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Wednesday, October 26, 2011

That's not office standard!!!


If only I had a dollar for every time I've heard that phrase, I'd be writing this from my private island in the Ligurian Sea.  You know what I'm talking about too.  There's always that one person in the office hell bent on "standards" and how the drawings should look.  Maybe it's even you?  

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for making my drawings legible and uniform.  As architects, we even want them to look nice and pretty.  But have you ever seen the elusive "standards manual"?  Is this something that was created when the firm began back in 1924?  Show me the manual!!  I'll follow it by all means but most of times it's either a guessing game or tales told through the ages from one generation to the other.  Who has the non-billable time to print, hole punch, and insert a bunch of pages into an old unused products binder?

Well here we have it - new and improved for the 21st century.  Better than a paper bound manual is a PDF file ready and available on your file server.  This way, you can bookmark pages and change them out as methods, software, and lead designers change.  These "one-sheets" as i call them should be just that.  One single page giving critical information on a single topic.  Keep it simple and include what should be done and why.  This reinforces to users what they should be doing and the dire consequences if they do not.  Don't include click by click instructions on how.  There's always more than one way to accomplish a task, so don't spend time and space on your page with that.

Please do me one last favor - call it Best Practices.  It is a living breathing entity after all and should always be evolving.  Standards sounds so set in stone as though you just blew the dust off the cover.  Try it out - I think you just might like it!

Sunday, October 16, 2011

HOT stuff down in Argentina!!!

I told you that i would find some inspiring stuff.  Check out these guys at VMS 3D in Cordoba!





Some really cool stuff to watch for inspiration!

Check out this video.  It shows just how amazing digital modeling is and gives that WOW factor.  This stuff is inspiring to watch and one of reasons I love working with BIM.  Shown off only the way that Autodesk can.  I plan to showcase more cool work as I come across it.



Friday, October 14, 2011

KNOW WHERE I CAN GET AN ITALIAN MARKER BOARD?


Yeah we had a great marker board we used on our last project….I think we used it in Building C in the 5th floor classrooms…..and it still might be in Italian……..and it’s floor based……..but you can tweak it!  Ever try to reuse information from a prior project?   BIM has gone beyond the CD set and we are now working with a rich set of data for a multitude of uses from fabrication to facilities management and more.  Not only is it important to pass along good clean usable data to the other teams, but to pass it on back to your teams.  How are you keeping all the good stuff from your most recent project while making sure that those “what the…” moments don’t rear their ugly head again.

All too often our nemesis in completely a quality post-mortem on a project is time.  We never have enough of it and we are off to the next project.  But without doing so, how do you know if you were successful?  How do others in your firm know where all that good stuff is.  Certainly another team can use those placeholder doors that have all the clearances marked out.  Couldn’t someone else use all those Sherwin-Williams paint colors that you set up?  How about the new process you developed for bringing in a data set of room requirements from clients?

By creating a feedback loop,  new objects, materials, presentation styles, processes, ideas, and more can be reused in future projects.  Taking a few hours now will certainly save you and others from reinventing the wheel later on.  The time spent will be well worth it, even if it may even have to be considered (gasp) nonbillable!   You can share this new good stuff with others by establishing a system of review and updates.  These may include updates and additions to files, directories, templates, and documentation.  Not only will it make you more efficient in the long run, it just may save you from having to look up “length” in Italian.