Hello friends from the world,
These uncertain and bizarre times are taking its toll on many of us. Not only due to the lack of traveling, the lockdown, and the distance rules, but because of the economic uncertainty. A lot of projects of any kind are being stopped all over the world, and a lot of people are suffering these consequences in different ways.
I must admit that in Hong Kong we are very fortunate since we can work from home or the office depending on the policy of each company. We can then put in place strategy execution for our projects that we can go ahead with at the moment. Most of our team is working from home, whether they are in Hong Kong, Singapore, Spain, or Vietnam. I chose to walk to the office since I live very nearby. But it is true that the consequences of the crisis of this year makes it hard sometimes to keep the positive energy and enthusiasm.
That is why I decided to share some good things that are happening during these days. Technology has allowed us to keep learning, working and sharing from the distance. Don’t believe me? Sites like Semerika shed light on just how much technology has advanced over the years, especially in the last few months! So this is what I am doing right now, share what we are learning from the distance.
Again I would like to give a huge THANK YOU to all our colleagues, friends, clients and collaborators for keeping alive the conversations about what passionate us.
So what have we learned during these 8 bizarre months of 2020? Let start from the beginning of eh year:
Zigurat Global BIM Master – English & Spanish Version
2019 – 2020
The first English edition of this International Master of BIM Management developed by Zigurat started at the end of 2019 and kept going for a while during the first half of 2020. The second edition in English and the first Spanish edition started in May 2020. We were honoured to be invited but the Director, expert and friend David Delgado Vendrell, to participate as Tutors of this master developing the Archicad Learning Lessons for Design, Pre Construction and Coordination.
This master was always meant to be Online so everything went “as planned” in relation with the Pandemic situation worldwide. Since the quality of the master is exceptionally complete, more editions are going to be developed starting during fall this year.
The most challenging aspect of this Master is how incredibly complete is it! The “mastermind” behind all the structure of contents is our friend David Delgado Vendrell from DDV OpenBIM solutions. The Master is so complete that we spent more time learning about OpenBIM workflows than generating our own material.
Great applause to Open BIM Avenger David! It is really challenging to keep up with your Open BIM energy!
f you want to know more about the BIM manager master of Zigurat: https://www.e-zigurat.com/en/bim-management-masters-program/
Archintensive
2020 – 02 – 06/07
This was the first event of the year to be “affected” by the pandemic. We were supposed to travel to Brisbane, Australia, but we had to conduct the webinar online from Hong Kong.
Nathan Hildebrandt, worldwide BIM expert and technology advocate organised the event. He invited us to talk about Computational Design combined with BIM for Architecture design and construction. Still the event was conducted satisfactory, allowing us to share our experience but most importantly, to learn from the other speakers! It was a master webinar about best Template development strategies, Surveyors Data integration in BIM, special Archicad Libraries, TWINMOTION, Enscape and more…
Great Thanks to Nathan Hildebrandt for making us part of it!
Have a look to the recordings of Archintensive: https://www.skewed.com.au/ARCHINTENSIVE
CUHK – BIM Workshop
2020 – 02 – 25
In this occasion we were invited to share our experience using BIM in combination with other workflows for Design and Construction. The attendees were a group of students of the Chinese university of Hong Kong. This was also meant to be an in-person event, but we made it an online version as it is the new trend. Invited by professor Felix Chan, who apart of teaching at the CUHK, is the Chairman of the Training Center of the Hong Kong Alliance of Built Asset & Environment Information Management Associations (HKABAEIMA).
Is always great to share our workflow with the young generations, great thanks to Professor Felix Chan!
You can learn more about CUHK here: https://www.cuhk.edu.hk/english/index.html
HKU enzyme Presentation
2020 – 04 – 07
We were invited by our Friend Harvey Cheung, who apart of working at Loftwork, is professor of the Architecture Design Studio at Hong Kong University. In this online workshop we were meant to share our experience of implementing technology in the development of Architecture projects.
The studio of Harvey has technology implementation at its core. He encourage students to embrace technology and lose the fear of learning to discover new values ad possibilities for the design process.
These type of gatherings are always more fun when are in-person. Is easier to interact with students and create an atmosphere of conversation and debate. But again, these are not the times in which we get to choose how we meet. Luckily we had a great fun sharing and discussing all topics that we love!
Thank you Professor Harvey for keeping us in the Loop of the workshops with the students!
Have a look to what Harvey Cheung develops at Loftwork: https://loftwork.com/en/
SIMAUD
2020 – 05 – 25
During the first few months of the year we were quite busy and very excited about the fact of co-publishing our research “Bridging the Gap Between Traditional Japanese Fabrication and Advanced Digital Tools” and presenting it at the SIMAUD conference in Vienna.
The COVID-19 global pandemic transformed the symposium into a fully-online event that actually made possible for all the research team to be present and participate of the event. Architects Ana Ilic, Lorenzo Franceschini, Masaaki Matsuoka, Dr. Mohammed Makki and myself, shared the screen on this event chaired by Areti Markopoulou.
The paper examines the relationship between traditional Japanese woodworking and advanced computational tools by bringing experts from both disciplines for the design and construction of a Japanese Pagoda, in which the significance of bridging the gap between both domains is highlighted across the design, fabrication and assembly of the project.
If you are interested you can check the paper and the presentations here:
http://simaud.org/2020/proceedings/63.pdf
BIM in 100 Clicks – CIC Hong Kong
2020 – 05 – 25
We have been doing this training for a while already. But we keep conducting it as a Introduction / Teaser to show to new users the Power of Archicad… We organise them both in English and Cantonese. Sybil Mak, the Asia Marketing Manager at Graphisoft, has been the organiser of the training ever since we start conducting it, without her we wouldn’t have the chance to organise all these sessions. We have been doing 1 or 2 per moth.
On the 25th of May we conducted this training for the CIC HK, which was broadcasted online and shared with hundreds of users. This occasion was part of a set of online webinars organised by CIC HK that are really interesting, about BIM, construction and technology.
Great Job to Sybil for having the patience to organise all these trainings! And big thanks also to the Organisers of CIC HK!
Have a look to what the CIC HK is organising: https://www.bim.cic.hk/en
OWN Academy – Dulwich College
2020 – 05 (Whole month)
It has been already 3 years since the first time we collaborated with Natalie Chan in her project of Own Academy. The OWN Academy projects aim to provide a practical and effective learning to students by getting in touch with reality, learning from professionals and practicing. This makes easier to students to learn the insights of different professions, like in this case, Architecture.
In every edition we had groups of very young students, from 7 to 15 years old. Even if it sounds crazy we learned so much of how kids start using Archicad!! Is amazing to see the learning curve, totally unexpected. They had a lot of fun designing spaces using all tools they could find, placing elements in the model that exceed completely our imagination!
This last version was also meant to be online since it was directed to students of Beijing, Korea & Singapore. In this case the students were a bit older than in previous editions. So the conversation of Design & Technology was very active and fresh! Thank you for keeping it up Natalie!
Have a look to what Own Academy is up to: https://ownacademy.co/
GS Learning – Professional level
2020 – 05 to 07 (Along three Months)
Of course during these confinement periods is a great idea to keep boosting our learning in our favourite tools. In this sense the Graphisoft team never stops providing different online trainings to sharp our Archicad, Teamwork, Collaboration and Open BIM skills among others! So the enzyme team took some time to assist to the online training conducted by Sandor Bali, based in Singapore.
I personally achieved my Professional Graphisoft Certificate after attending successfully the Trainings about Documentation, Modelling, Teamwork Collaboration, Open BIM and Archicad Essential Workflows.
Thank you for your patient and positive energy Sandor Bali!
Visit the GS Learning portal to know more: https://learn.graphisoft.com/
BIM manager Training Graphisoft + Session Sharing
2020 – 05 to 07 (Along three Months)
This is a new one that has started this year. Incredible! The BIM Manager Master by Graphisoft is a holistic master in BIM Office management, Implementation and project management. We joining expecting a lot form it, but the outcome was larger than our expectations.
The professors Pantelis Laonnidis and Szabolcs Kari have a vast knowledge and experience in BIM management, coordination and implementation. Also the attendees were professionals from all over the world, and the conversations always lead to endless debates. It was a great learning in all senses. With a lot of group calls with very different inputs and experience sharing.
Huge Thank for Pantelis and Szabi!!
Visit the GS Learning portal to know more: https://bimmanager.graphisoft.com/
Wallacei Workshop
2020 – 07 – 06
Trying to get the best out of the global lockdown situation, we signed up for a 3 day hands-on workshop focused on Wallacei, a grasshopper plugin that uses genetic evolutionary algorithms for design optimisation and exploration.
https://www.wallacei.com/about
The workshop was run by McNeel Europe and two of the authors of the plugin: Dr. Mohamed Makki and Milad Showkatbakhsh and got ourselves involved with the design and development of a parametric cluster of towers and their facades using a computational-generative approach using Rhino & Grasshopper and powered by the wallacei plugin.
The workshop was truly amazing and gave us the tools to start immediately applying this knowledge in some of our current projects. Stay tuned for another blog about this.
Building Together
2020 – 07 – 08/09
Ever year Graphisoft would organise the Key Client Conference, which is a gathering of world wide Archicad Users that would share their knowledge, experience and breakthroughs. This year this event became the Building Together event, which had the same approach. Great Architects and Engineers of various countries shared their experience and capabilities using Archicad in combination with other workflows for their project. Personally I always find it very enlightening and very fun as well.
Great thanks to Graphisoft organisers and to all the master speakers, among which there were Laney LA, AIDEA and Riverstone Structural Concepts!
Have a look to the Sessions here: https://graphisoft.com/building-together-2020
HKIA Open BIM + Archicad Sharing Session
2020 – 07 – 30
The Hong Kong Institute of Architects co-organised with Graphisoft a webinar to the HKIA members about Open BIM workflow. I had the honour to conduct the presentation to more than a hundred members of the HKIA. The most interesting part was the conversation and debate that happened after the presentation. Is amazing to see how Hong Kong Architects are speeding up to learn about Open BIM and everything it involves.
Mr Aaron Chan, HKIA BIM & IT Committee Deputy Chairman, has a vast knowledge and experience developing projects using an Open BIM workflow, is always great to learn from his experience. Great thanks to Aaron and the HKIA organisers!
Solibri Training
2020 – 08 – 11
This was a Solibri Training conducted by the one and only master Chidambaram from Graphisoft Singapore. I truly wish I had more time to keep up with Solibri, since it is incredible the amount of things that can be checked within an IFC model with it.
I hope we get the chance to use it more often in our projects in a near future. The director of Enzyme Singapore, Jae Kim, is also a great expert in Solibri. I guess that means that not everyone on the team needs to have the same expertise, but working together we can combine the best of us!
Great thanks to Chidam and Jae!
BCA COMPUTATIONAL BIM WITH GRAPHISOFT
2020 – 08 – 14
The Building Construction Authority together with Graphisoft Singapore have organised a series of online workshops to promote the use of computational BIM introducing the tools and the workflows already available with Archicad.
We were lucky to join that common effort and present our past related jobs using these workflows as well as explaining in a one and a half hour detailed tutorial modelling a parametric lightning feature.
The full day workshop featured tutorials on the new python API and Param-O (the node based GDL programming inside Archicad 24) and an overall workflow that combined all those together with Grasshopper to achieve a complete design project.
You can check the recording here: To be updated
Conclusion…
So far I think we managed to keep our brains busy through these estrange months. Who knows what the new normal will mean for our lives. I believe that if we remind ourselves how important it is to keep learning from each other, even if we cannot do it in person, that will keep us always tight together!
Let’s keep it up!
