What are the possible future problems with Revit/BIM?
Personally, I do see a couple of issues arising with Revit/BIM occurring in the future. The largest one I can envision is that if it begins to be overutilised. It was stressed to me during one of my structural analysis courses that you should never become too reliant on a computer program, at least not without knowing the calculations that are going on in the background. Although I cannot think of anything that is too complex currently with BIM that couldn't be estimated off the top of someone's head, such as total cost, I can foresee, especially with some of the technologies that we have seen in the class, this being a problem in the future. A specific example would be load calculations. In my other class I utilised SAP a lot, but not without knowing its nuances and where errors and shortfalls can occur. This is something that will have to be monitored in the future.
Something else I believe may occur, that is of a similar vein to the issue of over-reliance, is as models complexity increases, more errors may occur in the model. The parametric modelling is great, but if one dimension isn't locked or checked, then it could propagate through the project. Now this isn't a serious concern, but it will cause an increase in time spent on these models, where it might be worth examining the payoff to see if there is a point where the extra work is not worth it.
Another point, which was raised in tonight's class was the issue with file sizing. Already the models can be complex enough that they need to be broken off into smaller projects by both discipline and area. This creates a larger need for bookkeeping than before. With the addition of more and more add-ons and external tools, this need will only increase. This may just be an issue that Revit sees however, as Bentley AECOsim is already capable of handling large projects as "one" file.
Another issue as laid out in the referenced article is the adoption of BIM by all parties involved. Currently it seems quite staggered, as either the architect, construction manager or owner chooses it for a project, and then everyone else has to play catch up. At my last co-op there was actually BIM coordinators in all three parties, but the newness of the program and processes showed in issues that arose.
Reference:
http://ecmweb.com/design/growing-pains
Comments:
http://ae-510-ay15-16.blogspot.com/2016/01/b3-derek-zaccheo-group-a.html?showComment=1453863224456#c1682905932631531447
http://ae-510-ay15-16.blogspot.com/2016/01/b3-gary-reiff-group-a.html?showComment=1453863315187#c3558260955709241855
I think you are right about most of the future pitfalls of BIM modeling. Many of them exist today and will only get worse such as trusting that the computer program has done the correct thing and increasing complexity of the programs and creations of the programs. Somewhere there is likely to be an error that has been missed since class detections have not been reduced to zero. If were stop questioning whether or not the design has been done right then we will need to rethink how we design buildings. Many firms push the software to make profit and may not perform all the checks necessary and end up under designing building components. It gets scary when those building components that are faultily designed are crucial to making the building safe or keeping it standing. Another one of my fears is that the program operations will become so complicated that the usual engineer's check stops working. This could lead to a failure and there would be not easy way to check for an error so fewer companies would bother to put in the effort to do the check.
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