BIM live

Primo september var jeg med til bips' årsmøde i Nyborg. Det altovervejende tema var i år BIM - Building Information Management, så det var næsten en must-go. Heldigvis levede konferencen op til forventningerne; det var inspirerende og lærerigt at være med, fx fik jeg indsigt en række nye cases.

Jeg vil her slå et særligt slag for det eksperiment, der var en del af konferencen, nemlig bips BIM live, hvor en række studerende (ingen arkitekter) forsøgte kræfter med at modellere en 3D model - på basis af en et konkret byggeprojekt.

Men, alt det kan man læse meget mere om på siten, hvor man så også kan studere resultatet.

Disorganising Bureaucracies

Den 13-14 november deltager jeg i Center for Ledelse i Byggeriet's årlige konference om ledelse i byggeriet. Her skal jeg præsentere et arbejdspapir med titlen Disorganising Bureaucracies. Artiklen er stort set skrevet, men er endnu ikke klar til offentliggørelse. Ambitionen er at den på tidspunkt kan blive optaget i et passende tidsskrift. Abstract lyder som følger:

Background. In Denmark, on 1 January 2007, BEK no. 1365 entered into force. BEK 1365 is a public declaration intended to regulate the use of ICT in construction. Annexed to the declaration are ’ten commandments’ – demands that public clients have to enforce upon private firms competing for contracts. Command 5b dictates the public client to request that the design team produces a 3D building model. The building model must be object oriented and exchangeable via the IFC-format. The goal of the initiative – Digital Construction – is to spark efficiency in construction by introducing information and communication technology.

Problem. Several Danish practices rush to 3D digital modelling in response to, among others, public clients’ request for 3D building models. In the transition from 2D CAD (Computer Aided Design) to 3D BIM (Building Information Modelling) several complicated issues call for the attention of partners and e.g. CAD managers. Object oriented modelling challenge existing work procedures, methods and routines and puts strain on the users’ competences, e.g. their capacity to ‘work around’, to communicate and coordinate, to structure creative processes. Along with the debatable advantages of building modelling comes a plethora of challenges, namely the unforeseeable effects of socio-material associations. Sometimes 3D modelling transforms practice in surprising ways.

Research question. How does real bureaucracies’ (government agencies, i.e.) action vis-à-vis digitalization of construction effect the order of work in the design phase; what does it mean in relation to the management of competences.

Test-bed. 20+ explorative 2 hours (average) interviews – transcribed and analysed; approx. 40 hours of observation (video-observiews, face-to-face interaction / dialogue; a database of Q&A’s from a representational (41% return) sample of 269 architects, engineers, clients, etc. Collected between 2007-2008.

Methods assemblage. Inspired by a breed of alternative methodologies my research strategy draws on actor-network theory (ANT), taking an ontologically relativist, yet empirically realist approach. To that end concepts such as symmetry, actantiality, network, translation, mediation, association, the fluid and the fractal, embodiment and enactment are introduced.

EGOS 08

I juli deltog jeg i det 24. EGOS Kollokvium. Kollokviet blev i år afholdt i Amsterdam. EGOS er en forkortelse for European Group for Organizational Studies.

Jeg havde indsendt en artikel til konferencen, hvor jeg også præsenterede mine pointer (nedenfor viste videoklip var et af flere 'real-tids video obser-views', som jeg brugte til at krydre min præsentation med - vedlagte klip illustrerer hvordan en ingeniør arbejder med en 3D model...

Abstract. Based on multi-site ethno methodological field studies in the Danish construction industry this pa-per examines the relational effects of 3D object-based modelling. In describing how that technology is being introduced, shaped and enacted, how it associates with, mediates and translates existing practices, I discuss how it has effects for work methods and routines in an (inter-)organisational setting, namely that of architects and consulting engineers. The technology is introduced in the practices in question, in part because of a program referred to as Det Digitale Byggeri (Digital Construction). Among others, the program demands that architects and consulting engineers embrace a new breed of computer-based software programs allowing for 3D object-based modelling.

In this paper I will describe the program and the network of (non-)human actors en-gaged in the promotion hereof with a view to examine various ways in which 3D object-based modelling re-lates and associates itself with the wider socio-material actor-network. This is done in two interrelated sections that serve as a backdrop against which to understand on the one hand, how the program is sought stabilized, at least temporarily, and on the other hand, how the program is challenged by a number of unforeseen transla-tions – Digital Construction manifests itself in ways not anticipated in the original program. In continuation hereof follows a couple of analytical descriptions that illustrate in detail how 3D object-based modelling is en-acted in practice. I will discuss these cases with a view to understand the implications for organising, learning and knowing in the design phases of a construction projects.

Before this, however, I will present in detail the research question and how I intend to deal with it methodologically. I will outline a method assemblage, based on actor-network theory, and I will argue for why I have chosen this particular approach. Prior to the empirically grounded observations and description I have chosen to include a brief section on digitalization and construction IT.

Type of study. Theoretically grounded empirical research (work in progress). Novelty. A method assemblage based on readings of actor-network theory (ANT) / science, technology and social (STS) studies is suggested and applied so as to overcome the dichotomy of individual and organisational learning, to bridge the social and the material.

Du kan se andre publikationer her: Jesper Hundebøl, Publikationer.