Week3 - Group A Blog Post: Possible future problem with Revit/BIM?

What are possible future problem with Revit/BIM?

     This is still early to discuss since Revit has not been heavily adopted due to the fact that designers are very used to CAD design or other 2D tool. However, it will be beneficial to know some possible issue that it might lead to in the future so we can avoid or solve it in advance. Essentially, Revit are programmed based on CAD but more of add-ons to show integrity of lines and dots. For example, in AutoCAD, designer will need to create multiple lines with certain distance to create a wall, whereas in Revit, a required wall can be created in one step, just like creating a line. Therefore, more and more young people started to learn this handy tool to make design faster and less errors. This proves a shift-way from the era of craftsman to automation.  Consequently, the problem that Revit bring along is, more and more experienced CAD draftsmen are unemployed since the demand is no longer strong. In another angle, the young professionals equipped with Revit knowledge might lack the experience of drawing lines and memorizing the building code because it will be all built in with the BIM tool. Furthermore, since most of the designers, engineers, construction mangers are trained to use AutoCAD, the change of tool in design end will impact the way other part in the industrial line, despite the inherent ability of Revit being visualized.

      With its intrinsic “accuracy”, people are no longer proud of the architecture sketch which may indicate the author’s style. People used to value the drawings as work of art and it certainly can be exhibited to the other generation. Revit design file has no indication on who makes it. Hence, the appreciation on the drawing sketch might be dismissed in the future. Along with the disappearance of free hand drawing skills, someone might argue that this bypasses the creative part of the brain due to lack in flexibility of drawing.

      In addition, the Revit itself requires a huge storage, and it is still a difficulty as for nowadays. For the future, we might invent larger storage machine but as the time being, Revit file normally needs to be separated into different work files to transfer to others. 

Comments to others: 

Amegan
I totally agree on what Revit can benefit the architecture field. In my perspective, the advantage of Revit outweighs the drawbacks of it. As I also mentioned in my post, this mainly be due to the fact that I am not that used to CAD and learning Revit seems a lot easier. I can imagine the pain and struggle for those professionals been using CAD the whole career and try to adjust themselves to Revit.

Yue
I totally understand your concern that more and more amateurs can be able to design buildings with Revit because it is so user-friendly that users are not required to be equipped with certain professional knowledge. This inherent character can drastically benefit the professionals with architectural knowledge. However, the problem one step further would occur to users are foreign to this knowledge, whose design may look architectural aesthetic but lack in every kind of architectural elements.

Castonguay
I agree that the issue of fast updates can be problematic to Revit. I remember reading an article before that new features are needed to add in using CAD by engineers. However, less and less young people will be attentive to CAD. In that sense, CAD support will be holding back the updates of Revit.