambienti in comune”
In a single screen, there were four distinct application views displayed, one of which was Revit. Every time model data was added into Revit, it appeared instantly in the three other applications. So Quantum enables information-sharing with other environments in real time. This is not a case, by the way, of translating the Revit file and then propagating it. Instead, Revit constantly ‘transmits’ geometry and property set data, via Quantum, to other applications that are tuned in, without laborious file-based data exchange.
At the moment, a whole model needs to be loaded and then filtered in a subtractive and protracted process; through Quantum, the filtering can happen before anything is loaded. And should you want to see everything, you can load it all in a coordinated view, like Navisworks.
Unfortunately, Revit is staying as it is, a desktop Windows application — and that means only available on Windows. However, all new Quantum applications developed have been web-based, so should work on any system.
Martyn Day
Si sa bene come la maggior parte degli Operatori che si interessano al BIM si ostinino con una pervicacia degna di miglior nota ad affrontare il tema esclusivamente attraverso gli Strumenti, tanto che, anche quando intrinsecamente essi sono riversati nei processi, gli esiti appaiono debolissimi a livello gestionale, nonostante le apparenze.
Detto in altri termini, si preferisce assoldare esperti di Strumenti, ancor prima di essersi avvalsi di consulenti di Processi, con esiti a dir poco modesti.
A questo proposito, ho avuto modo di trattare, negli ultimi tempi, l'insegnamento del BIM nelle Scuole di Architettura e di Ingegneria, ove si tende a replicare questo, a mio parere, grave errore di «metodo», che genera, da un lato, impreparazione culturale al lavoro collaborativo e, dall'altro, flussi informativi destinati, più prima che poi, a interrompersi drammaticamente.
Una recente intervista a Jim Awe, relativa al Project Quantum di Autodesk (http://www.aecmag.com/59-features/1241-autodesk-project-quantum-revit-bim), spiega, invece, molto bene come proprio l'evoluzione degli Strumenti, a iniziare dalla riconfigurazione dei codici, vada a sollecitare i maggiori elementi di criticità culturale e organizzativa.
Per prima cosa, leggiamo:
Project Quantum, he said, would connect ‘workspaces’, by breaking down the monolithic nature of typical AEC solutions, enabling data and logic to be anywhere on the network and available, on demand, in the right application for the task at hand. These workspaces would be based on professional definitions, enabling architects, structural engineers, MEP professionals, fabricators and contractors access to the tools they need.
È ovvio, perciò, che occorra insegnare forti saperi disciplinari, che presentino, tuttavia, una elevata predisposizione all'impiego contemporaneo dei Dati in contesti molteplici, sotto la guida di Digitally-Enabled Construction Project Manager.
Come affermava una esperta dei principî di Industrie 4.0 della TU München, Vogel-Heuser, «Viele Unternehmen sind durchaus bereit, ihre Daten auch mit einem Teil der Mitbewerber ein Stück weit zu teilen»: per essere maggiormente produttive, le imprese manifatturiere dovranno condividere una parte dei propri dati con i loro concorrenti.
«Collaboration and workflow» appaiono, dunque, le nozioni prioritarie da approfondire e da apprendere nelle Scuole di Architettura e di Ingegneria: «different workspaces, containing different views and tools — but all relating to the same project».
Non per nulla, attualmente il più significativo strumento disponibile, accanto ai game engine (non solo agent-based) è Flux.
Da subito, pertanto, il Common Data Environment appare come il luogo della sfida decisiva, nel File-to-Factory o nel Design-to-Fabrication (in realtà, nel Brief-to-Operations).
Non marginale, da parte del Chief Software Architect di Autodesk è la citazione letterale della Uberification:
The simplest way to try and understand what we’re trying to accomplish is an analogy with Uber. We’re trying to have a data-centric approach to a process. Uber has its data displayed simultaneously in many different places: the customer has their mobile app to call the driver; the driver also has an app which displays their own view of the world; while Uber has a central system displaying a bird’s-eye view of its control and communications network. The beauty is that nobody explicitly sends data around the system.
Questa affermazione rimanda, del resto, alla necessità di «disintermediare» in termini di agilità dello Strumento, spesso sovraccaricato di funzionalità inutili allo scopo contingente: «oversharing of information» vuol dire, allora, che la Collaborazione vada misurata, che sia calibrata.
Il pensiero olistico che è sotteso al BIM deve, però, non appesantirsi, bensì dislocarsi:
The key consideration is how to get data to flow smoothly in two directions throughout the ecosystem. In one direction, you have the continuum of design / make / use as you consider a system from concept to fabrication. In the other direction, you have all the major systems of the building that have to coordinate with each other (Structure, Facade, Site, MEP, etc.). We don’t need one giant database for all the data if we have interconnectedness between databases. If you look at Google Maps for instance, it presents the data as if it’s all in one place, but it isn’t, it’s from different services from all over the network.
Nel momento in cui si parla di importanti «levels of integration and connectivity» si allude palesemente a rapporti inter- e intra-categoriali che sono chiaramente sconosciuti e male accettati dalle classi professionali e imprenditoriali nel Nostro Paese.
In ogni modo, alcune affermazioni ben dimostrano che, anche oltre l'Interoperabilità, il Dato si sta davvero affrancando dal Contenitore, sia che esso sia un documento o un file: «the beauty of the system is that we don’t have to take the data away and translate it into some other format. Export a file, move the file somewhere else, it really does knock down the interoperability barriers of collaboration».
Al contempo, però, la Collaborazione in Tempo Reale, come già riscontrabile per altri applicativi, pone alcuni interrogativi sui Limiti della Condivisione:
Where a number of Revit users are connected via Quantum, other designers’ edits will obviously be seen in real time. Here, Autodesk is looking at ways for participants to lock geometry and set private workspaces so the process of collaborative design does not become too chaotic.
Lo scopo ultimo della Collaborazione tra Operatori è, perciò, una Condivisione Flessibile:
We had a group of developers experiment with the system, without much of an introduction, and they created a Minecraft-style modelling application, where multiple people were collaborating simultaneously to produce the designs. Each user had an independent view of the information, while a central screen offered an aggregated view, like Navisworks. This gives us enormous flexibility in how we can build applications, move the data around, what kind of independent specialist views we can create, versus what we can do now, which is give everybody the same tool, with the same model, and force them to filter it down an appropriate view.
Se la Efficienza del Flusso Informativo deve influire sulla bontà del Processo Decisionale, occorre assolutamente evitare le Discontinuità, le Interruzioni e le Perdite Informative:
Quantum takes us in a new direction where a specific system, such as a curtain wall, can be designed from concept to fabrication. And then we can take those individual systems and stitch them together around their interface points. For instance, how the curtain wall attaches to the structure and how the building footprint impacts the site. The applications have to agree on certain interface points throughout the process. If you like, it’s a contract between the systems and between the levels of detail.
Ancora una volta, il Realtimed Workflow Engineering emerge come il Key Driver nel Common Data Environment, ma, al contempo, una Visione Deterministica e Totalitaria dell'Information Model conduce forzatamente a Noise e Waste.
Interoperabilità e Interconnessione sono certamente elementi cruciali nell'Ecosistema Digitale, ma probabilmente le condizioni di «apertura» devono essere intraviste anche in maniera più articolata e sofisticata:
We imagine a Quantum ecosystem to be more decoupled, giving each discipline the freedom to choose the tool of their choice for modelling their specific part of the building. So, as an example: the façade designer may use Dynamo or Grasshopper as their main authoring tool; the architect may use something like Revit; and the structural engineer may use a brand-new, web-based authoring tool. Each one is responsible for the parametrics of their own system and there should not be any conflict. But of course, what happens when those systems have to coordinate? Our theory is that having them interact and communicate via the interface points that we discussed earlier is beneficial in several ways.
Naturalmente, però, anche nella citazione qui riportata si scorge la difficoltà nel tracciare un confine netto tra Collaborazione e Conflitto, con evidenti ripercussioni sul piano contrattuale e giuridico.
Le cosiddette, da Awe, Interfacce, tuttavia, potrebbero essere assai più problematiche di quanto non si immagini:
It allows for the ‘natural’ boundaries of professional discipline to be represented in workflows. As a structural engineer, I can do my work in my own chosen tool. When I am done working things out, I submit my work back into the system, which triggers an update of the interface points I agreed on with the architect. The architect then gets a controlled event that they can react to. They can easily see what changed and make the decision to accept as-is, or start some negotiation or redesign based on the proposed change. So, in this case, the parametric systems aren’t competing for control of the reaction to those changes. They are informing each other in a more rational, controlled way that respects the normal boundaries of those two professions. This same dynamic would hold for interactions between architect and site engineer, architect and façade engineer, and so on.
L'Ambiente di Condivisione dei Dati si trasferisce ormai inevitabilmente sul Cloud:
I'd be lying if I said we had it all figured out. Many of the applications we have been working on and have demonstrated are web-only applications, so would not be available if you didn’t have a web connection. I’ve been in this industry a long time and collaboration and interoperability have always huge barriers to realising the the full benefits of BIM. Quantum’s capabilities make a lot of those issues go away. Now, we have some new problems to solve, but we think we have made considerable progress in tackling long-established painpoints.
Ció, non di meno, implica un forte investimento in Cyber Security, come già evidente nella BS PAS 1192-5.
Analogo ragionamento vale per la Detenzione delle Informazioni:
We are fresh off of considering the realities of ‘ownership of data’ with the BIM360 Docs project, so we understand most of the issues. One thing that is different is that we are reducing the amount of information that must be shared in order to collaborate and we hope that will have a positive effect. But, the bottom line is that it’s still early and we will need to work with customers to help us figure out what they are comfortable with. There are new opportunities over file-based systems for sure, but there’s also some uncharted territory.
Ciò che oggi occorre, alle Scuole di Architettura e di Ingegneria è formare persona con una solida cultura disciplinare, ma che siano anche corroborate sul Data Science-Based Teamworking.
Si tratta di insegnare la Sperimentalità, non di formare BIM Modeller:
It’s still early in the process and because we are talking about an ecosystem of products and services that will evolve over time, it’s difficult to give specifics beyond general trends and theories that we think may be likely.
In sintesi: lo Strumento si fa Processo. È tutto ciò chiaro alle Scuole di Architettura e di Ingegneria?
BIM
News e gli approfondimenti che riguardano l’evoluzione digitale del progetto e della costruzione, con particolare attenzione al BIM - Building Information Modelling