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From 2022, all government orders in construction in our country are switching to BIM. Everyone involved in the design is involved in such construction, but the BIM designer has a special role. Understanding who it is
Who is a BIM designer
BIM – Building Information Model – is an information model. In this model, the building is perceived as a single object, rather than disparate drawings and estimates. It combines everything related to construction: appearance, engineering, communications, interior design, economics, construction stages, logistics, environment, each material with a name and quantity: from concrete grade to fixtures.
This approach helps to save time and money, control every step of construction and avoid design errors that may emerge already at the construction stage.
A BIM model cannot be created without a BIM designer. It is he who creates the visual part: connects all the documentation together, translates the drawings into 3D and fills each block with detailed information.
BIM-designer is one of the professions of the future, but it has already become a reality.
What does a BIM designer do?
The BIM designer reproduces 2D drawings in 3D, populates libraries and develops models. This happens in a special program, which is chosen from a variety of options for specific tasks. The most famous of them are Revit, ArchiCad, Allplan. The result is a 3D object with many layers. It is used to determine the stages of construction, control processes, and record the cost of materials.
The profession is at the intersection of design and IT. A BIM designer can become a BIM manager – a person who coordinates the process and selects the technologies that are suitable for the tasks.
Key skills of a BIM designer
First of all, a BIM designer must be able to:
- work with BIM programs,
- to understand the creation of libraries,
- collect and process data,
- know the specifics of the construction area.
English may be needed to study technologies and work in programs without a Russian-language interface. Usually, if the BIM designer does not perform other functions, he does not need to communicate much and closely with people. But if he wants to become a BIM manager, he needs to be a strategist, interested in construction technologies and develop flexible skills for teamwork and communication with customers.
Trends and directions of the profession
The highest level of the BIM model is the digital twin of the building: when sensors transmit all current parameters to the program: for example, lighting, water or gas pressure. So after a while, entire digital cities will appear, and the operation of each object in the city will become easier and better.
Such a program will calculate when it will be necessary to make repairs, whether the ventilation will break, which pipe it is time to change, and how to demolish the building with minimal time and money. With the development of BIM, more and more people are involved in the process of creating a model, and their functions become more complicated and narrowed. BIM started with 3D building layouts and is moving towards digital cities and blockchain.
So far, there is no clear general classification of the duties of BIM specialists. For example, in a small company, a BIM designer can be a manager, programmer, system administrator, engineer, and a bit of a psychologist for the whole team at the same time. He can be called a BIM-modeler, BIM-author, BIM-master and BIM-manager and perform the functions of all at once. It turns out confusion, but now in our country there has gradually been a trend towards specification and division of roles.
Where does the profession come from?
BIM designers are already in demand in the world and in our country there is an acute shortage of them: digitalization is going much faster than people are learning a new profession.
According to Andrey Bochkarev, Deputy Mayor of Moscow for Urban Development Policy and Construction, Moscow alone will need at least 5 new specialists in the coming years. And according to the Ministry of Construction, to ensure the full transition of the state order to BIM, a number of programs have been formed to train specialists in the field of information modeling. In the next three years, it is planned to train 25 thousand specialized specialists. A typical training course on using information modeling tools takes about 40 hours.
PlanRadar estimates that 70% of German construction companies use BIM, and since 2016 it has been a mandatory element of construction in the UK.
How to become a BIM designer
BIM design can be learned at universities or in courses organized by the Ministry of Construction and program developers. Universities graduate BIM-specialists under the programs “Computer modeling in construction” or provide the basics for working with technology in the specializations “Construction” and “Building Design”.
For advanced training or professional retraining, you can use offline and online courses. For example, in MSTU im. Bauman has a course “Computer-aided design systems / BIM”, and the Institute of Management and Information Modeling of the University of the Ministry of Construction offers a whole range of areas. A joint project of Rosatom and VC will teach BIM design and management for free. You can learn the basics of working in various programs online: on your own or with the help of courses. For example, in the “Academy of BIM” or STC “Designer”.
Abroad, BIM is also studied as part of university construction programs and additional courses. In Europe, you can take Erasmus Mundus master courses in the direction of “BIM A + European Master in BIM”. You can also take courses at the Zigurat online university.
Alexey Torchinsky, Deputy General Director of Matrix LLC:
“The technology of information modeling (BIM-design) is a logical development of CAD (Computer-Aided Design) technology, which was founded by the American architect Albert Kahn back in the 1920s. Since the technology is based on the construction of a solid 3D model with deep detailing and detailed attributes of all elements of the object, this greatly facilitates the work of an engineer and reduces the number of errors during construction to a minimum. But we must not forget that this is just an effective tool in the hands of a competent engineer who cannot replace a person and form a technical idea. BIM significantly reduces the labor costs of a design engineer, but at the same time imposes an additional requirement – justification by calculation of the adopted technical solutions. The information model must have a rigid logical connection from the calculation and explanatory note to the specification, so the designer is required to pay attention and pedantry to details. It is no longer possible to put footnotes “finish in place” or “size with an asterisk” in the model. ”