Re-constituting Precarity for the BIM-Architect
Downloads
As architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) practices become broadly mediated by computational methods, this article considers the modes of precarity implied for the architect adopting BIM as a medium of modelling and design. Situating the computational apparatus as a prosthesis to the BIM-architect, the article outlines the degree of agency configured for operators of BIM applications while they utilize the structures and methods of software pre-programmed by the application’s original developers. Exploring the structures of Autodesk Revit’s database via the Application Programming Interface (API), the paper interrogates the rationale and logic of building encoded by the program through a reading of its operative code in textual form.
Situating an interplay between the Revit-architect and application, who programmes a building model while their intention and conceptualization is programmed in turn, the conditions of precarity installed for the Revit-architect as operator are considered as a result of their limited capacity to modify the programme’s operative methods. Drawing from a political history of technology to interrogate the distributed agency between the Revit-architect and technical apparatus, the article ultimately explores how the architect might adopt the phenomenal experience codified by the procedural operations of algorithms through alternative means. It concludes by drawing from autoethnographic practice and situated experiences at the site of the author’s studios, offering material from which to construct an alternative and differentiated notion of algorithm-aided modelling and design according to a nuanced attention to the depth of building.
Autodesk. 2022. “Revit Software.” https://www.autodesk.com/products/revit/overview.
Berry, David M. 2011. The Philosophy of Software: Code and Mediation in the Digital Age. Basingstoke, Hampshire; New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Berry, David M. 2014. Critical Theory and the Digital, Critical Theory and Contemporary Society. New York: Bloomsbury.
Braun, Kathrin, Cordula Kropp, and Yana Boeva. 2022. “Constructing Platform Capitalism: Inspecting the Political Techno-Economy of Building Information Modelling.” arq: Architectural Research Quarterly 26 (3).
Carpo, Mario. 2013. The Digital Turn in Architecture 1992-2012. AD Reader. Chichester: Wiley.
Carpo, Mario. 2014. “Foreword.” In BIM Design: Realising the Creative Potential of Building Information Modelling, 1st ed., 8–12. Chichester: Wiley.
Cramer, Florian, and Matthew Fuller. 2008. “Interface.” In Software Studies: A Lexicon, edited by Matthew Fuller, 149–53. Leonardo Books; Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Davis, Martin, and Virginia Davis. 2005. “Mistaken Ancestry: The Jacquard and the Computer.” Textile: The Journal of Cloth and Culture 3 (1): 76–87. https://doi.org/10.2752/147597505778052594.
Dounas, Theodoros, Davide Lombardi, and Wassim Jabi. 2021. “Framework for Decentralised Architectural Design BIM and Blockchain Integration.” International Journal of Architectural Computing 19 (2): 157–73. https://doi.org/10.1177/1478077120963376.
Garber, Richard. 2009. “Optimisation Stories: The Impact of Building Information Modelling on Contemporary Design Practice.” Architectural Design 79 (2): 6–13. https://doi.org/10.1002/ad.842.
Garber, Richard. 2014. BIM Design: Realising the Creative Potential of Building Information Modelling, 1st ed. Chichester: Wiley.
Goffey, Andrew. 2008. “Algorithm.” In Software Studies: A Lexicon, edited by Matthew Fuller, 15–20. Leonardo Books; Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Jabi, Wassim. 2013. Parametric Design for Architecture. London: Laurence King Publishing.
Kolarevic, Branko. 2005. Architecture in the Digital Age: Design and Manufacturing. New York: Taylor & Francis.
Lagkas, Thomas, Vasileios Argyriou, Stamatia Bibi, and Panagiotis Sarigiannidis. 2018. “UAV IoT Framework Views and Challenges: Towards Protecting Drones as ‘Things.’” Sensors 18 (11): 4015. https://doi.org/10.3390/s18114015.
May, John. 2019. Signal. Image. Architecture. New York: Columbia University Press.
Meyer, Bill, and Gareth Spencer. n.d. “Revit Modeling for Successful Facilities Management | Autodesk University.” Autodesk. Accessed May 30, 2022. https://www.autodesk.com/autodesk-university/class/Revit-Modeling-Successful-Facilities-Management-2014.
Müller-Prove, Matthias. 2002. “Vision and Reality of Hypertext and GUIs: 3.1.2 Sketchpad @mprove.” https://www.mprove.de/visionreality/text/3.1.2_sketchpad.html.
Pan, Yue, and Limao Zhang. 2021. “A BIM-Data Mining Integrated Digital Twin Framework for Advanced Project Management.” Automation in Construction 124: 103564. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.autcon.2021.103564.
Robinson, Derek. 2008. “Function.” In Software Studies: A Lexicon, edited by Matthew Fuller, 101–10. Leonardo Books; Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Simondon, Gilbert. 2017. On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects. Translated by Cécile Malaspina and John Rogove. Minneapolis; London: University of Minnesota Press.
Stiegler, Bernard. 1998. Technics and Time, 1: The Fault of Epimetheus. Translated by George Collins and Richard Beardsworth. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Stiegler, Bernard. n.d. “Anamnesis and Hypomnesis: Plato as the First Thinker of the Proletarianisation.” Ars Industrialis (blog). Accessed April 11, 2022. https://arsindustrialis.org/anamnesis-and-hypomnesis.
Sutherland, Ivan. 1963. Sketchpad: a man-machine graphical communication system (Technical Report). Lexington, MA: MIT Lincoln Laboratory.
Weizenbaum, Joseph. 1976. Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgement to Calculation. New ed. San Francisco: W.H.Freeman & Co Ltd.
Copyright (c) 2023 Alex Blanchard
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal which is under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).