Saturday, December 22, 2007

Design Schools Embracing BIM-Based Design Practice

Today's design practice is a digital design practice.

Credible design schools and their educational staff are ensuring that when students graduate with their BS in Engineering or MS in Architecture, they are well prepared and employable for their immediate roles in the "real design practice world".

I compiled this list of references for an educator on Revitcity.com. He wanted to show his peers the tangible need to update their design school's classes. Thereby improving the professional credibility of their professors, underscore the university's competitive-educational image and the value of their students' degree and employability.

Questioning the Role of BIM in Architectural Education: A Counter-Viewpoint
by Paul Seletsky, Associate AIA, the Director of Digital Design for Skidmore Owings and Merrill’s New York office. It was published in the AECbytes.com newsletter.

BIM Goes to School (PDF) Download Global perspective: This white paper focuses on how BIM is being leveraged within several universities around the world and how students who have access to this way of working are accelerating their design thinking and their studio work...and laying the foundation for dramatically advancing their industry in the future.

Autodesk Launches Academic Certification Program to Help Prepare the Next Generation of Professionals is a press release by Daratech (statistics crunchers) 9/2007

Autodesk Helps Bridge Gap Between Education and Industry press release from ThomasNet-Industrial Newsroom on connecting Nebraska schools to current and local industry required software.

1-2-3 Revit: BIM Goes to School By Bill Rundell, AIA.
This is a 2005 article when more than 80 colleges and universities were using Revit for their architect-engineering programs.

From an Educational Perspective: BIM in the Architectural Curriculum (PDF)
David R. Scheer, AIA, Associate Professor and Director
Center for Integrated Design and Construction
University of Utah College of Architecture + Planning

Abstract: As Building Information Modeling becomes the new standard for the AEC industry, the training of young professionals to work in this environment becomes a critical issue. Certain tendencies in current architectural education are clearly unsuited to BIM, whose value lies in its capacity to facilitate collaboration and accumulate information throughout the entire building lifecycle. An entirely new approach to architectural education is needed. This process has begun at the University of Utah's College of Architecture and Planning.

Curriculum changes are being tried, ranging from rethinking the design studio to the addition of new courses specifically addressing BIM. Greater involvement by industry in architectural education is needed to bring the collaboration-building aspects of BIM into the classroom and studio. Read on...

AECCafe: Autodesk Presents Revit BIM Experience Award to New Jersey Institute of Technology for Creation of Fully Digital Approach to Architectural Education

For those that feel that architecture is art, the [bim]x blog provides a quote from Frank Gehry on the business case of using digital design tools.

The employability news underscores the growing demand for BIM literacy and compentency. Take a quick look at the AIA job banks and engineering placement agencies. We can't find enough architects and engineers that know Revit to fill the waiting jobs for this BIM design process.

Design students are choosing degrees from institutions that have credible programs; that are relative to the current design business. Employers are hiring more graduates from these schools. Eventually the post graduation learning and financial costs fall back on the student (now employee) and the respective design firm that has hired him or her.

The message to design schools: A prestigious sheepskin that delivers unemployable skills, student loan debt and soaring employer training costs; is meaningless for tomorrow's designers and their respective employers to grow a successful design business.

Congratulations to those design schools and their staff that understand and teach the "real design practice methodology".

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