The Sensible Pathway to Open BIM — One German Firm’s Story

IN A COUNTRY KNOWN FOR ITS ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY, it may come as a surprise to learn that Germany isn’t at the forefront of the global AEC BIM revolution. Much like Japan’s BIM story, this industrial and economic giant lags behind much smaller countries in Scandinavia. It also is behind the United Kingdom and the United States of America. That isn’t stopping ARP ArchitektenPartnerschaft, of Stuttgart, Germany, from pushing forward with its BIM workflow transformation. There is simply too much to be gained. 

The Sensible Beginning

ARP ArchitektenPartnerschaft has 80 people working in two locations in Stuttgart. Fifty people are in one office doing all the planning and architecture; thirty are in the second office doing on-site related work. “We have a variety of projects,” says Burkard Illig, an architect and head of the CAD team at the firm. “We do architecture, interiors, urban planning, and landscape architecture. We work across specialties and at different scales. A lot of our projects are multi-family residential projects,” he says. 

In Germany, like in most other countries, the scale of projects can impact BIM adoption as well as who is doing the work. “The big contractors are doing BIM at a very high level on the construction site,” says Illig. “In the public sector, BIM is still a bit dormant.” Without a government mandate for BIM, like in the UK, the German AECO market is slowly moving toward BIM, with architecture firms interested in BIM facing adoption challenges like contractual issues and a lack of BIM competencies. 

ARP has been moving to Big BIM methodically within this German AECO context. In 2015 they began a BIM pilot project. 

The Value in a Pilot Project

Illig, who was in charge of CAD standards for the 80-person firm, began with a pilot project. “At the time I started the pilot project, I was doing some research to understand if doing 3D BIM would be easy enough for the whole office,” he adds. Staff range across three generations with varied software competencies. He began with the help of one other CAD expert in the firm, and they pushed a BIM process on a facility for the elderly. “This pilot project was really about finding out what best practice workflows for BIM look like, so we could later introduce them to the whole office,” he says. 

 

 

 

 

The firm had been using Vectorworks for approximately 15 years after moving over from ALLPLAN. Before the BIM pilot project, the firm was doing what Illig called 2.5D BIM. “We used all the walls, doors, and windows tools to generate all the information and schedules, but without the 3D benefits,” he says, “and also sections and elevations from the 3D BIM model.” So the firm was moving towards Little BIM in sensible steps. 

The immediate payback in undertaking a full pilot BIM project in Little BIM was apparent to Illig and his CAD team. “You get sections anywhere,” he notes. “Wherever you think you need some clarification about a certain point in the building, you can make a section immediately and see how things look.” In the past, to trouble-shoot building design issues, your option was to keep drawing more sections. “You don’t have to do that anymore; everything is automated.”

Another immediate benefit of BIM was the ability to quickly render the building from anywhere. “Usually, we hire consultants to create high-end renderings for winning competitions, but we can do our own simple renderings in Vectorworks to benefit the planning process for clarifications with the client.” Illig said that Vectorworks has sufficient rendering abilities but hires specialists to get to that next level of quality needed to win competitions.

 

 

 

 

This last point reflects how visualization is changing in the architecture industry with the emergence of real-time, interactive rendering solutions like Lumion and Twinmotion. A specialist delivers more compelling still images and more sophisticated animations, using tools that have steep learning curves. On the other hand, architects are flocking to more accessible and faster tools that make up for those aspects by offering “interactive, real-time” environmental dynamics in the visualizations. 

Visualization flexibility is a significant benefit of BIM workflows. Plus, as Illig notes, “the demand is getting higher because clients get more and more used to it; they know we have the building in 3D.” 

next page: Moving to Big BIM

Moving to Big BIM

Getting to Big BIM took three-plus years. As Illig says, “we had a few projects that started as Big BIM which fell back to Little BIM — there were lots of reasons why this happened.” As he explained, sometimes, the engineers were not mandated by contract to deliver BIM models but agreed to make an attempt. When scheduling pressures mounted or issues developed, consultants fell back on 2D workflows. 

Other challenges included internal staff competencies. “We founded the CAD team, and I have four people right now who are spreading skills throughout the office. We have one person placed in every team of about 10-12 people.” His CAD team quickly learned they needed to formalize BIM training in the office.

“Before coronavirus,” he adds, “we had training for once a week for one hour where we would focus on stairs or windows, for example. We have 15-20 topics on a schedule, and once we get through those, we repeat because things change in Vectorworks.” Part of overcoming the challenges to Big BIM adoption internally was developing ARP’s curriculum with the help of specific training from their local Vectorworks reseller, ComputerWorks GmbH. 

Illig has now worked on a few Big BIM projects and is currently planning a high-rise residential project in full BIM. “We are just getting experience as we embark on early Big BIM projects. It is a bit of a learning phase,” he suggests modestly. “At the moment, we are trying out Solibri, and we are on the Macintosh, so that was the only good software solution for us.”

They have also found the Vectorworks clip cube technology beneficial for investigating issues. Additionally, Illig says that the BIM Collaboration Format (BCF) method of coordinating projects is also helpful. “I think the BCF workflow works fine for me so far,” he adds. 

The Sensible Hybrid Tool

Illig says that Vectorworks has enabled their firm to approach BIM workflows in small steps, gaining insight and competencies with each project. Even with full Big BIM projects, the need for 2D doesn’t entirely go away. 

“We use Vectorworks in 2D for all the detail work, scales from 1:5 to 1:10, where all the windows, doors, ceiling and roof conditions need detailed drawings,” he says. Certain things are not useful to do in BIM, he contends, citing metal cladding systems at detail-grade where craftsmen can manufacture and construct the product. 

“And, we still do early-stage and quick studies in 2D,” he adds. “This is one excellent strength in Vectorworks—in doing quick but high-quality illustration-based work.”

Then there is the German context—an AECO environment where even within the same building or use types, BIM usage, and value perceptions vary. “Some clients don’t see the value of it,” he says of clients and BIM workflows. “The contractors get a big benefit out of it; they get quantities and calculations, which is a huge benefit for them in time saved.” 

 

 

 

 

He also suggests that what architects outside of Germany may not understand is the role German architects play in being responsible for quantifications and costs in the project’s planning stages. 

“I think there are three major benefits of Big BIM for us here in Germany,” he says. “One is getting all your drawings automatically, the second is the coordination of your design with the engineers and preventing clashes through detection, and third, getting quantifications of your materials for cost purposes.” He contends that it is this third part that can be complex. “It is the job of the architect to tell the client the costs of projects.”

For ARP ArchitektenPartnerschaft, Vectorworks’ hybrid nature is perfectly suited to the firm’s German context where BIM adoption itself is fragmented and where pressures on real-life projects require flexibility and scalability in digital workflow transformation, something Vectorworks’ handles well. 

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Image Credits

Format equates to “party with copyright” / “party with reserved rights of use.” (eg: image: ARP Stuttgart / Architosh. All rights reserved.)  Non-credited images are copyrighted to Architosh.

Title Credit:  Production-Building in Menden, client: Bürkert GmbH & Co. KG. (Image:  ARP Stuttgart / Architosh. All rights reserved.)

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