COBie inventor says ARCHICAD is 100 Percent COBie-compliant

Bill East (pictured below), the inventor of COBie, has been working with Rob Jackson, Associate Director of Bond Bryan Architects, to simulate the early design in ArchiCAD of one of four dormitories on a fictitious site adjacent to the University of Illinois, in Champaign, Illinois. The goal is to create a reference COBie test project.

Passing NBISM-US V3 Design Stage COBie Requirements

As the design developed the COBie plugin for BIMserver.org was iteratively  applied to resolve identified issues. Some of these issues were the result of modeling while other issues required direct feedback from ArchiCAD programmers.

01 – Bill East, the inventor of COBie.

The resultant back-and-forth process included several software change tickets for which work-arounds were applied for the project. According to East, “The results of this experiment demonstrated 100 percent compliance with ArchiCAD against NBIMS-US V3, Design Stage COBie requirements.”

The Book

To show how 100 percent COBie compliance was achieved, East and Jackson are currently finishing a book that will provide step-by-step instructions. The book is expected to be published in 2016.

The book is expected to be published in 2016.

Next Stages

Following the book, East and Jackson are looking to move beyond COBie at Early Design by engaging an MEP firm to help them develop and merge COBie-compliant HVAC, plumbing, and electrical designs.

For more information about the COBie reference test project, please visit:http://prairieskyconsulting.com/testing.htm

For the “COBie Guide” to the various ARCHICAD versions, please visit http://www.graphisoft.com/downloads/addons/ifc/index.html

About Bill East

E. William (Bill) East is an innovator whose career spans the areas of planning and scheduling, quality management, and building information modeling. In 2007, East invented the Construction-Operations Building Information Exchange (COBie). COBie is an international standard that squeezes profits from an otherwise wasteful construction handover process. East is currently Owner, Prairie Sky Consulting, where he helps owners and contractors specify and meet COBie requirements.

About Graphisoft

GRAPHISOFT® ignited the BIM revolution in 1984 with ARCHICAD®, the industry first BIM software for architects.  GRAPHISOFT continues to lead the industry with innovative solutions such as its revolutionary BIMcloud®, the world’s first real-time BIM collaboration environment; EcoDesigner™, the world’s first fully BIM-integrated “GREEN” design solution; and BIMx®, the world’s leading mobile app for BIM visualization.  GRAPHISOFT is part of the Nemetschek Group.