Summary NXTBLD / NXTDEV

Last week I was in London for the two-day AEC Magazine Conference - NXT BLD and NXT DEV. In recent years, the event has increasingly established itself as the central event for the European AEC industry.

By the way, the NXT BLD was streamed live and you can watch recording for free. The individual presentations from both events will be published in the coming weeks on nxtaec.com (Kudos to Martyn Day on this, it's really great that this content is being made available to everyone for free).

What is BIM 2.0?

Both days were dedicated to BIM 2.0, a new approach to how we work with data: cloud-based, AI-supported and based on open data standards - moving away from outdated workflows and local data silos. 

Interestingly, automatic drawings and PDFs were also mentioned in many presentations - proof that we are still in the middle of the digital transformation. Drawings will be with us for quite some time, but there is hope that we can largely automate this part with the help of AI. 

Open Data Lakes were repeatedly mentioned as a forward-looking strategy. These offer a flexible, AI-capable and tool-independent basis for all digital processes in which the data itself is at the center- and not its representation. 

New tools for BIM 2.0

The first day was dominated by new tools and start-ups that focused mainly on conceptual design and collaboration, such as Arcol, Hypar, Giraffe, Motif, Skema, Snaptrude and Spacio. One tool had a slightly different and very interesting approach: Qonic, which focuses on BIM coordination and clash detection and offers intelligent IFC mapping and editing directly in the browser.

But of course there were also big players on site: 

• Carl Christensen from Autodesk has given an interesting update to Autodesk Forma, which is now fully integrated into Autodesk Docs and thus seamlessly connects to the Autodesk platform. 
• Gábor Kovács-Palkó & Holger Kreienbrink from Graphisoft have unveiled their new MEP Designer for ArchiCAD, as well as a range of AI-based workflows and helpers. 

Does BIM 2.0 need new standards?

The need for modern, open standards was emphasized in several presentations - above all by Antonio González Viegas (That Open Company), who presented his new openBIM format Fragments. This format is designed to be significantly more performant than IFC, as it is no longer based on the outdated STEP format.

One question remains: do we really need another open standard? Or wouldn't it make more sense to work together on existing solutions and develop them further?

It is definitely worth taking a look at what is currently happening at buildingSMART: IFC5 is a completely new, granular approach that aims to address many of today's limitations. Could this perhaps be the new approach that our industry needs?
I will talk about IFC5 in more detail in future articles. If you would like to familiarize yourself with it now, I recommend the official, recently published buildingSMART IFC5 Training. 

Artificial intelligence 

Of course, AI was a big topic, not only in design or visualization workflows, but also more and more as an assistant in daily work and a knowledge database. On this topic, I can warmly recommend the great presentation "The White Rabbit" by Martha Tsigkari (Foster & Partners). 

On the second day, May Winfield (Buro Happold) gave a detailed presentation on the topic of general terms and conditions and terms of use (EULAs) for AI tools and called for a close examination of what happens to the data. Disney's lawsuit against the use of generative AI also shows how topical this issue is and how important it is to understand the legal framework surrounding AI and data use in AEC. (see also: How the Disney-Midjourney Suit Could Reshape AI Copyright Law | TIME)

Conclusion: data is the key to digital transformation

In the last presentation of the NXT DEV we were reminded by Tal Friedman that our industry is still based on technologies from the 1990s. He made it clear: BIM and AI alone do not automatically lead to better buildings. However, data can be used to describe anything and design principles can be mapped and systematically developed on the basis of data.