Death of a Founding Father Shocks BIM Community

AEC3 Consultant Jeffrey Wix, recipient of the first ever buildingSMART Recognition Award, died in Oslo Saturday, July 4, following a brief illness.

An engineer with extensive experience creating integrated information communication technology (ICT) solutions for the building construction industry, Wix focused on development strategies for industry and government.

In 2006, the buildingSMART alliance, then known as the International Alliance for Interoperability (IAI) North America Chapter, recognized his 30+ years of experience, technical expertise and vision in defining the Industry Foundation Classes (IFCs) as a single, global building model base for interoperability, with a buildingSMART Recognition Award.

Wix was a member of the buildingSMART Model Support Group and an active member of the buildingSMART International United Kingdom (UK) Chapter since its inception. He project-managed the IFC 2x platform and subsequent IFC 2x2 and IFC 2x3 enhancement releases.

Wix also led work on defining the connection between building construction and geographic information systems (GIS) through the IFC for GIS project. He participated in various UK national projects on product libraries, e-safety and public health. He was a member of the core team that developed the ISO 12006-3 standard on dictionaries for construction products and services, and was the original author of the Information Delivery Manual (IDM), which specifies the delivery of project data for specific business processes. He was a consultant in almost all major buildingSMART implementations, including ifcBomb in the UK, ePlan Check in Singapore, IDM in Norway and the Danish-led IFD initiative.

“Jeff was one of the founding fathers of the BIM effort and an active and truly involved friend and mentor to the buildingSMART alliance,” said buildingSMART alliance Executive Director Deke Smith. “The absence of his wit and depth of understanding is a significant loss to all.”
 
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