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November 17, 2006
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information and photo link contact: First Annual buildingSMART Awards Highlight Week’s Events WASHINGTON. DC -- A gala evening reception in the Great Hall of the National Building Museum, welcoming International Alliance for Interoperability (IAI) members and guests from around the world to the IAI’s October 30—November 3, 2006 buildingSMART Week, also served to honor the five, first-ever recipients of the annual buildingSMART Awards, selected and presented by the Board of Direction of the IAI North America Chapter (IAI-NA), a Council of the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS). Bentley Systems sponsored the event. IAI-NA Board member Ian Howell, CEO of Newforma, Inc., presented awards recognizing individuals and organizations and their work in five categories: buildingSMART Recognition Award
Ceremony attendees stood to applaud AEC3 consultant Jeff Wix of the IAI UK Chapter for his 30 year-plus contribution of technical expertise and vision in defining the IAI’s Industry Foundation Classes (IFCs) as a single, global building model base for interoperability. Wix project-managed the IFC 2x platform and subsequent IFC 2x2 and IFC 2x3 enhancement releases, and has consulted in such implementations as ifcBomb in the UK, ePlan Check in Singapore, IDM in Norway, and the Danish-led IFD initiative. See http://www.aec3.com buildingSMART Innovation Award
As it did by promoting LEED energy efficiency certification, the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), one of the largest building owners and managers, is again driving innovation nationally and globally by requiring IFC-based Building Information Model (BIM) submissions for all conceptual design proposals, beginning with GSA 2007 capital projects. buildingSMART Open Data Award
As the result of work Chuck Eastman of Georgia Tech conducted on behalf of the American Institute of Steel Construction to define, create and implement the CIS/2 standard—now broadly adopted and used by design engineers, software vendors and fabricators—the building industry’s structural steel segment offers a role model for interoperability based on functional open data standards. See http://www.cis2.org/ buildingSMART Technology Award
Norway’s EPM Technologies is engineering and commercializing a new generation of “model server” technology, that lets users manage and share all forms of project model data created using BIM systems throughout the life of a facility. “With their partners and customers they are pioneering a new frontier of collaboration and intelligent data sharing among project team members,” says Howell. See http://www.epmtech.jotne.com/index.html buildingSMART International Award
Complementing IAI’s IFC building model, Norway’s IDM (Information Document Manual) Project describes best practice work processes using a “top down” approach, enabling domain experts to state their requirements as problem specifications that software vendors, in turn, can employ to develop a new generation of interoperable applications. “IDM will help involve many more industry participants in defining how interoperability should work,” says Howell. See http://idm.buildingsmart.no/confluence/display/IDM/Home People and ideas cited at the October 31 awards ceremony were in evidence the next morning at IAI-NA’s buildingSMART Day at the National Academy of Sciences. The full day program’s centerpiece, a live, real-time “Seeing is Believing” demonstration of a realistic facility design, construction, and management simulation, used American, Norwegian and international AEC software and the HITOS project of the Directorate of Public Construction and Property of Norway to show the practicality of seamless electronic communication among disciplines and across time zones. Lars Christensen of Selvaag Gruppen, Norway, served as demonstration guide. Also on the November 1 program, The International Code Council (ICC) unveiled SMARTcodes™, an interoperable, automated code compliance checking system being developed with IAI-NA. Checking a real building plan for compliance with the 2006 International Energy Conservation Code, the ICC demonstration included both a computer-aided manual search and an automated compliance check. Manual code searching allows users to ask questions, “drilling down” to the code, reference standards, commentary, and interpretations by section. Automated checks can yield a printout of sections that apply, an inspection checklist of things to look for, or a 3D virtual walkthrough that tags building components that don’t comply with code. Contact David Conover of ICC at dconover@iccsafe.org. Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum (HOK) CEO Patrick MacLeamy, FAIA, chair of the IAI International Council, with Thomas Liebich of AEC3 Deutschland, introduced the European Integrated Project, InPro, a new 13 million-Euro effort by a public-private consortium to create a 3D open information environment based on buildingSMART principles, and focused on the early design of buildings. See www.inpro-project.eu. Additional demonstrations and panels covered Spatial Program BIM at GSA, the AISC CIS/2 steel fabrication project, client requirements, and IAI chapter experiences in Scandinavia, the UK, and Australia. Rasso Steinman, IAI Implementer Support Group chair, facilitated a panel discussion by software vendors Autodesk, Bentley Systems, Graphisoft, and Oracle about their approaches to BIM and to providing the industry with interoperable solutions. Introductory remarks came from IAI-NA chair Norbert W. Young, Jr., FAIA, NIBS acting board chair Jim Broaddus, Ph.D., P.E., and NIBS president David A. Harris, FAIA. During the November 1 buildingSMART Day in Washington an important step toward developing a common standard for electronic exchange of information for the building industry was taken. Construction Specifications Canada, the Construction Specifications Institute (USA), buildingSMART Norway and STABU Foundation (the Netherlands) signed a letter of intent to share unified object libraries, under ISO 12006-3 as a structure for developing a controlled dictionary of construction terminology. Contact Maarten van Hezik at mvanhezik@stabu.nl Other IAI-NA and IAI International Council activities and related events held in Washington during buildingSMART Week included the following: On October 30-31 the IAI International Technical Management (ITM) Committee met under the chairmanship of Dr. Arto Kiviniemi of Finland, a member of the Nordic Chapter of IAI. Also on October 31, the Federal Facilities Council's Emerging Technology Committee, a National Academy of Engineering adjunct supported by federal military and civilian construction agencies, held its annual Government-Industry Forum, Engineering, Construction, and Facilities Asset Management: A Cultural Revolution, at the National Academy of Sciences. Presenters showed interoperable data solutions, covered resulting contract and program changes, and reviewed the new National Building Information Model Standard (NBIMS) being developed by NIBS and others. On November 2, the American Institute of Architects Technology for Architectural Practice Committee (AIA TAP) sponsored BUILDING CONNECTIONS-2006, the Third Congress on Digital Collaboration in the Building Industry, at AIA national headquarters, bringing together representatives of the many organizations pursuing facility-related information technology initiatives. On November 2-3, the International Council of the IAI met under the chairmanship of Patrick MacLeamy, FAIA. Board members David Hammond of the U.S. Coast Guard and Tom Gay of FM Global represented IAI’s North America Chapter. About NIBS
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