Design tools for a new millennium

By DACE CAMPBELL and RICHARD DALLAM
NBBJ

If you pressed for an honest answer, you might get most architects to admit that they find it nearly impossible to accurately portray the vision in their heads and keep clients completely up to date. And that seems okay, because obviously architects have been able to design good buildings for their clients, anyway.

Or is it? As we teeter on the brink of the new millennium, we find that the pace of architectural design practice continues to escalate. Fast-track schedules become the norm as a host of economic and social pressures force design and construction schedules into tighter and tighter time frames. The risk of serious design or construction flaws ever increases with the pace of the schedule Architects are scrambling to find efficient and accurate ways to communicate their ideas to clients, consultants, and contractors and to preserve the integrity of those ideas. The globalization of business, including the architectural design profession, exaggerates these risks because often the parties involved in the design hail from several different regions, time zones, even continents.

NBBJ has been working with a new set of design and communication tools to ensure that all parties involved in the design process are kept accurately and immediately informed of the status of a design in development, despite the rapid schedule or distance between parties. Using a combination of virtual reality and the World Wide Web, the firm has pushed the envelope of design practice to evolve a new way of working with clients, consultants, and contractors. This involves supplementing traditional design tools - like drawings and scale models - with media that enable the client to get inside a building and really understand it.

Real-time rendering

For years, experts in the computer graphics field of virtual reality have been researching and evangelizing the idea that real-time rendering can aid in the visualization of complex computer data. At NBBJ we have taken that to heart, establishing a unique relationship with the researchers at the University of Washington and developing a process to render our design models in real time.

This image is from a project extranet featuring the experimental use of hyperlinked, three-dimensional digital models as construction documents.

This gives us better control of the design as it develops, and gives everyone involved a better understanding of the design concept as it transforms into a built work. As we apply this technology to all phases of our design process, from conceptual and schematic design, through design development, and into the creation of construction documents, we find that we are creating a virtual building, a representation of the intended physical building that everybody can truly understand.

We now have a tool which allows for easier, more accurate interpretation of otherwise-confusing blueprints - with reflected ceiling plans, elevation views, and complex sections. Clients can view a building accurately, immediately, and in ways that everybody understands. Simply by walking around in it!

Web-based communication

You might think that because the firm has invested in all of this fancy computer equipment that interacting requires a visit to the office. Not at all! Recent developments in Web technology have enabled us to distribute our design ideas over the Internet.

This means that we can set up project "extranets" to enable those involved in the design project to access secure Web sites containing all data relevant to a project's progress. These private Web sites can be accessed at any time, from anywhere you can find a computer with an Internet connection. Designs can be reviewed, comments can be left, issues can be tracked, all from the comfort of your own desktop or laptop computer.

Many architectural firms are now realizing the potential of the Web for setting up project extranets. At NBBJ we are pushing our use of the Web even further on design projects in a couple of ways.

First, we have found that public Internet sites about a design project can be set up as well. This enables non-confidential information from the secure extranet sites to be posted publicly, allowing the public to be kept abreast of relevant design information as the project evolves. Our use of the Web in this way makes it a fantastic tool for community involvement and an efficient way to perform marketing surveys and solicit feedback from those tracking the development of a design.

A "snapshot" of a real-time walk-through of a digital model, produced in the design development phase and used for design review with the client.

We have found that this is an incredible way to track and understand the design as it develops, and to involve our clients and consultants continuously. This of course means that everyone involved in the design process is kept up to date in an efficient and cost-effective manner. And, of course, we still use the high-end visualization tools in-house to present complex information in real-time as well.

Next steps

Obviously, the benefits to design practice that these tools provide are significant, and will become vital to the development of architecture in the 21st century. As NBBJ continues to push the development and use of these tools, we have discovered some challenges to complete integration in everyday practice.

In order to use digital models over the Web through design development and into the production of construction documents, consultants and contractors must embrace the use of these tools as well. We have set up prototype Web sites of construction documents as VRML models with links to relevant notes and specifications. But this novel way of presenting design data for construction can only work if the professionals reviewing the information and building from it choose to use the tools. The use of these tools by the building industry will continue to grow, resulting in better quality and fewer errors because contractors and their subcontractors can better understand the design.

We also find that the agency review process, which currently requires the review of design information using two-dimensional drawings on paper, is limiting our use of 3-D digital models to describe our design intentions. Although NBBJ is assisting in an effort with Seattle's DCLU to enable on-line permitting, it will take some time before those agencies become fluent with reviewing models for code compliance.

NBBJ is looking for technical partners to help us continue the development of these tools for more design-specific applications. And we continue to look for visionary clients, with an eye to the future of business.

Real-time rendering tools, as well as our unique use of them over the Web, have proven to be a cost-effective way to produce architecture. We are continuously researching and testing the use of these tools, not only in design practice, but also in how they influence the outcome of the final design solution. It is only with forward-thinking partners and clients that we can achieve that vision.

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