Digital Project® – first impressions

I have decided to undertake the advanced training necessary to understand Digital Project – Frank O. Gehry’s digital platform for design and construction. So over the past few weeks, I submitted myself to an intensive training regime which turned out to be very challenging yet highly rewarding.

FIRST let me share with you that I am more than impressed from the shear potential and raw power of this technology. Of course, Digital Project (DP) is not a stand alone application and you can feel the enormous torque generated by Dassault’s CATIA engine. But DP is slowly coming of age and it will help shape the Building Information Modelling discussion as it slowly gets adopted by industry’s leading players.

SECOND: among many attributes that can be assigned to this technology, three things in DP impressed me the most: its scalability, flexibility and interoperability.

The scalability of its Master Model principle is ingenious. Literally hundreds of staff can be working on the same model without the need for a dedicated model server. In fact, it works within the principles of flat-file data management. Even low-cost Document Management applications can act as a permissions/versioning gateway for the shared model parts. This is definitely not the case for ArchiCAD and Revit although Autodesk is slowly making headway on this issue with more ‘intelligent model linking. DP can subdivide the model into tens, hundreds or even thousands of interdependent ‘products’ and ‘parts’. ..I have even seen a project in Hong Kong with 4000 individual parts ranging from the Building grid to the sprinkler’s head.

Another thing that impressed me was its renowned flexibility of form. Throughout the training sessions and as it unfolded in front of my eyes, I regretted not taking too much notice of the math teacher during high school. DP is a math-magician! If you know the math, you can have your cake and eat it too. Any form can be created and recreated! Also, I am still to find a form that cannot be parameterised and controlled to the nth degree. An ability so critical for design morphologies and investigations. The new version will even include a workbench (a set of tools) named Imagine and Shape which does exactly that; a fluidity of form that can turn with a click of a button into a set of buildable/fabricable geometry…

Now, the other attribute should be very interesting to IAI members. The new V1R3(Version 1, Release 3…still in Beta2) has another new ‘workbench’ called Functional Architecture which is totally built on top of the IFC schema…That is, DP rather than creating its own schema of objects and relationships has opted to use the one developed by the IAI…Though potentially limiting in scope, it is a very smart approach indeed! DP uses the schema to generate Walls, Doors, Spaces, etc…This makes V1R3 (when it gets released) the first commercial IFC modeller! Other software like Nemetschek, Nemetschek/Graphisoft, Autodesk and Bentley translate their in-house schema into an IFC file (with all the loss caused by translation). While it is still too early to judge the limitations of DP’s approach, it is definitely brave, commendable and highly interesting.

THIRD and in case you’re wondering, Digital Project can be very intimidating as well. I can summarise it in three words…Usability, Workflow and Role-Reversal

The formative and parametric abilities of DP are quite amazing although I dare say that its usability is pretty low and the learning curve is pretty steep. Deploying it within a corporate environment is definitely a strategy-level decision. You cannot slip it within the operational strata as other BIM allows you to. DP’s implementation should be very rewarding if ample care is given to the change-process this technology unashamedly generates. When it comes to workflow, DP does NOT compromise. A user MUST follow it; it doesn’t subdue itself to current AEC processes as Revit® does for example. At the process level, you are always haunted with the principles of Process Integration and Supply Chain Management; concepts not yet well understood within our industry. DP will probably FORCE itself into the market; osmosis is not an option. In many respects, DP is a very mature product and this maturity is that of the so-well-proven CATIA®. On the other hand, you feel that the Architectural, Structural and MEP workbenches are in their infancy but are growing – growing really fast. The strength of its kernel will no doubt allow it to tackle the most complex of projects at data, visualisation, documentation, specification and scheduling levels. On the human/operator level, DP will need a super user, an end-developer and a model manager…Without the highly skilled professionals, its flexibility and power may turn against it….

I left the Role Reversal till the end because DP can be highly transformative and even threatening. You can feel the enormous potential of this software as it renders itself to Architects, Engineers and – more so – to owners and developers. I can’t really discuss this topic in an already inflated blog entry, but – if Architects should embrace anything or fear anything – it would be the supply chain management that DP’s master model forces upon them…