B5 – week 6 Use of databases in design offices – Santiago Uribe

This week we were asked to read something about a specific topic under the databases umbrella. As part of group D, I had to read about the use of databases in design offices. Before even having to read anything I can make a couple of assumptions. I think that every design firm will use some sort of database. Some firms might use them more than others, but regardless of that, each one of them uses them to some extent. Going back to our previous topic of BIM, the development of this technology has enabled the sharing of knowledge between facility management and design professionals. I found an article called “Automatically Updating Maintenance Information from a BIM Database”. In this article they go into detail about how BIM databases can help the maintenance of the building past the design stage. Even though it was an interesting article, the topic for this week was use of databases in design offices, not for facility management. I did however read about how a good foundation in the database design during the design stages will facilitate things very much when it comes to using it for maintenance purposes.

I found another article called “BIM interoperability and Relational Databases”. Here I learned about how databases are different from the flat files that we’re more used to. Flat files include CADD files, a table in a spreadsheet, and others of these stand-alone files. Databases have a multi-dimensional storage and retrieval system that is much more powerful than the flat files. This is a good reason for why design offices should be interested in using databases.

References:

“Automatically Updating Information from a BIM Database”, R. Liu and R. R. A. Issa. Computing in Civil Engineering (2012), Rinker School of Building Construction, University of Florida.

“BIM Interoperability and Relational Databases” Peter J. Arsenault. Building Systems Design, Inc (BSD). Intelligently Linking Drawings and Data. November 2011. http://continuingeducation.construction.com/article.php?L=12&C=838&P=1

Comments:

To Ami Amegan: It looks like you did a very complete research of what an object oriented database (ODBMS) is. After reading your post I was able to get a good basic idea of what ODBMS is all about. It was good that you talked about both, the advantages and disadvantages.

To Catherine Stevens: Your post gave me a good understanding of what a relational database is. I liked how you included an example in your post so that we could have a clearer picture of what you were talking about. I thought that the fact that you specified the differences between tables and relations made a lot of sense.