Managing Modelling

I morgen åbner konferencen ”Construction Matters” på CBS i København. Konferencen varer til og med fredag, og forskere og praktikere med interesse i og for ledelse, organisation og byggeri kommer fra nær og fjern. Det er professorerne Kristian Kreiner og Jan Mouritsens Center for ledelse i byggeriet (CLIbyg) der står bag konferencen, der senest fandt sted i 2008. Jeg har været med tidligere, og vil i igen i år, torsdag, den 6. maj mellem kl. 14.30 og 16.30, fremlægge et konferencebidrag med titlen ”Managing Modelling”. Artiklen er i overensstemmelse med konferencens spor 3, Management Practices and Digital Design, og Centerets overordnede interesse for ledelsesprocesser udarbejdet på basis af mit nyligt afsluttede Ph.d. projekt. Kort sagt udfolder jeg til lejligheden tre aspekter af ledelse og digitalisering:

• Managing Objects
  
• Managing the manning up and down (the scaling up and down, the zooming in and out)
  
• Managing time and work flow

Her vil jeg kun sige meget lidt om det første, nemlig hvordan forestillinger om objekter (digitale byggeklodser) leder en og anden på afveje, hvordan forholdet mellem arbejdere, værktøjer og digitale objektorienterede 3D modeller relationelle adfærd afføder effekter, som nok i noget omfang flyder fra intentioner. Hvad jeg siger, er at objekters multiple ontologier (høje kompleksitet, mangfoldighed, væren under tilblivelse – gør og gøres) gør dem vanskelige at håndtere, svære at lede. Hvad jeg spørger om, er i hvilken grad objekter leder eller ledes. Hvordan de gør og i praksis gøres; bliver til.
Objekter med en vis såkaldt intelligens er kort sagt afgørende elementer i en 3D bygningsmodel. Uden objekter, ingen model. Objekter associeres i og ved hjælp af værktøjer. Det foregår på en computer, i forskellige programmer, med forskellige grænseflader. Objekter, modeller og værktøjer håndteres af mennesker af kød og blod. I fysiske rammer, måske en gammel fabrik, der er bygget om så den i større eller mindre grad helt eller delvist repræsenterer tegnestuens æstetik. Sådan er scenen.

På torsdag er scenen en anden – konferencen holdes naturligvis i egne lokaler, i Kilen ved metroen på Solbjerget. Der vil være stole og borde sat på rækker, traditionen tro vil jeg posere på hvad der kunne være et mindre podium, og bag mig vil der være et lysende objekt – en kraftig lampe vil projektere billeder og tekst, bits og bytes, op på en hvid overflade. Velinformerede individer vil lytte til hvad jeg siger, hvorefter vi vil udveksle nogle overvejende engelske gloser.
Men nok om det – tegnestuens objekter må lede og selv lade sig lede. Det kan blive ledt, hedt. Oftest, når det brænder på, i dagene og måske uger før aflevering, når målkæder hopper af, modeller falder fra hinanden og objekter gør modstand, da er det ikke altid lige sjovt at være arkitekt, eller ingeniør, eller bygningsmodel, eller objekt. Eller måske er det – vi ved det ikke, mangfoldigheden i den forrige sætning er for voldsom, for heterogen. For hvordan kan jeg, vi, på en og samme tid, samtidigt sige noget om arkitekters, ingeniørers, bygningsmodellers og objekters væren (ontologi). Hvordan er det muligt at tale om objekter og ledelse, hvordan kan vi tale om objekter, således at vi forstår dem og dermed kan lede dem. Thi hvordan leder man noget man ikke forstår, eller måske endda misforstår. Er det værd at vide, hvordan modellering foregår, hvis vi ønsker at gøre os forestillinger om hvordan vi leder modelleringsprocesser; hvad betyder fx en computers processor, ja, aktørnetværkets processorkraft. Kunne man spørge således: Hvordan hvad som ledelse og modellering er?

Cetina taler om epistemiske objekter, Law og Singleton om objekters multiple ontologier, Latour om interobjektivitet. I byggeriet har man digitale 3D objekter, men hvad eller hvem er de? Hvor er de; hvor kommer de fra og hvor/dan bevæger de sig og hvorhen (ligger de så stille, eller gør de unoder)? Hvordan gøres de – hvor/dan forekommer deres undfangelse, udvikling, anvendelse, afvikling; bliver de vedligeholdt, tjekket, revideret, genanvendt og nok så væsentligt, og hvordan gør de – gør de noget ved os, ved arkitekturen, ved byggeriet, ved aktørnetværket, ved aktantværknettet? Spørgsmål der nok kan stilles, men dårligt og altid aldrig fuldt ud, endeligt. Jeg ser objekter som parametriske, virtuelle, digitale, eksplosive, effektfulde, krævende, uvidende og dog informerede, ofte overvægtige, klodsede aktører – endog, under tilblivelse, for evigt i udvikling. En gang sat i bevægelse, bevæger de og betvinger sig opmærksomhed. Vi leder efter dem, de leger skjul, tag-fat, vi må betvinge os dem. De vil ikke ledes, de leder, måske efter en ud/vej. De gør modstand: Du har nu 53 fejl, der ikke kan ignoreres, et større antal potentielle kollisioner, og du skulle have været færdig allerede i forgårs.

Her er et uddrag af teksten:

An apparently simple operation such as creating, modifying or deleting an object might be a reasonable starting point if you want to consider some of the complexities related to handling or managing objects. Objects might be created on an ad-hoc basis, imported into the building model from an object server, or e.g. copied from the Internet (as with most objects this is a potentially risky business); in some cases an object might be distributed on a homepage such as e.g. www.digitaleprodukter.dk, thus it has been made available by the company actually producing the physical building materials. Evidently objects come in several forms or qualities and from various sources, something that could very well be one of several reasons why modelling processes sometimes break down. Whereas one should think that the manufacturers own virtual 3D objects should be the best objects to apply, this is not necessarily the case – for two reasons. One is size – manufacturers own objects might be too detailed, in some cases you could more or less produce the object in question given the required manufacturing equipment was at hand. Too many details make the objects too heavy for the microprocessors to handle them efficiently. Another reason is that the virtual 3D objects very well might be marked by the producers’ specific brand – making them obsolete in relation to competitive bidding; EU regulations make the mention of specific products illegal.

An object is an item that can be removed; with/out it the model is another figuration. A building model is a relational figuration of objects that are linked to one and each other, it is a compilation of objects equipped with some kind of intelligence. Objects do not know much, however, they are progressively informed about their mutual connectedness, their parameters are continuously set, and reset. Remove an object, and others are supposed to dynamically fill in the gap. However, that kind of automation requires of users that they “think much, much, much more structured” (quoting an informant), and that they do not or at least, not everyone does, at once. In practice I observed how the acknowledged complicated operation of changing the datum of a building produced an excess of errors, giving reason to believe that objects had not been perfectly defined, assigned, anchored, connected; in practice they never are, nothing ever is – perfect. Increased levels of complexity produces increased levels of risk – and risk and what follows must be managed; the workers are likely to sit down and sort out the mess themselves. The relational character of the building model requires new ways of distributing / organizing the design processes; changes in one place may have unforeseen consequences elsewhere. It take a lot to stay on top of it, to keep a smooth operation running.

Det var et længere uddrag , men mere er der ikke. Jo, der er meget mere at sige, men så må du komme, og gerne lytte, lidt. Det er her og nu, her og der, i dag, i morgen, everywhere, with everyone, forever, aldrig voksen.
Led, ledere, ledest. Eller når værktøjerne er suiter, suiter af digitale applikationer, programmer, stykker software. Når aktører undersøges symmetrisk. Når aktørerne er arbejder, værktøjer og modeller. Når modeller og objekterne føjes, i værktøjer, der ikke er mine eller dine, men deres. Når programmet ikke er mit, men deres – hvems, hvor er det. Når vi, de ikke er alene. Oftest får de intelligente 3D objekter følgeskab af uintelligente eller endog døde, flade 2-dimensionelle streger (de udtrykker blot længde x bredde). Det er én om året. Mindst et nyt værktøj, et ny grænseflade, en intellektuel teknologi, det er en eller flere kognitive artefakter. Populært sagt: Revit 2007, 2009, 2010, og 2011. Fire versioner, på fire år. Den er hård, leder.

Virtual demolition and stillborn data - Tools, workers and models

I morgen afh9lder netværket Virtual Worlds Research et heldagsseminar med titlen "Virtual Buildings and Cityscapes as communication technologies in the making". Jeg er inviteret til at tale om mit forskningsprojekt, særligt de aspekter der vedrører visuel kommunikation og virtuelle bygningsmodeller.

Som det fremgår af overskriften, tager jeg udgangspunkt i et af de adskillige paradokser jeg er stødt på i forbindelse med mine observationer i praksis, nemlig virtuel nedrivning af endnu ufærdige 3D bygningsmodeller. Blandt andet vil jeg forsøge at illustrere hvad det er der sker, når de nye 3D modelleringsværktøjer møder praksis, herunder begrænsninger i form af processorkapacitet eller kort og godt regnekraft - trods det forhold, at man eksempelvis har etableret renderingsfarme og installeret simuleringsservere.

Jeg ser frem til en spændende dag, ikke mindst glæder jeg mig til Odilo Schochs og Anders Hermunds demonstration af kolloborative virtuelle arbejdspladser til arkitektonisk design.

Digitaliseringsstafet

Implementeringsnetværket og BIM byen har i fællesskab sendt en digitaliseringsstafet i cirkulation mellem såkaldte eksperter, og i forrige uge endte den hos mig - beæret og samtidigt bekymret overtog jeg stafetten efter Peter Hyttel Sørensen, CAD chef ved CF Møllers tegnestue i Århus.

Med stafetten følger en række spørgsmål, som man skal svare på - og det har jeg selvølgelig gjort. Svarene kan læses både på hjemmesiderne for dels Det Digitale Byggeri, dels BIM byen.

Samtidigt har jeg formuleret nogle nye spørgsmål, og de lyder:

• Hvis de virtuelle objekter var udstyret med intelligens, hvad ville de da tænke?
  
• Hvis bygningsmodellen kunne tale, hvad ville den da sige?
  
• Hvis de digitale værktøjer kunne handle, hvordan ville de da agere?
  
• Hvis objekter, modeller og værktøjer er dumme, fåmælte, handlingslammede, hvad fordrer det så af byggeriets humane agenter?
  

Stafetten er givet videre til Katrine Lotz, ph.d. og adjunkt på KARCH.

Managing Modelling

I år, i maj, er det den grande finale. Her lukker Center for Ledelse i Byggeriet efter i omkring 4 år at have leveret "ilt til en branche, hvis problemfyldte praksis hidtil er blevet kritiseret ud fra idealiserede billeder". Den store finale er en international konference, hvor blandt meget andet følgende tanker vil blive udfoldet. Du kan her læse mit udvidede abstract til et working paper, som vil blive præsenteret på konferencen. Titlen er, som angivet, Managing Modelling:

The mandated introduction of 3D object based modelling in Denmark as of 1 January 2007 sparked, at least for some architects and consulting engineers, a transition from drawing to modelling, from CAD to BIM, from two to three dimensional design processes. Various spokes persons saw or articulated the transition as a “revolution”, a “shift of paradigm”, or a “new way of thinking”. Given the hype about BIM (Building Information Modelling) I welcomed, during the second half of 2007, the unique opportunity to observe and study the design, the partial becoming of a specific building information model and the partial emergence of building information modelling processes. In fact, the processes that I followed were the simultaneous becoming of tools, organisational routines, and users as well as the building information model and modelling methods, in sum, the managing of modelling.

Taking a process view (Clegg, Kornberger et al. 2005; Hernes 2008) on practice based studies (Gherardi 2009) calls, in this case, for a sensibility to enactments and performances, for the specific and provisional as well as multiplicity and fractal overlaps, for non-coherence, for contradictory and sometimes controversial associations and relations between non/human actors – i.a. humans, tools, objects, organisational routines (Law 2004; 2007), yet pragmatic approach to describing and analysing representations, transformations, displacements, circulations, attributions (Latour 2006 (1991): 215) as well as dynamic, recurrent, unfolding relations (Emirbayer 1997).

Asking, among others, how drawing and modelling practices are combined and, to that end, examining how building model, modelling practices, tools, actors and organisational routines become, I draw on but a few, yet paradigmatic episodes where the design process appears rather tangled; describing the far-stretching (rhizomatic, i.e.) ethno-epistemic assemblage (Irwin and Michael 2003) of but a few specific enactments of the building information modelling process may illustrate just how difficult it is, in practice, to manage relational effects associated with modelling. Indeed, taking up the idea that BIM – like e.g. the similarly flawed wide-spreading technological systems within health care (the Electronic Patient Journal, i.e.)(Jensen 2004; Svenningsen 2004) – is a technology in the making, might stress just the how tricky it is to manage, to manage something that is fluid, partially dis/connected, not one, but less than many (Law and Mol 2002; Mol 2002)). Furthermore, “management” (which in this case must be determined empirically, in non a priori terms, i.e.) becomes bi- or even multi-directional, because the suite of object-based, digital modelling tools that architects, engineers, technical assistants and others employ, seem to dis/organise or (re)structure the design processes. (At least some of) The effects of object-based modelling are hard to manage – but what are the effects, how do we come to terms with modelling.

(Potential) Cases - Managing Modelling

Managing objects. Knowing about objects is central to BIM. The relation between hardware, applications, models and virtual building objects is delicate in several ways: Objects are tricky, objects are demanding, objects must be developed (ad hoc), applied, stored and re-used. Ideally objects should be subject (sic) to some kind of quality assurance, validation, but more often than not, they are not… Yet, objects are knowledge mediators, supposed to act intelligently. Worst of all, virtual objects are often heavy and don’t always act as expected (unless we expect them to slow down the design processes and to mess up our business). Observations of modelling in practice and interviews emphasise just how (non)trivial the handling of objects is.

• The apparently simple operation – moving, modifying or even deleting an object - may last several seconds; and users do it all time, again and again.
  
• The acknowledged complicated operation, e.g. changing the datum of a building, may produce an excess of errors wherever objects were not perfectly defined, assigned, anchored
  
• The relational character of the building model requires new ways of distributing / organizing the design processes; changes may have unforeseen consequences elsewhere
  
• Objects slowing down the processor’s capacity may force users to review the building model – and thus entirely remove objects that are not strictly necessary or replace them with symbols – in a transition from 2D to 3D and back again...
  

Managing work flow: 3D objects slow down even the biggest and fastest computers, simulation servers or visualization farms; where we expected re-use of data we may observe virtual buildings being torn down long before physical completion. The relation of heavy weight virtual objects and fast, but never fast enough computers, has effects on users’ capacity to plan e.g. when they begin a specific job – unless of course, it should be have been finished even before they got it… In the case of visualization of design or simulation of e.g. the interior climate of the future building users need to think ahead and plan what to do next, once their PC is busy rendering an illustration for a project. It may take hours, if not the whole night. And the job may go wrong – time will tell.

Managing intelligent objects and straight lines. Architects go by the looks. Not only the aesthetics aspects are important - plans, elevations and incisions must be in accordance with industry standards or legal proceedings is a likely outcome. From that follows that the 3D model need some elaboration, post 3D modelling, i.e. Combining intelligent objects with what has been referred to as “dead lines” (in English I think “straight lines” works better) may very well produce nice drawings, but whenever the combination is associated with IFC, the Industry Foundation Classes, the dead lines do not exchange – at least not correctly, across platforms or proprietary applications. Problems exchanging data across platforms is a well known issue within and beyond construction, however, given the numerous digital tools and suites applied across the design process require more checks, more and more time seem to go into controlling whether or not the technology performed a given operation correctly; users may have to check e.g. whether or not the number of doors, pillars or cubic meters of concrete translated according to expectations – and explain deviations.

Adding up data. We know from Yaneva’s studies of Koolhaus’ practice (Yaneva 2005; 2009) that all that architects know about a building is the adding up of data. At the time Yaneva observed the becoming of the NewWhitney, CAD was still the leading and preferred design tool, but in the sense of adding up data BIM is not that different; there is only more adding up data than ever because, as I have learned, the additional third dimension (the height as in the Euclidian space) requires at least one more parameter to be defined, namely the objects relative position in the model – to what does it anchor. In the case of BIM, objects are virtual, parametric building blocks, yet they must be handled with care. Not that they are fragile, rather they are potentially explosive or, at least, their effects on the design process may prove rather harmful.

Manning up and down. At time of writing I dare say that two parallel practices co exist: CAD and BIM. This is one way of understanding how drawing and modelling practices combine. The co-existence of those two practices adds additional stress on the handling of e.g. human resources, not least whenever project teams need reinforcement to meet milestones, client demands etc. The association of CAD, BIM, limited human resources (in number and competence-wise) and tight deadlines may have unfortunate effects on the day-to-day management and organisation of teams and projects – creativity in design and architectural quality risk being traded for narrow technical capabilities; this, on the other hand, allows for otherwise peripheral actors’ inclusion in the community.

Draft conclusion

BIM was introduced to boost productivity in the construction industry, among other things by allowing for extended re-use of data (objects). In practice, this case study shows, objects or data are hard to re-use and sometimes they are stillborn and hence they must be removed from the model. In the ongoing, practical processes users, tools, architecture as well as work methods and routines are continuously shaped, becoming; how to manage a technology in the making, when the socio-material effects of its becoming are (necessarily) unpredictable. Digital 3D construction holds many promises but in practice the relational effects following from the introducing of BIM tend to propagate in various, sometimes unforeseen directions – making modelling hard to manage.

Litterature

Clegg, S., M. Kornberger, et al. (2005). "Learning/Becoming/Organizing." Organization 12(2).
Emirbayer, M. (1997). "Manifesto for a Relational Sociology." The American Journal of Sociology 103(2): 281.
Gherardi, S. (2009). "Introduction: The Critical Power of the 'Practice Lens'." Management learning 40(2): 115-128.
Hernes, T. (2008). Understanding organization as process - Theory for a tangled world. London, Routledge.
Irwin, A. and M. Michael (2003). Science, Social Theory and Public Knowledge. Madienhead, Berks, Open University Press/McGraw-Hill.
Jensen, C. B. (2004). Researching Partially Existing Objects:. Working Papers from Centre for STS Studies. P. Lauritsen, S. K. Madsen and F. Olesen., The Faculty of Arts, University of Aarhus.
Latour, B. (2006 (1991)). Vi har aldrig været moderne, Hans Reitzels Forlag.
Law, J. (2004). After method – mess in social science research. London
New York, Routledge.
Law, J. (2007). Pinboards and books. Education and Technology. D. W. Kritt and L. T. Winegar. Lanham, Lexington Books: 125-150.
Law, J. and A. M. Mol (2002). Complexities – social studies of knowledge practices. Durham
London, Duke University Press.
Mol, A. (2002). The body multiple: ontology in medical practice. Durham, Duke University Press.
Svenningsen, S. (2004). Den elektroniske patientjournal og medicinsk arbejde på sygehuse. København, Handelshøjskolens Forlag.
Yaneva, A. (2005). "Scaling Up and Down: Extraction Trials in Architectural Design." Social Studies of Science 35(6): 867-894.
Yaneva, A. (2009). The Making of a Building: A Pragmatist Approach to Architecture. Oxford, Peter Lang AG.